Eclectic Company: Annual Renewal Weekend

Every year, I recharge my musical batteries at a folk festival, somewhere, sometime, in America. For the last few years, that sometime has been the July 4th weekend, and that somewhere has been New Bedford, Massachusetts, home to the museum and National Park celebrating the history of America's whaling industry, and Summerfest, a two-day jewel of a festival, scattered throughout the cobblestoned streets of the historic district of the city.

This year, Summerfest kicked off with a fundraising evening concert on the Friday night, headlined by Maria Muldaur, who you will probably remember for her decades-old hit, "Midnight At The Oasis." Muldaur, whose early career included a stint as vocalist in the Even Dozen Jugband (which she says she's planning to regroup with some former members, including John Sebastian), sings blues, jazz, and a baker's dozen styles of American roots music in a smoky alto that vibrates authenticity. Her recent recordings include an album of Bob Dylan's love songs ("Heart of Mine"), and an album of socially conscious music titled "Yes We Can," prefiguring President Barack Obama's campaign slogan (its title is a song written by Louisiana's own Allan Toussaint). Info from www.mariamuldaur.com.

Opening for Muldaur were two singer/writers — Peter Mulvey, a fresh and charming voice, who's insanely toured from his midwestern home by bicycle! and will do so again, September 9–29, 2009 (the Long Haul Tour will travel from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Boston, Massachusetts, as part of the album-release tour for "Letters from a Flying Machine") (www.petermulvey.com), and Ellis Paul, a close friend of Vance Gilbert, who is a Banners' Series favorite. Paul is one of the sensitaccio navel-gazers, whose music has never touched me, but may nevertheless speak to you (www.ellispaul.com).

Summerfest is a special event for many reasons. For one thing, it takes place during scallop fishing season, and once you've had a plate of inch-and-a-half thick, silver dollar-sized juicy scallops, fresh off the fire, you will willingly go back to the end of the hour-long line in the hot summer sun to wait your turn to buy and eat it all again. Yum!

For another thing, there are the crafts vendors, whose ten-by-ten tents and pop-ups form temporary stores selling handmade glass, pottery, wood, fabric, metal, and paper crafts, from the pretty to the practical. I always end up with jewelry, fabric artwear, and something silly — this year it was the handpainted cowbells (everyone needs more cowbell) painted to look like cowhides. Of course, for the souvenir shoppers, there are Whaling Museum-logoed objects, and Summerfest sells festival T-shirts (this year, it was a whale playing guitar) and CDs and DVDs of the 70+ performers.

On Saturday and Sunday, from 11 until 7, four small outdoor stages set up on lawns and in parking lots throughout the National Park historic district showcased traditional British Isles, French, and American folk music groups, singer/writers, vocal duos, trios, and larger ensembles. And as is now a Summerfest tradition, singer/writer Ronny Cox, best known as an actor, from his lead and recurring roles in "Deliverance," "RoboCop," "Total Recall," "Stargate SG-1," and "The Starter Wife," among hundreds of films and TV series, performed in black vest and fedora, with a light, pleasing tenor, his own and covers of folksy, swingy, and corny songs. Speaking of his music career, Cox is typically genial and self-effacing: "I'm known so much as an actor, and so little as a musician, that I have a long way to go to book enough dates for a tour." You can hear and buy Cox's music, and find out where he's performing, at www.ronnycox.com.

This year I was a festival volunteer, selling performers' CDs at the Summerfest store, and emceeing at a small stage in the Visitor's Center garden. Alongside traditional musicians Louis Killen (England), the Thonon Brothers (Belgium), Livio Guardi (Florence, Italy), Benoit Bourque (Canada), and Tim Erickson (United States) (who taught Nicole Kidman to sing Sacred Harp for "Cold Mountain"), I introduced blues players, storytellers, and singer/writers whose performances were standing room only, and whose audiences included grandparents towing attentive toddlers, and kids and adults at all ages in between. It was hot and a little humid (well, for New England, it was), but no one complained of the heat, as they listened, or sang along, laughing and applauding, and awarding standing ovations at the close of nearly every fifty-minute concert. It was an easygoing, relaxed weekend, a feast for all the senses.

My favorite event was the last workshop in the Whaling Museum theater on Sunday evening. Four couples were drawn together to sing about love and marriage, by program organizer Alan Korolenko, who creates workshop titles first, then hires musicians to flesh out the program he's decided on later. Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart, Pete and Maura Kennedy, Claudia Russell and Bruce Kaplan, and Susie Burke and David Surrette, sang songs in a round robin, in four distinctive musical styles. Burke and Surrette are New England natives, who play for contra dances (a traditional folk style, kind of like more sophisticated square dancing). Burke's a fan of Louis Jourdan-style swing music, and Surrette plays a mean mandolin and bouzouki. Earle and Stewart are self-described Texas hillbillies, both guitar players, whose autobiographical works cover the Americana waterfront. The Kennedys are folk-rock guitarists and country-pop singers, who've moved from Nanci Griffith's back line to the foreground of their own Eastern philosophical songs. Russell's voice evokes an early-decade chanteuse, and she plays guitar while Kaplan backs her up on mandolin and harmony vocals.

When the clock began running out, the group looked for a few songs they'd have in common, and could perform together. Maura Kennedy said, "when I think love songs, I think Beatles." The group nodded. Susie Burke kicked off "I've Just Seen A Face," and as one, eight voices onstage and 250 voices in the audience chorused "falling, yes I am falling/and she keeps calling/me back again." Between verses, and choruses, each of the guys played a couple of instrumental solos, building to higher and higher audience and musician delight. And then Pete Kennedy kicked off "She Loves You," and we all went wild. Again, all the voices in harmony, all the instruments in clear and tasty licks, all the hands and feet clapping and stamping in unison. Hard to believe they and we had not been together before. By the last dying note, you'd have sworn we'd been playing together for years. You can find their music and more info from www.burkesurrette.com, www.staceyandmark.com, www.kennedysmusic.com, and www.claudiarussell.com/.