The Perpetrators are just one of the many acts at this year’s Eaglewood Folk Music Festival.
Georgina
July 23, 2008 07:22 PM
By: Trevor Mills
What does the hottest blues/rock band from Winnipeg have in common with an African guitar player?
What about an exciting original calypso band from Ottawa and a world-travelling gypsy?
Or two banjo-playing songwriters from the opposite coasts of Canada and a young native hip-hop artist?
The answer is unexpected.
It’s a little four-letter F-word — Folk. More specifically, it’s the 19th Annual Eaglewood Folk Festival, happening Aug. 22 to 24 in Pefferlaw.
Mention the word, folk, and it conjures up images of agonizing ballads sung by a guitar-playing uncle or earnest-to-the-core songs about farms and factories with torturous sing-along choruses. Essentially, the last thing most would want to spend a weekend attending.
But folk music is really just music of the folks.
Good people playing good music. Music that gets people moving and feeling good.
Music you can listen to with your kids or belt out with friends around a campfire at midnight. Music to be entertained by on a beautiful weekend in August.
For 19 years, the Eaglewood Folk Festival has presented the best performers from across Canada near the south shore of Lake Simcoe, a short drive from just about anywhere in southern Ontario. It’s a festival where the lines between performers, volunteers and audience disappear, leaving just a bunch of good folks hanging out in the woods together and digging the music.
It’s also a family-friendly festival with a “Kids Town” providing supervised activities throughout the day.
There are motels and B&B’s nearby, however, Eaglewood is known as a camping festival.
There is quiet camping for families and plenty of campfires for late-night jamming on 90 acres of natural woodland at the fully wheelchair accessible Eaglewood Resort.
The real answers to the questions asked above are some of the acts this year.
The Perpetrators are the blues/rock band, Donné Roberts is the African guitar player, Kobo Town is the calypso band, Darlene is the gypsy, T. Nile (B.C.) and Old Man Luedecke (Nova Scotia) are the banjo-playing songwriters and Wabs Whitebird is the native rapper.