music instruction end

2018 Festival Logo Wide

Click on video to see highlights from the March, 2018 festival and a peek into our plans for 2019: Exploring our African roots from Zimbabwe to Appalachia.

Ticket sales for producing a festival typically do not cover the cost of production. And that’s where you come in! FolkWorks depends on your generosity. When you click to donate below, 100% of the money we raise in this campaign will go to pay talented performers and teachers.

Please donate what you can to allow us to present the best diverse musical traditions for this amazing event.

COLUMN OF THE WEEK

January-February 2019

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By Dennis Roger Reed

It is an overstatement to say I am my own favorite music artist, but probably not by much if judged based on the amount of physical time I spend listening to my own work. I know a lot of musical artists who profess to not like to listen to their own work. I must say that if you don’t like to listen to yourself, you are not setting a good example for others. If you don’t like what you hear when you listen to your own work, why in the world would you think others might like it or find it valuable?

Read more: MY FAVORITE ARTIST IS ME

CD REVIEWS

TITLE: Empathy Moves The Water

ARTIST: The Crooked Jades

LABEL: Jade Note Music

RELEASE DATE: November 13, 2018

By Art Podell

Fans of The Crooked Jades won’t be disappointed by the latest issue from this remarkable group of musicians and I’m convinced that their newest CD, Empathy Moves The Water will quickly be added to existing collections of their music. Empathy Moves The Water will be the ninth album from the group since their debut album in 2000, and true to form, The Crooked Jades are alive and thriving and they just may have produced one of the best Americana albums of 2018.

TITLE: EVERYBODY’S TALKIN’: A TRIBUTE TO FRED NEIL

ARTISTS: VARIOUS, INCLUDING ERIC ANDERSEN, RODNEY CROWELL, VINCE MARTIN, ETC.

LABEL: Y&T MUSIC

RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 14, 2018

Fred Neil without the Wrecking Crew

By Ross Altman, PhD

Everybodys Talkin Fred Neil co-founded (with conservationist Ric O’Barry) the Dolphin Project on the first Earth Day, April 22 in 1970. Everybody’s Talking is a wonderful tribute album to Florida folk music legend Fred Neil. All net proceeds from the sale of the album go to the Dolphin Project.

TITLE: HOLY SMOKE!

ARTIST: RAFE STEFANINI & DAVID BRAGGER

LABEL: OLD-TIME TIKI PARLOUR

RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 2018

OLD-TIME FIDDLE & BANJO DUETS

By Justin Manglitz

Holy Smoke If you have ever wondered why preachers of yore routinely railed against fiddle and banjo music, this record explains it exactly. Every downbeat encourages fornication, every backbeat compels another drink of whiskey, every tune puts your very soul in jeopardy. Holy Smoke! is old-time music in its perfect form, tight fiddle and banjo, Africa and Europe in equal portions, a completely traditional modern culmination of the first truly American music.

TITLE: OLD WORLD MUSIC OF THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS

ARTIST: HOG-EYED MAN

LABEL: OLD-TIME TIKI PARLOUR

RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 2018

By Pat Mac Swyney

Old World Music of the Southern Appalachians is the 4th release from Old-Time duo Hog-Eyed Man; featuring Clifftop fiddle champion Jason Cade accompanied by talented multi-instrumentalist Rob McMaken. Jason grew up learning older fiddle tunes and styles from Bruce Greene in Yancey County, North Carolina as well as from his mother’s teacher Byard Ray. Rob hails from north Georgia and provides a solid, engaging back up with chording and melodic lines on mandolin, guitar and lap dulcimer.

SPOTLIGHTS

JIM MALCOLM

Jim Malcolm

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2019 - 7:00PM
House Concert in San Diego
zolahouseevents@gmail.com
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SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2019 - 7:30PM
House Concert in Santa Monica
irishfleury@earthlink.net
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SUNDAY, JANUARY 27, 2019 - 3:00PM
Fiddler's Crossing
206 East F Street, Tehachapi, CA 93561

Read more: JIM MALCOLM

TAJ MAHAL & THE PHANTOM BLUES BAND

Taj Mahal

SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 2019 - 9:00PM
The Canyon Club
28192 Roadside Dr., Agoura Hills, CA 91301

FEATURE ARTICLES

Best Releases of 2018 chosen by Yatrika Shah-Rais

Wednesday host of KPFKs Global Village (11am to 1pm)

Her show brings an eclectic mix of global, jazz, indigenous, folk, ambient and classical sounds, making musical connections between geographical and diverse musical cultures.

The following lists are playlists of songs from albums that she presented at the end of 2018 summarizing the best music of the year.

Email: yatrikashahrais@gmail.com

Website: www.worldonanote.com

Archives of her previous two shows can be heard here

The Global Village on Facebook

Read more to see the amazing list of World Music albums. You will certain discover new finds...we did!

Get an Early Start on Mardi Gras!

Crank Up The Cajun and Beat the Winter Blues

Blake Miller and the Old-Fashioned Aces at StillWater in Dana Point

By Karen Redding

Blake Miller and Old Fashioned Aces Come get your gumbo on and a head start on Mardi Gras! Step onto the dance floor for a southern California Fais do-do, as you waltz and two-step to the high-energy Louisiana dance-hall music of multi-Grammy-nominated Blake Miller of Blake Miller and the Old-Fashioned Aces at StillWater Food and Spirits in Dana Point on Sunday, January 20, 2018 at 5:00pm. Described by OffBeat Magazines’ Dan Willgig as a “Groove band that’s dance compelling,” the Aces Cajun French songs will take you on a dizzying ride from hard-core, pared-down, gritty Cajun/Zydeco two-step party music to waltzes as soulfully heart-wrenching as only Cajun music can be.

GATEKEEPERS OF FREEDOM 2018:

TWENTY-FIVE REVIEWED CONCERTS, CDS, THEATRE PERFORMANCES AND A VERY SPECIAL GRAMMY MUSEUM EXHIBIT

VOICES THAT STOOD UP FOR A BETTER AMERICA IN 2018

Exclusive to FolkWorks

By Ross Altman, PhD

Ross Altman Here are the Gatekeepers of Freedom for 2018—those performing and performance artists who travel, sing and record the music that keeps us sane in a mad world—who carry the torch of Woody Guthrie and Joe Hill, Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, Billie Holiday and Phil Ochs, Utah Phillips and Rosalie Sorrels, Malvina Reynolds, Victor Jara and John Lennon. We turn to them in times of need, for inspiration, for their long memory, for satire and protest, above all, for truth.