AtPontchartrain
04-21-2008, 11:29 AM
Under new management and with a young producer at the helm, the venerable Newport Folk Festival is stepping out of the past and into the rock 'n' roll mainstream. Gone are the jug bands, Cape Breton fiddlers, and bluegrass patriarch Ralph Stanley. This year's lineup features good-time tunesmith Jimmy Buffett, swaggering rockers The Black Crowes, and indie-soul chanteuse Cat Power.
"For me the theme was bridging the gap," says Jay Sweet, a 37-year-old editor at Paste, an indie-oriented music magazine. Sweet is coproducer of this year's event, which takes place Aug. 1-3 at Fort Adams State Park. "We're going to try to bring in more sizzle, in the artistic sense. We're creating a festival for musical omnivores."
In the bargain, they're creating New England's first real rock festival, which Sweet hopes will someday rival the genre-spanning sprawl of Tennessee's Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. "If we do it right and book it right, the kids will come," he says.
Newport has long been known for pushing the boundaries of folk by booking unexpected artists, from '60s screamer Janis Joplin and punky troubadour Ani DiFranco to jazzy hitmaker Norah Jones and alt-rock heroes the Pixies, while presenting a vibrant blend of new and old-school styles.
It's what is not on the roster for this year's event - straight, traditional folk music of any stripe - that signals a dramatic reinvention of the Newport Folk Festival.
"I don't like the idea that it's just dissipating into another festival like so many others," says Joan Baez, who launched her career at the 1959 festival. "It seems that it's all about money and not much about holding onto something that's been pretty precious for a lot of years."
In the past decade, attendance at the Newport Folk Festival, founded in 1959 by live-music impresario George Wein and managed until last year by Wein's Festival Productions, has averaged only half to two-thirds of the site's capacity of 10,000 concertgoers a day. With alt-country collective Calexico, reggae royalty Damian and Stephen Marley, My Morning Jacket howler Jim James, and second-generation folk-rocker Jakob Dylan on the bill, the event's new owners expect 2008 to sell out. (Tickets go on sale April 23.)
"This year should mark a turning point in revitalizing Newport Folk," says Tom Shepard, chief executive officer of Festival Network, a San Francisco-based company that purchased Festival Productions last year. ....
more http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2008/04/17/new_folks_at_newport_rock_festivals_traditions/
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(The Festival Productions purchase hasn't affected the NOJ&HF management deal, as far as I know.)
"For me the theme was bridging the gap," says Jay Sweet, a 37-year-old editor at Paste, an indie-oriented music magazine. Sweet is coproducer of this year's event, which takes place Aug. 1-3 at Fort Adams State Park. "We're going to try to bring in more sizzle, in the artistic sense. We're creating a festival for musical omnivores."
In the bargain, they're creating New England's first real rock festival, which Sweet hopes will someday rival the genre-spanning sprawl of Tennessee's Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. "If we do it right and book it right, the kids will come," he says.
Newport has long been known for pushing the boundaries of folk by booking unexpected artists, from '60s screamer Janis Joplin and punky troubadour Ani DiFranco to jazzy hitmaker Norah Jones and alt-rock heroes the Pixies, while presenting a vibrant blend of new and old-school styles.
It's what is not on the roster for this year's event - straight, traditional folk music of any stripe - that signals a dramatic reinvention of the Newport Folk Festival.
"I don't like the idea that it's just dissipating into another festival like so many others," says Joan Baez, who launched her career at the 1959 festival. "It seems that it's all about money and not much about holding onto something that's been pretty precious for a lot of years."
In the past decade, attendance at the Newport Folk Festival, founded in 1959 by live-music impresario George Wein and managed until last year by Wein's Festival Productions, has averaged only half to two-thirds of the site's capacity of 10,000 concertgoers a day. With alt-country collective Calexico, reggae royalty Damian and Stephen Marley, My Morning Jacket howler Jim James, and second-generation folk-rocker Jakob Dylan on the bill, the event's new owners expect 2008 to sell out. (Tickets go on sale April 23.)
"This year should mark a turning point in revitalizing Newport Folk," says Tom Shepard, chief executive officer of Festival Network, a San Francisco-based company that purchased Festival Productions last year. ....
more http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2008/04/17/new_folks_at_newport_rock_festivals_traditions/
==========
(The Festival Productions purchase hasn't affected the NOJ&HF management deal, as far as I know.)