World party

Lowell Folk Festival features the best of . . . everything!

by Don Fluckinger

It's only fitting that every summer the city that gave us creative minds diverse as Jack Kerouac and Paul Tsongas also gives us the Lowell Folk Festival, a weekend of lively, ethnically diverse music,dance, and food.

The event started when the National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) -- which sponsors the National Folk Festival every year -- brought the national event to Lowell in 1987, '88, and '89. It was made possible through a partnership between the city, the National Park Service, the Lowell Festival Foundation, and the National Council for the Traditional Arts. Although for the 1990 National Folk Festival it was time for NCTA to pick a new location, the city, the park, and the local festival group didn't want to see the party end. So they convinced NCTA -- a non-profit foundation -- to continue to help organize a festival that featured acts from around the country.

"When we got down to doing our last festival [in 1989], they said to us, `Well, there are about 40 regional festivals in New England, and we liked doing a national festival,'" says Joe Wilson, NCTA executive director. "`We liked having the zydeco bands and the Cajun bands and the blues bands and the Indian troupes and the street-marching bands from New Orleans -- we like all this Americana craziness you're bringing. Why can't we just keep on doing that?'"

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See Performance Schedule

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The NCTA agreed to help keep the festival going, and seven years later the organizers can boast that it's the biggest free folk festival in the country.

This year's event begins Thursday, July 24 at 7:30 p.m., on six outdoor music stages throughout the downtown and in countless other venues including booths and tables. Although 200,000-plus people have attended past festivals, the planners aren't playing it safe by bringing in the same old people.

In fact, no musician in this year's line-up played the event before. As in previous years, the streets of downtown Lowell will be lined with fine craftspeople and lots of local ethnic organizations, serving up excellent food and drink (see "Tasty treats" and "Strings attached" for more information on the non-music events).

Like the city, which includes a healthy mix of Asian, European, and North American ethnic groups, the musical entertainment represents a multicultural melange. Louisiana zydeco, gospel, Irish folk, Swedish fiddles, Polish polka, Cape Verdean Fogo island music, Latin/Caribbean, and even Zairian musicians make up the breadth of entertainers slated to perform.

Wilson's a big fan of the festival's headliners, gospel singing group Blind Boys of Alabama, formed 60 years ago in Talladega at the Alabama Institute for the Blind and Deaf. Original members Clarence Fountain and George Scott still sing with the group.

The Blind Boys perform on the road eight to nine months a year, and their repertoire still reflects that old-time genre of roots gospel that spawned such popular music icons as Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin. In 1996, Wilson chose the Blind Boys to play the five-hour American Roots show at the Washington Monument on the Fourth of July. It was a prelude to the Capitol's fireworks, and the concert broadcast live on 300 public-radio stations. Their act honed by more than a half-century on the road, Wilson says, the Blind Boys know how to get a crowd going, even one with fans of many age groups and ethnic backgrounds.

"We had the Blind Boys close last year [at the Washington Monument]," Wilson recalls. "We've been doing the show a long time, and we've had a lot of people close, some famous people, too, but I never had anybody get them out of their seats and up screaming like the Blind Boys did. It was kind of a catharsis."

For those whose tastes lean toward the country side of the American folk tradition, the Lowell festival also features the hottest quintet of hillbilly yahoos to come out of Nashville in decades, BR5-49. Named after the recurring Junior Samples skit on the television variety show Hee Haw, BR5-49 found themselves suddenly in vogue this year after appearances on Letterman's Late Night show, a commercial for Southwest Airlines, and a Grammy nomination.

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Food for Thought: A look at Lowell's ethnic-food offerings

Arts & Crafts: This year's festival will lecture instrument makers

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These hillbilly twangers play their own originals as well as cover old-time country tunes by the likes of Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, and Jim Reeves. Fueled by an instrumental line-up that includes a stand-up bass, fiddle, and pedal steel guitar, they're well on their way to becoming more like Don Walser, the 60-year-old country singer also playing the festival. Walser and his Pure Texas Band also played the Fourth show at the Washington Monument, a Wilson favorite as well because of his widespread appeal.

"You hear [Walser] called the `Pavarotti of the Plains,'" he says. "One of the comments I like best from him, he said he had a split audience -- half of them have beer bellies and the other half has a ring in their belly button."

Among the local acts to take the stage are Howard "Louie Bluie" Armstrong, 88, a traditional black string musician who plays fiddle, mandolin, banjo and any of a dozen other instruments. Louie Bluie grew up in Tennessee, moved to Chicago, and now makes his home in Boston. Drawing from the cavalcade of American music, Armstrong plays everything from old-country tunes, Tin Pan Alley standards, and old string-band standards. His 1996 recording Louie Bluie was nominated for a Handy Award, the Grammys of the blues community.

Also known to Boston blues fans would be barroom boogieman Preacher Jack, whose wild act can be caught every Thursday and Friday night at Jack's Steak House, in Cambridge. This outrageous piano player's schtick runs from blues to R&B to rockabilly.

Geno Delafose & French Rockin' Boogie continue the Cajun/zydeco tradition of Geno's late father, John. A former member of John Delafose & the Eunice Playboys, the 24-year-old Geno has played and toured with a Louisiana band for 16 years himself.

The Swedish-American contingent is well-represented with the Edwin Johnson Family Fiddlers from Minneapolis, a group featuring master fiddler Paul Dahlin. Washington, DC Jewish ensemble Shir Delite will be on hand to play their special brand of klezmer. In addition to these groups, there will be performances by the Raga and Rhythm Ensemble (South Indian); Jessie Smith and Colm Gannon (Irish); Henry and the Versa J's (Polish polka); Les Freres Brunet (French-Canadian); the Copley Ceili Band (Cape Breton/French-Canadian contra dance callers); Rancho Folklorico de Hartford (Portuguese); and Tolino (Puerto Rican).

Thursday-night's activities kick off the festival with the "Dancing Fiddler Concert," dedicated to the memory of Michael Coleman, a Lowell resident of legendary stature among Irish musicians who was also known as a fine stepdancer. Although he was born in Ireland and cut his teeth in New York, Coleman's first US residence was at 148 Cross Street in Lowell, where he lived with his aunt and uncle. His first performances in this country were on the streets in Lowell's Acre neighborhood.

The Coleman tribute concert features several well-known musicians from Ireland, including Antoinette McKenna and Mary Bergen from Dublin, as well as County Clare native Seamus Connolly, a 10-time winner of the All-Ireland violin contest. Two other violinists will also perform, Brendan Bulger and Grainne Murphy.

Friday night kicks off with a single event at 5:30, Zairian likembe -- thumb piano -- virtuoso Samba Ngo & his Ngoma Players play their lively African percussion soukous music at JFK Plaza. At 6:45, a street parade led by Groupo Pilon Cola moves the crowd to South Common for a night of music with Sol Y Canto (Latin/Caribbean), the Lynn Morris Band (bluegrass), Joe & Antoinette McKenna with Mary Bergin (Irish pipes and harp), and Geno Delafose & French Rockin' Boogie (zydeco).

A full slate of music highlights the all-day festival on Saturday and Sunday, and the music does not end until Sunday evening.

"We try for a huge variety," Wilson says. "We like to take you to where there's different flavors in the melting pot. We want things to be different; we're easy to bore. The genes for creativity were spread around rather well, and it's a terrible illusion to think that one set of folks got all of them."