Winterfolk Weekend!

I thought I’d share some memories from this past wonderful weekend of music. It started early with the Winterfolk Launch Party on Thursday night. It was great to mingle with other artists and volunteers and you could feel the excitment building for the festival. This year I’ve gotten a bit addicted to Facebook and have also joined a folk music List Serv and have communicated on-line with a lot of people in the music community. So, when I actually got to meet some of them face to face it was great. Then of course there are all the fabulous people we’ve met over the past few years since we’ve been in this business and it was great to reconnect with them. We were all telling each other when our shows were and at that moment all had great intentions of being at every one! In reality, because there are six stages presenting music simultaneously over the three days of the festival, you just can’t be everywhere. But we did get out to see quite a few when we weren’t performing ourselves.

Our first show of the weekend was 11pm on Friday at The Mambo Lounge, a great little Cuban restaurant on The Danforth. We heard from folks who ate there that the food was wonderful…it sure smelled great, and they serve a tasty German beer that you can’t get anywhere else on the avenue! We went on after Hotcha! who were in great form. They do a smokin’ verson of ‘Old Man Mose’. It’s a song from the 1940’s that we had hoped to cover at one time but it just wasn’t right for my voice…but Bev nails it! 

We were so happy…wait, I need a bigger word…THRILLED…to have Shelley Coopersmith join us on violin and mandolin for our Mambo Lounge show. She plays on the CD we are currently recording and we’ve become accustomed to hearing that haunting violin on certain songs, so it was a treat to have her join us live. It was a small venue and we were expecting to do our own sound but Craig and Paolo arrived to set things up for us and they did a fabulous job. The show was fun. The audience was warm and listened intently. Afterwards, some came up to chat and buy CDs. One fellow gave us a lovely compliment, comparing our songs to those of “a young Gordon Lightfoot” who he used to go see at coffee houses in the 60’s. Sigh…that’s the kind of thing that makes it all worthwhile.

On Saturday we played our weekly 3:30-5:30pm matinee at The Cameron House. It was a busy afternoon…along with the familiar ones that we appreciate so much, there were lots of new faces in the crowd throughout the afternoon. Shelley joined us for our second set, a welcome surprise. She plays with The Cameron Family Singers who come on at 6pm. We had to dash out when we finished playing to make the trip across town to our 7pm show upstairs at The Black Swan.

We were part of the ‘Love At Winterfolk’ evening. It was great. Andy Frank hosted the stage…he’s such a great supporter of local music. We had a super soundman…D’arcy. The Black Swan has amazing lighting which makes you look real good on stage. However, it also makes it difficult to see more than a few feet into the audience. I like to look at people when I sing to them so I was happy when a group of women sat at the tables right up front where I could see their faces. Again, we were pleased to have a real listening audience that evening. After our show, we stuck around to see Treasa Lavasseur. Wow, she was awesome…amazing stage presence.

With the last of our weekend shows behind us, we headed back to The Danforth on Sunday afternoon. Dwight had volunteered to do sound at The Black Swan and I club-hopped. I stopped in at The Willow to see the some performers in The Moonshine Cafe showcase. I was happy to see Paul Rooney and Alan McKinley, who were both wonderful but unfortunately (for me) the place was jammed so I couldn’t get a seat. My next stop was The Mambo Lounge where I hooked up with my friend Kim Cole (another singer-songwriter) to catch Peter Verity. He did a great set. It was packed there too but we managed to score a table.

After that I headed over to The Black Swan to see Crabtree and Mills. There has been such a buzz about their new CD and I was looking forward to catching one of their shows. I loved it. I could really relate to their music. I particularly loved their social justice songs. And they did one song that actually moved me to tears…kind of embarassing for me, cause I was sitting right up front and had to fish in my purse for a kleenex. I found them quite inspiring.

That was the last show of the day so after that, I went down to meet up with Dwight. He was busy doing teardown at the stage he’d done the sound for. So I stood around chatting with other musician friends…some new and some I’ve known for awhile..till he was done. All the way home we compared notes on our afternoons. Well, you just read about mine and Dwight had the best seat in the house at the soundboard for Nancy Dutra, Bill Colgate & Cam MacInnes, Danny Marks, and Wendell Ferguson & Friends (impressive friends like Michael Brennan and Shawn Brush).

Even though we saw a ton of great music, there was still lots more that we couldn’t make it to. If you haven’t been to Winterfolk, make sure you take it in next year. It’s organized by Brian Gladstone who does it purely for the love of music and community. I know this is unbelievable but, with the exception of one stage this year, the festival is FREE….no cover…no tickets. What kind of crazy good deal is that?!