"New Folk"

Down in Texas they have a thing called The Kerrville Folk Festival. 18 days in the hill country, May and June, every year. I have been twice and I will go again. There’s a magic mixed with darkness at Quiet Valley Ranch. “Townes Van Zandt did acid in that tree.” That kind of thing.

They have an annual contest called “New Folk.” 800 singer/songwriters across the US enter every year. They pick 36 to perform at the festival. I’m not sure how this is done. I have sat around those campfires for hours and there are more than 36 any given NIGHT. 

But contests are contests. Ultimately, they are great because they help artists get their music out there. Here is a list of the winners: 1977–2007. Here is my list of the greatest "New Folk" I have had the honor of hearing and the pleasure of encountering in my travels. Some are official winners and some are just great. There is an official “Folk Alliance” (yes, it exists), but this crew is the real wrecking ball of vital songwriting. Google these names!

Jonathan Byrd

Anthony da Costa

Danny Schmidt

Nels Andrews

Anais Mitchell

David Stoddard

Robby Hecht

Devon Sproule

Rebecca Loebe

Slunky Moth

Raina Rose

Sidewalk Dave

Gabriel Cruz

Cory Branan

Chris O’Brien

Shannon Wurst

Charlie Roth

Chuck E Costa

David Moss

Eli Bolin

Mike Schadel

Grace Rowland

Gregory Alan Isakov

Johann Wagner

Jesse Dalton

Steve Bacon

Andrew Duchon

AJ Roach

Eliza Blue

Brianna Lane

Right now, they are throwing a hell of a party in the Texas hill country. It’s Friday morning. My guess is last night was pretty mellow, gearing up for the final weekend. I couldn’t go this year. After three years on the road, I need to stay put for awhile.

I miss my friends. I miss the songs. I miss the campfires. I don’t miss the heat, but I do miss the warmth.

In the spirit of the “it can be like this always” sign at the front gate, I have been having my own personal Kerrville in California for the last couple days. This basically entails sitting around, eating and playing music. I ended up recording a bunch of my friends’ songs and I think I’m going to release them in some way at some point. I think I’ll call it “Folk v.1.” Learning them and making them my own feels pretty folky. So far, I’ve got these down:

“Every Morning” THE BLUE HIT

“Texas” RAINA ROSE

“Note” ANTHONY DA COSTA

“San Francisco” GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV

“Beggars & Mules” DANNY SCHMIDT

The first year you go to the festival, everyone hugs you and says, “Welcome Home.” Someone else’s ranch outside Kerrville, Texas is not my home. I reside in Los Angeles, but that’s not my home either. I’m realizing what Springsteen says he realized as he got older: “Home really isn’t waiting out there over the next hill, it’s buried deep inside somewhere. And I guess if you got the guts and you’re lucky, you get a little piece of it and you hold onto a little piece of it.”

Because tramps like us…