Not much left to say… except that one other performer laughingly challenged me to make Matt Nakoa look bad in a photo. Here’s the first of Matt’s nights on stage. Did I meet that challenge here? Yet?
(somehow, my Thursday pix are … at least for the time being… out of pocket)
A Kerrville Festival attendee giving tribute to the rain in his own way.
OK, the rains really did hurt the festival. Ticket sales, of course, died, and lightning struck one RV in the festival campground (with no injuries), electricity went out over most of the 51 acres, and moral was down a little bit. But, Kerrverts are champions, and weathered the storms bravely and got everything back up and running again in no time. … while I slept inside my safe little hippie van, as a matter of fact.
University Songwriter contest winners concert
First live music I’d heard, and Tom Prasado Rao was paying close attention!
Kerrville Folk Festival — a continuing blog for a while.
Between New Folk concerts and competitions, ballad trees (which are open mics in the most acoustic form possible — no amplification), and hearing lots and lots of new performers, even the disappointment of having to cancel all of Saturday night’s events — including Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, and the Tejas Brothers — has already paled into the overall festival experience.
Getting onto WiFi is nearly impossible, and my hippie van’s battery has been dead for days, so no going into McDonald’s to use their internet availability. Darn it.
As photographer, I have been SO busy, it makes my head spin. But I have the best two other photogs to work with, and we divy up the work and the responsibilities in a completely compatible way.
Ice crew —hard working and having fun while doing it.
Thursday (May 21) featured musicians from St. Louis, Boston, Ashville, and Austin. See those four links for photos. Plus the ballad tree of the day, another link, led by R.J. Cowdery from Columbus, Ohio. Also, please forgive the Flickr ads being thrown in the middle of each album. For the time being, I’ll continue to use Flickr, but will be looking at other free photo sites when I get back home.
Volunteer staffers
Friday, another day of almost completely-new (to me) musicians, and that’s part of the fun of it. I figured it out, more than 90% of the musicians here are people I’ve never heard of, or have heard of but never heard. Makes it fun.
This truly is a folk festival — folk music for the most part. Today’s line-up came from Austin; Asheville, N.C.; Manitoba, Canada. Plus, there was a concert of four singer/songwriters who had won competitions on their college campuses. Incredible voices and songs from them — the stars of tomorrow!
The guy with the guitar is Ignacio — works with the CD recording crew. Classical guitarist by training.
Javier Chaparro & Salud, with Lake Travis Fiddlers (school)
Del Barber photos — NOTE: you might can tell here that he’s my favorite newbie so far! From Manitoba, Canada. His stories leading into his songs showed him to be a master story-teller, as well as singer and songwriter!
University songwriters concert
Me and four other long-timers
I (this is Mary Jane here) think I will do a daily blog similar to what I could do at Larry Joe Taylor Fest. Blog being ‘I’m included’ compared with Website being ‘It’s all about the other person.’
The staff orientation is tonight (Wednesday, May 20), but it isn’t by any chance the beginning of happenings here. One that staff (and when I say ‘staff,’ please know that it is volunteers here. Only two or three people are paid year-round. I used to be one of them, paid $50 a week — when we had the money — plus the 10×20 foot rustic cabin I lived in.) has been busy in many areas. One of those is the completion of the first-ever fully-flushable toilets for concert goers. That’s all due to volunteer staffers who have reworked all the plumbing on the ranch, and who have worked on a great restroom facility since January. The article in the Kerrville Daily Times
It is amazing to me just how many volunteers are still here, from when I first started (full-time for that $50 a week) in 1980. Actually, I came as a paid ticket holder in 1975, and began volunteering in 1976, and that story is in a previous blog here, written last year. So much grey hair, so many disabilities, and yet, here we are — and so many smiles and hugs. I’ve included one photo here of some of my long-timer friends.
Many photos on links below.
The first three days at Melody Mountain Ranch and the Larry Joe Taylor Texas Music Festival, I blogged each day’s activities and included a few photos. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were harder to do, because of the increased population. With everybody using cell phones and internet, it was next to impossible to get online to continue with the updates. Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted.
But, as you know now, there was some nasty weather during those last few days; but that was only in hour-long spells, and no really lasting damage done anywhere. On the worse of those two days, the incredible sound and stage crew got the music going again with only a 45-minute delay. And definitely nothing like the weather, including tornadoes, that have hit Oklahoma again on the very day (Wednesday, May 6) that I write this. So, ‘nuf said about the weather.
Larry Joe Taylor
There were considerably more performers than photographed here. This festival-goer changed one personal policy… when the beer-slingers started tossing beer toward the stage, I and the other photographers in the photog pit were challenged to keep our cameras dry. I’ve met that challenge in past years, but this time just left the pit. Won’t ruin a pricey camera for what amounts to vandalism. In fairness to the security staff at the festival, they did do what they could to prevent that from happening, and probably reduced it considerably, but it was an impossible task to completely eliminate the ‘fans festive fun’. ‘nuf said about that, too.
The crews, the staff, and their combined efforts to make this photog’s stay a bit easier are so appreciated, and are the reason this photog will be returning. They are all so accommodating, and go out of their way to make it easier for me, and probably others
Zack Taylor
with some physical problems, to enjoy the festivities. Thank you, Larry Joe, Sherry, Martha, Zack, Joe, David, Keith, Aaron, Joseph, Houston, Elizabeth, Nathan, Willy, Cassandra, Ray, Kenneth, Curtis, and Scooter, and … countless others.
Keith Sykes (one pic)
Max Stalling (one pic)
Saturday
Deryl Dodd & The Lonesome Cowboys