Florida Folk Festival - Montgomery - Cape Girardeau

Starting off on another LONG summer tour, I left home last Friday morning and travelled to the 58th annual Florida Folk Festival, one of the United States' oldest folk festivals, held at Stephen Foster park on the banks of the Suwannee River at White Springs, Florida, less than 100 miles south of Valdosta, Georgia.

Twenty-seven years ago I started performing at the Florida Folk Festival!! It has changed a lot over the years I've been participating. Many older friends are no longer attending; many newer friends have come. This year, in spite of a couple of torrential rains, one of which flooded the area of the performer campground where I was staying (high and dry in my old van), I had a wonderful time visiting with friends new and old, jamming with other musicians from all over the world in the performer campground, listening to various performances, and doing some shows myself with good friends Carl Wade (guitar), Rick Kennedy (bass fiddle), Joe Reina (harmonica), and Norm McDonald (percussion) supporting.

Country music star Mel Tillis was the headliner at this year's Florida Folk Festival. He did a very fine, very slick country show which had little or no relationship with Florida or with folk music. It has been the policy of the Florida Folk Festival for some years now to present non-folk performers as headliners at the festival. Strange but true, and not a good idea, seems to me. Almost all of the many other performers at the festival did do music within the general folk genre, and most of it was very good indeed.

In addition to LOTS of music, the festival has interesting displays of Florida folk arts and crafts, a dance stage, down-home style food and commercial food vendors, and other fun things. It is a festival well worth attending. Here's the web site:

Florida Folk Festival

Several ladies with whom I've been close in the past were at this festival, and it was nice to visit with them all. I've remained friends with them although we seldom see each other these days. (These festival visits were separate visits. They don't know each other.)

The evening of Monday, Memorial Day, found me in Montgomery, Alabama, where I did a very successful house concert at the residence of Len Daley and his partner Becky Porter in that beautiful old southern city. My show was warmly received by all. We had a great potluck supper before the show, and much stimulating conversation afterward. I made a solid contact with someone in the audience who has extensive connections in the music community in Montgomery and Alabama. Always good!! Len and Becky are wonderful friends and truly exceptional people. Len's daughter Rita, age thirteen, is a lovely young person in all the ways.

Leaving Montgomery early yesterday (Tuesday) morning, I drove all day--north to Birmingham, Alabama; on northwest to Tupelo, Mississippi, where I stopped for a rest and a good coffee and a couple of magazines at a Barnes and Noble bookstore; onward to Jackson, Tenneesse, then Dyersburg, Tennessee, then across the Mississippi River to to Interstate 55, and north up that highway to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where I stopped at a Panera's cafe I'm familiar with for another coffee and a little reading (a novel, currently--Brad Meltzer's The Book of Fate ). After my refresher at the Panera's I went to my cousin Stan Stough's Cape Girardeau home for a visit with Stan and family. Stan and I have literally known each other since the day he was born (a few months after I was), and we've been good friends all of that time. I'll be here in Cape today and tomorrow, have a little show here tomorrow, and then will be on down the road to other gigs in Missouri.

See you back here after those upcoming Missouri shows are done!