Kerrville Folk Festival — Friday, June 6
First event for the day was the ever-popular Ballad Tree. This event is hosted on Chapel Hill every afternoon of the festival, and hosted by musicians of renown. Friday’s host was blues picker Graham Warwick who, with his band, has won enough local and regional blues competitions that they will be traveling to compete in a national blues contest in January 2015. (As soon as I get the details, I’ll revise this note.)
The Ballad Tree is completely acoustic, and by that I mean, there are no mics, no hook-ups for guitars, nothing, except instruments and voices. And the breeze that cooled the afternoon down on the hill couldn’t silence those. Some stand nearer the crowd to be better heard, some stand a little farther away. And as I sat there and listened, I could only think two things: “There are some house concert promoters who should be here listening to these incredible musicians/songwriters/singers,” and “The music on the main stage tonight will be great, better amplified, under lights, and with a bigger audience, but the music tonight won’t be any better than it is right here.”
It opened with Graham and his guitar-picking sidekick, Emmett Smith. They, like all the others who followed, performed two songs. Then, after all 15 who signed up had performed, they each got another short second set.
Zoe Lewis
For photos of the Ballad Tree, click here:
The even concert was filled with bands I’d never heard of, and for me that is always exciting. Before the evening was out, I’d become a huge fan of the British-turned-American singer/songwriter Zoe Lewis. Zoe had three other musicians with her: fiddle, drums, and doghouse bass. She brought the crowd to its feet with her zany combinations of jazz, scat, funk, well, basically you-name-it-and-she-can-play-it genre. She was a 2002 Kerrville New Folk winner who now tours worldwide with her brand of energetic and outrageously entertaining music.
For Zoe Lewis band pix, click here
For a few other pix, click here:
Category: *- Features, 2014
About the Author (Author Profile)
In the music production business, including event production, booking, photography, reporting, and other such essentials, since 1980.Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
