North George Folk Fest | Recap
Added 2018-10-02 02:53:01 +0000 UTCMany thanks to Bo Wilkey (guitarist, banjoist, high school teacher and occasional rail-riding hobo) for putting up my two dogs and I last weekend during the folk festival outside Athens, Georgia.
Sharing a few photos below from live interview/performance with Wilkey and esteemed folklorist Art Rosenbaum at the University of North Georgia's radio station WUOG 90.5 FM. We were mostly there to promote the festival but spent the hour sharing our songs, stories and insights into the current East Coast "folk revival" music scene.
The festival itself was a lot of fun. After taking in Rosenbaum's set I spent most of the day secluded in the woods behind the main stage practicing with Wilkey, trying to keep my dogs watered and sharing my wine with a couple other musicians who joined us.
After the festival we drove a few minutes out into the country for the after party which consisted of several dozen more musicians playing music around a bonfire. Not surprisingly, I found several liquor jars and nearly drank too much--NEARLY! After listening to and singing quite a few songs we went home and slept hard.
The next morning we visited Margo and Art Rosenbaum at their home back in town:
Comments
I enjoy messaging with you. Your replies are knowledgable...but more than than that, you ask the questions that I want to ask. Looking forward to shaking your hand, some day. The scenario that I am writing for that plot of neglected land that nobody really wants works well for this time period. It is a back story. Our protagonists are soon going to Savanah and eventually and eventually up in the Danish Virgin Islands. Factually, the Danish used to own the Virgin Islands until 1917 when they were sold to the US for 25 million to help the Navy prepare for the Uboat concerns. Our protagonists try to put on a show purchased from Mr, Dan Emmett for $89. When the whole show does arrive they realized that it is racist. What do they do? Only the playwrite knows, for sure.
Rob Kunkel
2018-10-04 11:43:01 +0000 UTCI would say that most of the land in Georgia (as long as it's not coastal marsh, swamp or mountain top) is generally good agricultural soil. That being said, we do have plenty of dusty, depleted fields due to over-farming and centuries of harmful agricultural practices. In the 1820s, if your characters' land is "poor" it would (I think) most likely be due to over-farming of "monocrops" like tobacco, cotton, corn etc. Sounds to me like the people in the big house across the river used their slaves to deplete what was once rich bottom land and then conveniently (for them) rented it out to some poor white tenants.
Clifton Hicks
2018-10-02 12:32:34 +0000 UTCMost people either don't know the context of that song or, if they do, they wouldn't care. That being said, I still did _not_ dare to play Marching Through Georgia at the North GA Folk Fest! While I think we should be (and mostly are) beyond all that nonsense at this point, it still feels a bit weird. Perhaps because I was raised in Savannah, GA where adults actively "explained" the Confederate perspective to us children (i.e. they brain washed us).
Clifton Hicks
2018-10-02 12:28:22 +0000 UTCClifford, I am trying to write a banjo musical show set in 1822 in North Georgia, in an imaginary rural town named Plattsville, GA, northwest of Savannah by 75 miles. Is the terrain where you were playing rather dusty and poor for farming? My opening scene is on a 25 acre plot of land divided in half by a stream with poor whites working to own the 12-1/2 acres on one side and a more opulent “great house” on the other side manned by a family of nine slaves. Augustus Harrington, is the slave and land owner. He is frequently absent and the slaves are holding the residence secure while we lead toward the direction of the election of Andy Jackson in 1828 and eventually the Civil War.
Rob Kunkel
2018-10-02 11:20:07 +0000 UTCDid you play Marching through Georgia or is it a sore point?
Bobby Banks
2018-10-02 08:56:05 +0000 UTCSounds like a great weekend, good to hear you enjoyed yourself!
John van den Elsen
2018-10-02 05:14:57 +0000 UTCMan i hated to miss that one. Spent 14 hrs. on a train myself.
Keith Moses
2018-10-02 03:28:10 +0000 UTC
