Faux Festival

Last month, at the recommendation of my friend, I set up a myspace page not thinking anything much would come of it. Then, last week, I got a friend request from a fellow named Bill who does folk music with his wife all over the state of Florida. He mentioned a festival happening in a few days that they were going to play at. Well, I went yesterday to the Florida Faux Festival. I learned that The Florida Folk Festival normally happens Memorial Day Weekend up in White Springs and has been going on since 1953. Alas, this year the smoke from brush fires caused the festival to be cancelled at the last minute. Actually, it has now been rescheduled for November. A folky named Stu Hall organized a sort of alternate festival in Orlando in only three days time. It wasn't to exactly replace the historic festival and would not be nearly so large, so it was called the "Faux" festival. I spent the day there yesterday and discovered that a whole world of folk music goes on all over Florida. There is a state organization and several regional ones, including central Florida, dedicated to folk music. I got hold of one of their publications that lists dozens of folk gatherings at many different kinds of places, a good many right here in the Orlando area.

I heard and met some wonderful musicians who are passionate about it. I have been doing my thing in a vacuum for so long I was quite amazed that so many of these people existed. Looking around at the audience during some of the performances I noticed that most of the folks were at least my age and many older. Children of the '60s and '70s. They say that, all other things being equal, your favorite music is whatever was on the radio when you were in high school. And for these people, that was the golden era of folk music - of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, James Taylor, Joni Mitchel, Carol King, John Denver, Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Young, Crosby Stills and Nash, and on and on. Was it folk music then or pop? The two were the same because folk music was such a popular form. The evolution moved toward rock and on to other forms but some of us are still stuck in the '70s. There are a lot more of us than I thought. And it looks like there's a good chance I might get connected with some of them and we'll share some music. Maybe there really is an audience besides people who just want to drink and dance. There was a lot of intense listening going on yesterday. And some wonderful sounds and stories.