Performing songwriters Joe Crookston, Anthony da Costa, Lindsay Mac and Randall Williams – emerging artists who were voted “most wanted to return” by 2007 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival attendees – help the festival inaugurate its 20th anniversary year during a 23-show preview tour in May.  The tour, which kicks off May 1 at the venerable Godfrey Daniels in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, makes stops at notable coffee houses, theaters, clubs and house concert series across the East Coast.  (A complete listing appears at the end of this article.)

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Falcon Ridge Preview Tour artists include Joe Crookston (top left), Lindsay Mac (top right), Anthony da Costa (bottom left), and Randall Williams (bottom right).

One of America’s largest and most esteemed music festivals, the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival was recently voted Folk Festival of the Year by Folk Alliance members.  Slated for July 24-27 at Dodds Farm in the Hillsdale, New York foothills of the Berkshires, this year’s festival will feature main stage and workshop appearances by last years “most wanted” artists in addition to performances by a number of leading folk and Americana artists.

“The Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Preview Tour will highlight four talented singer-songwriters with four very distinctive styles,” said Anne Saunders, the festival’s artistic director.  “Each show will be different, with its own unique dynamic, and many will feature an in-the round format which will allow fans to experience the music of Anthony da Costa, Lindsay Mac, Joe Crookston and Randall Williams in a wonderfully intimate way.” 

Due to school commitments, da Costa, a 17-year old high school junior from Pleasantville, New York, who was the overwhelming audience favorite during the festival’s Emerging Artists Showcase last fall, will only perform in seven shows during the tour.  The prolific songwriter and self-taught multi-instrumentalist, who also was a winner in the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk competition last year, told AcousticMusicScene.com that he is “really honored to be playing in the Most Wanted song swap – on the same stage where I stood in the rain watching Dan Bern in 2006, and where Gandalf (Murphy) blew everybody away with ‘Peace Train’ in 2007.”  The young songwriter recently released his sixth recording, Typical  American Tragedy, and recorded his seventh, Bad Nights, Better Dreams, a duo project with singer-songwriter and dobro player Abbie Gardner of Red Molly.

“The venue response to this preview tour has been amazing.  With 23 venues, it’s over twice as big as previous tours,” says Randall Williams, a well-traveled, conservatory-trained singer-songwriter and pioneering guitarist who is partial to the use of partial capos in alternate and standard tunings.  Indeed, he wrote the book on them for Hal Leonard, recorded a DVD for Kyser Musical Products, and has given workshops at Falcon Ridge and other festivals across the U.S.  Known for his poignant storytelling and captivating guitar work, which can be heard on his January 2008 release, Praying For Land, Williams has performed in more than 35 countries and is as much at home in a Senegalese village as he is at the Kennedy Center or an intimate house concert.  “It’s been just really exciting and amazing working [with the other performers] as a team to make these shows meaningful,” said Williams.  “It’s really been a lot of fun.” 

Noting that he lived and played music in Seattle from 1996 to 2004, Joe Crookston, whose engaging, imaginative and soulful music draws deeply from his rural Ohio roots and his many urban adventures, said: “The entire time I was in the Northwest I kept one eye and one ear on the east coast music community… and wished and dreamed of playing venues like Godfrey Daniels, Club Passim and, of course, the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.”  Now living in Ithaca, New York, Crookston said he has been “amazed at the quality of musicianship, songwriting and support here.  Being part of this year’s Falcon Ridge Preview Tour is a dream come true… and just the beginning of many years of making music here in New York and around the east coast.”  Besides this honor, Crookston was recently awarded a year-long songwriting grant from The Rockefeller Foundation to travel throughout New York State, interview local residents, gather stories and write songs based on his experiences.  Many of those songs appear on his new CD, Able Baker Charlie & Dog.  His previous release, 2004’s Fall Down as the Rain, was named as a “Top 12 Do-It-Yourself” independent recording by Performing Songwriter Magazine.  

Adding another dimension to this year’s Falcon Ridge Preview Tour is Lindsay Mac, a classically-trained, Iowa-bred and New England-based cellist who holds the cello like a guitar — strumming its strings or slapping them like a bass — as she sings original songs in the folk/jazz tradition, spiced with elements of funk and rock.  A pioneering young artist with a lot of pluck, Mac – who was a New Folk Finalist at last year’s Kerrville Folk Festival and also performed at NXNE, Folkwest’s Independent Music Festival, Club Passim’s Cutting Edge of the Campfire Festival, the Connecticut Folk Festival and more – is revolutionizing the way we think about the cello while expanding the definition of the folksinger-songwriter.

2008 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Preview Tour 

Thursday, May 1: Godfrey Daniels, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Friday, May 2: Watertown House Concert, Watertown, Connecticut*

Saturday, May 3: Folk Music Society of Huntington, Centerport, New York*

Sunday, May 4: Lake Katonah Clubhouse, Katonah, New York*

Monday, May 5: Watercolor Café, Larchmont, New York

Thursday, May 8: Club Helsinki, Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Friday, May 9: Performing Arts Center of Easthampton, Massachusetts

Saturday, May 10: Fox Run House Concert, Sudbury, Massachusetts*

Sunday, May 11: Club Passim, Cambridge, Massachusetts*

Tuesday, May 13: Lost Dog Café, Ithaca, New York

Wednesday, May 14: Colony Café, Woodstock, New York

Thursday, May 15: Night Eagle Café, Binghamton, New York

Friday, May 16: Café Veritas, Rochester, New York

Saturday, May 17: Common Ground Coffeehouse, *

Saturday, May 24: Milk Boy Coffee, Ardmore, Pennsylvania

Sunday, May 25: Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, Washington, D.C.

Monday, May 26: Brewer’s Alley, Frederick, Maryland

Tuesday, May 27: Suzie’s House Concert, Gambrills, Maryland

Wednesday, May 28: Focus Inn Rockville, Rockville, Maryland

* Denotes the venues at which Anthony da Costa will be performing.