Dateline Assonet MA: Welcome to the New Bedford Folk Festival edition of Wise Madness; perhaps just part one. We’ll see how this goes.
Every year I drive up with Mike. The festival starts Saturday morning so instead of leaving New York very early Saturday we left in mid-afternoon Friday. I do the same thing at Falcon Ridge, go up the day before the festival and leave the day after. It’s far more relaxing. Part of the tradition is stopping someplace interesting for dinner. Based on when we left I figure that we’d arrive at Fall River at dinner time so I did what people do nowadays. I googled, “Best restaurants in Fall River.” I found Caravela Family Restaurant. As is common in that area of Massachusetts it’s Portuguese. It’s also very reasonable. A steak served with two fried eggs and red peppers on it with a side of fries for $12.50. When I told Mike about it he said that he had heard it recommended. So that was our goal. We founded it but there was a 20-minute wait for seating so we decided to take a walk and see Lizzie Borden’s House. Unfortunately I’m an idiot and we walked in the opposite directions. We did see a beautiful huge church, St. Anne’s. Turns out it is closed but is on the National Registry of Historic Places. It looks the part. We found two other very large Catholic churches nearby. There must have been a lot of Catholic population in Fall River at one time. Not as large now, that’s why the church closed.
The dinner was excellent, Mike and I split our orders, we go the steak and the Chorico Plate. That’s a Portuguese sausage. The orders were huge. We like to experiment but I’d be happy to stop there again next year. I’m very glad my intestinal obstruction cleared up. I ate a lot of food.
When we go to the Festival we stay at our friend Gary’s house. He’s a retired math prof, hosts house concerts, and is a Met fan. In a word, my people. That’s two words. Two is approximately one, for large values of one.
There are four other guests here, Bob, Sandy, and Brian. This was my friend time meeting Brian; the others are here every year. I know I am missing a name. Sandy’s husband’s name just flew out of my room. I suspect it’s halfway to Vermont right now. They all camp together at Kerrville. Mike and I are the outsiders.
There is going to be a lot about food in this blog. I know that’s not unusual but I had a lot of great food and I’m not going to skip it. The breakfasts I make for myself are usually the best I have. This is an exception. Brian is the “bread guy” at Kerrville. He bakes his own bread and distributes it to camps. On Saturday he made French toast out of it. It was amazing. There was also scrambled eggs and sausages. I can eat that stuff all day.
Mike, Bob, and I drove in one car to the Festival. The lots used to be free, now they charge, so we park on the street. Google maps is amazing. It marked the place we parked last year so we drove straight there and found a spot on the same block. I should now be telling you who we met on the way to pick up our wrist bands but that would require me remembering who it was. I always have a ton of friends here, both musicians and audience.
Don’t think of Falcon Ridge, or Clearwater when you think of the New Bedford Folk Festival. It’s held right in the City. There are seven stages, three of which are in permanent structures, the Seaman’s Bethel, the church mentioned in Moby Dick, The Whaling Museum, as you might have guessed from the Moby Dick reference, New Bedford was a whaling town, and the big venue, the Zeiterion Theater. Those are all air-conditioned. The other four stages are in pavilions, always under cover, though there aren’t always seats available under the cover.
My first music of the weekend was the Hard Times Come Again No More workshop at the Zeiterion. It featured, The Kennedys, Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards, Zoe Lewis, and Bourque Emmisaires. I have connections to the first three. I’ve mentioned the Kennedys often enough that you know they are my friends and have played the Budgiedome. Laura I don’t know well but she is the co-founder of Miles to Music Camp with Kristin Andreassen who I’ve written about often and know well. She also played at the Hudson West Festival; I’m on the advisory board. Benoit Bourque is along with the Kennedys a mainstay of the festival. As you might guess from his name, he’s French Canadian. The other Emmisaire is his son. Benoit plays accordion, sings, dances, plays bones, and very much entertains.
It was a whiz bang way of starting the festival. I stayed at the Z, as it’s called to see the first half of The Only Truth is Music with Susan Werner, Pamela Means, Diana Jones, and Anne Hills. Anne joined on one song by a British singer, Bill (short for Belinda) Jones. Bill was my top discovery of the festival. She has a similar vibe to Kate Rusby. I expect most of you know Susan, and I’ll be coming back to her late. Diana is a great New York City singer and songwriter. Part of the Jack Hardy circle, the songwriters exchange. She’s a must hear songwriter. I left that early to catch Molsky’s Mountain Drifters, Bua, and Kevin Doyle on the Custom House Stage. I have seen Bruce Molsky multiple times including with the Mountain Drifters. He’s a great old-time banjo player and many of my friends have played with him. Bua is an Irish band complete with uileann pipes and fit right into my sweet spot. Kevin is a step dancer. There was quite a bit of step dancing this weekend.
Then came an important part of the day, linner with Emily, her sister Sarah, Emily’s four children, and Sarah’s two. It’s been two and a half years since I last saw Sarah. She lives in Texas and since she gave birth, has not been back east. The older child is her stepdaughter. By tradition we ate at Brick Pizza. I had the linguica pizza, linguica is another Portuguese sausage.
The pizza was good but hanging out with my several times a year family even better. In later editions of Wise Madness I’ll be kvelling about Emily and Joe’s daughters. I’ve been given parental permission to kvell. The way I remember their daughters’ names is that all share names with British Royalty or actresses who portrayed British Royalty. Three’s Maggie, Cate, Eleanor, and Genevieve. To make things easy for me Sarah named her daughter Guinevere. Do not tell me that’s not the reason. I don’t want to know.
I have to get to sleep now. I didn’t even make it through the first day of the festival. We’ll see how much I can get done tomorrow.
Wise Madness 