This year's festival shirt design for the 26th annual Tucson Folk Festival -- southwestern flair with musical instrument clouds floating past, very cool. Last weekend's free event downtown featured two full days of folk music on four different stages. Here are a few pics of my weekend wanderings...
Karen Mal from Austin, Texas blends Irish and Appalachian styles into contemporary folk music.
I suspected that this guy thought there was a blues festival downtown, but after I posted the picture on facebook a friend identified him as a local librarian. This really surprised me, since most of the librarians I've seen are, well, red.
The available chairs migrated throughout the day seeking out shade such as this at the Courtyard Stage.
Tom Adler & Aimee Hoyt from New Mexico with Laura Leach on upright bass and Dave Devlin on mandolin. Plaza Stage.
Bright & Childers at the Courtyard Stage.
Hank Childers sang a great song about washing machines at Princeton.
The Agave Brothers threw down a great set. I couldn't find any CDs for them.
Sometimes you just can't get the right angle with your own camera... That's when it pays to look for other cameras to bounce off of such as zooming in on this tripod mounted camera about 15 feet away from me. Much nicer camera than I use!
I really enjoyed listening to Púca -- Tucson based Claire Zucker and Dave Firestine featuring mandolin, Irish drumming, clogging. Claire has an amazing voice and expression and sang an outstanding Irish folksong worthy of a standing ovation. I'll definitely keep my eyes open for their performances.
Michael McGarrah started out the day Sunday morning at the Courtyard Stage with some great tunes and lyrics.
Arizona Balalaika Orchestra at the Museum Stage playing native Slavic instruments. They played an amazing version of the theme from Doctor Zhivago, one of my favorite movies.
Happy dog, Sleepy dog.
A true bird's eye view from a spectator's shoulder listening to
Nowhere Man & Whiskey Girl from Bisbee, AZ. Seems like the bird needs glasses? Quite a few people had dogs with them, this guy with a bird, and one guy actually had a house cat on a lease of all things.
A better bird's eye view of the Courtyard Stage area and folks listening to
Nowhere Man & Whiskey Girl. I really liked this group and bought one of their CDs.
Dana Hubbard had two other musicians sit in with him for his set, including Karen Mal who was catching the last rays of a setting sun at the Museum Stage. His web site has some great audio samples.
The Tucson Folk Festival is a great annual event put on by the
Tucson Kitchen Musicians Association. Well worth checking out next year if you're in the area.
