response 71 of 228:

Sep 16 00:45 UTC 1997

Twila's review gets an "A".  Your assignment for next week is...  :)
 
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Continuing our slow-paced review of the 1997 Philadelphia Folk Festival,
from response #62:

From 11 until 4 on  Saturday and Sunday, the festival presents informal 
"workshop" concerts on three stages around the festival grounds.
The Tank Stage is over by the well faucets, where in earlier days 
the water tanker truck was parked.  The Craft Stage is located where 
the people working in craft booths can hear.  And the Camp Stage
is located near an entrance to the festival campground.

I only got to hear one workshop concert on Saturday, but it was the 
one I was the most eager for.  The theme was "Young People Play Old Songs,"
and there were just two bands, Salamander Crossing 
and Cordelia's Dad.  Salamander Crossing really hooked in the audience,
got a lot of feet tapping on the dusty hillside.
Cordelia's Dad, on the other hand, almost seemed out to antagonize: 
leader Tim Eriksen opened with a long solo acapella ballad which went on 
for six minutes or so, and which sent a handful of people wandering off 
towards the neighboring stages.  It's things like that which make me 
describe Cordelia's Dad as "militant hardcore traditionalists."
 
Cordelia's Dad's drummer Peter Erskine mentioned from the stage that they 
had just finished recording their next album, which is now scheduled for 
a January 1998 release.  Steve Albini (!?!) is producing.

The main stage concert for Saturday afternoon opened with Kate Campbell
and Bill Miller.  Miller is a festival favorite; he does a Native American 
folk-rock thing, and I probably should pay more attention to him sometime.
Saturday's star was Emmylou Harris; mostly she sang material from her 
most recent album, WRECKING BALL, and often it sounded better than the 
album.  She also had a great song about John the Baptist which I need to 
track down.  Not sure what else I can say about Emmylou; she was a 
childhood favorite of mine when she released her first albums, and it's
interesting coming back to her after so many years.  She's got a very 
good band working with her.