Folk Festival

Last weekend Alex and I went to the Annual Folk Festival. It's a two day fund-raiser for The Ark which is a non-profit club that promotes acoustic music. Alex and I saw Josh Ritter at the Ark and this Tuesday Joe Henry is playing (in case you are thinking to visit us here in Ann Arbor and want to coordinate with a good show, check out their calendar here). Anyway, the Folk Festival is a two day event with shows both Friday and Saturday nights. Saturday night (the night we went) featured, in no particular order, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Buddy Miller. Their show consisted of the four of them sitting in a half-circle on stage taking turns playing their own music as well as covering old classics with the rest of the group as accompaniment. It was really cool. Plus, before the big names came out there were 20 minute shows by more small-time folk artists. Some weren't great, but others I really liked. Blackie and the Rodeo Kings were awesome. One of their singers has a booming deep voice which I love. Here's a link to one of their songs that I liked best--the deep voice isn't as prominent in this recording as it was on stage, but I still like it. There's another blog with a better description of the show (as in, they remembered the names of all the artists) along with a picture here.