Folk Alliance - 11th Annual Lifetime Achievement Award Recipients

01/04/2005 08:49AM

Washington, D.C., USA - The Folk Alliance has announced the 11th Annual Lifetime Achievement Awards, which will be presented at their international conference. This year the Folk Alliance honors Southern singer, freedom marcher, Odetta; Maritime songwriter, humanitarian, Stan Rogers; and the Newport Festival whose blend traditional and contemporary folk performers shaped musical history. The presentation will be made at the convention, during the luncheon banquet on Thursday, February 24, 2005 at the Hyatt Regency Montreal. For information call 301-588-8185 or go to on-line registration for the conference at www.folk.org.

The Newport Folk Festival is the site of some of the most important moments of the 1960’s folk revival. From an eighteen year old Joan Baez’s appearance with Bob Gibson in 1959 to Bob Dylan’s electric appearance in 1965, the folk revival was largely defined on the stages of the Newport Folk Festival (and recorded for posterity by Vanguard records). George Wean and Albert Grossman founded the Newport Folk Festival in 1959, Newport began to find its footing as a blend of the best of traditional and contemporary folk began to shape musical history in that idiom. Pete Seeger and Theodore Bikel convinced George Wein to make the festival a non-profit organization to be overseen by the Newport Folk Foundation. . It was during this period Robert L. Jones joined the team as musical director. Originally from the Boston area, Bob first became interested in folk music as an artist—a balladeer who performed regularly in Cambridge clubs and coffeehouses.

The Festival introduced audiences to both legendary traditional musicians like Mississippi John Hurt, Dewey Balfa, and Reverend Gary Davis, as well as up and coming popular folk entertainers including James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Janis Ian, and Peter, Paul & Mary The festival ran in its original form until 1971, when it was cancelled by the organizers who feared growing unrest.

After a fifteen-year hiatus, there was a Symphony Hall reunion concert featuring many alumni from past Newport Folk Festivals, followed soon after by a revival of the festival itself. In recent years the festival has presented many emerging artists including Alison Krauss, Nanci Griffith, and Patty Larkin and continues to be one of the most influential festivals in North America.

The Lifetime Achievement awards are given to those that have achieved definitive leadership in their field, have contributed to the advancement of folk music and/or dance and who have inspired us through their presence. Each year two performers, one living and one deceased, and a person or institution involved in the business or academic side of the folk world are honored. Each recipient will receive an original colored wood-block print, commissioned by the Folk Alliance for the Lifetime Achievement Award by artist Paul Ritscher.

World Music Central
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