AcousticMusicScene.com will host pre-arranged song swaps during the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, July 22-25. The festival takes place at Dodds Farm on Route 7D in Hillsdale, New York, located in the foothills of the Berkshires, near the tri-state corner of New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
For the third year in a row, AcousticMusicScene.com joins with Tribes Hill (a nonprofit organization uniting musicians of the Hudson Valley region and their patrons in support of a music community coming together to celebrate human experience through song) to jointly present late-night song swaps during Falcon Ridge. Dinner-break sing-alongs & jams and an informal Thursday afternoon session on PR for independent recording artists also are slated.
[To read the entire article, including a schedule of activities, click on the headline.]
Artists interested in applying for formal and/or tricentric showcases during the 16th annual Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA) Conference have until Aug. 1 and Aug. 31, respectively, to do so. The annual conference, which drew nearly 700 people last year, is slated for Nov. 11-14 at the Hudson Valley Resort in Kerhonkson, NY.
[To view the entire article, click on the headline.]
Although he was best known as the longest-serving member of the United States Senate, Robert C. Byrd, who died Monday at 92, also was an old-time and bluegrass fiddler. On July 27, Virginia-based County Records plans to reissue a bluegrass album recorded by Byrd, who represented West Virginia for more than half a century in the Senate and also served as the chamber’s majority leader for 11 years.
[To read the entire article, click on the headline.]
John Gorka is widely considered one of the top male singer-songwriters on the contemporary folk scene. Since being named a Kerrville New Folk Winner in 1984, he has become a popular fixture on the coffeehouse and festival circuit, and a number of other notable artists have recorded and/or performed his songs. He is part of a new folk trio called Red Horse with Eliza Gilkyson and Lucy Kaplansky, whose Red House Records debut will be released on July 13.
With his rich, soulful baritone, Gorka delivers his own well-crafted songs in a way that prompted Rolling Stone to call him “the preeminent male singer-songwriter of the new folk movement.” Ever self-effacing, Gorka has professed to “consider myself to be an aspiring folk singer, not an accomplished one.” His legion of fans – including Kathy Sands-Boehmer, who posed a few questions to him recently – would disagree.
[To read Kathy's Quick Q & A with John Gorka, click on the headline.]
