Copyright 2000 by Edward Willett

If you think folk music is just some guy singing Dylan songs and playing guitar, visit the Regina Folk Festival August 18 to 20 in Victoria Park and you'll think again.

Actually, your first clue that "folk" may not be exactly what you think it is is the poster promoting the event, which features a green extraterrestrial dude playing some kind of weird industrial banjo.

That's Marty the Martian, and he's the mascot for this year's Folk Festival, which has a decidedly not-of-this-Earth theme. If little green men don't immediately come to mind when you think of folk music, then the theme has done its job, says Sandra Butel, who's in her second year as artistic director of the festival.

"The whole purpose of promotional campaign is to broaden people's minds of what folk is," says Butel. "What people think of as folk is not at all what it is. It's a lot more than some guy playing guitar tunes."

All right, then, Sandra, so what is it?

"It's music that draws on a tradition, that takes that tradition someplace completely different, somewhere new," replies Sandra. "There's tradition and there's music that's ahead of it's time, and the two kind of marry each other." For example, she says, there are bands playing swing, a style of music from more than half a century ago--"but they're doing it their way." At this year's festival you can hear bluegrass, African music, Cuban music, American roots music, alternative country music. swing, but they're doing it their way today. There's klezmer music, there's the Rheostatics. The gamut goes really wide."

The other reason Marty the Martian is on the posters for this year's Folk Festival is in recognition of the year 2000 and everyone's fascination with things related to space and the future. Plus, says Sandra, "We like to have fun."

The process of putting together the acts at the Folk Festival begins for Sandra in January, and takes her until at least April. "It's a very interesting and long process," she says. "Part of it has to do with putting your feelers out there, finding out who's hot on the folk circuit." In addition, she says, she has to put out feelers (rather an extraterrestrial image in itself, that) beyond the folk circuit, because "I tend to go further than most of the folk festivals do as far as the variety of music."

In the process, she listens to a lot of music; she estimates she probably listened to 400 CDs this year alone in the process of picking the 16 mainstage acts. There's also a lot of talking involved. "Being in Regina I don't usually get to see the acts live," Sandra says. "I have to do a lot of talking to people just to find out what the group translates to live," because a CD performance and a live performance are two very different things.

What she's really looking for is something new and interesting--but also something that also has integrity to it, so "there's a reason for what they're doing." That goes back to her definition of folk music as music that is based on tradition but takes that tradition in interesting new directions.

This year's mainstage acts include Carolyn Mark, Bomba!, Alassane Fall, Tri-Continental, Newkirk & Bell, Finan, Jorane, Bocephus King, Patty Larkin, The Rheostatics, Heartbreak Hill, Crooked Creek, Lullaby Baxter, Hot Club of Cowtown, Janis Ian and Joaquin Diaz.

Something new to the festival this year is a hands-on workshop tent, made possible by funding from the City of Regina and SaskCulture. It will feature instructional workshops such as a songwriting workshop with Janis Ian and a guitar workshop with Patty Larkin. As well, there'll be a storytelling workshop and a belly-dancing workshop. "Our mandate at the Regina Guild of Folk Arts is to promote and preserve the folk arts," Sandra explains--a mandate that goes beyond just folk music.

For the first time there will also be an opening ceremony, Friday, August 18, at 7 p.m. "It's a way to mark the millennium and thank our sponsors," Sandra says. The opening ceremonies will feature First Nations dancers and musicians and Middle Eastern dancers.

That kind of juxtaposition of different traditions is what the Regina Folk Festival is all about, Sandra says. "To me the most important thing about the Folk Festival is its ability to create a community over the weekend where very diverse groups of people get together and connect," she says. "People get to be part of that community. When people come together something magic happens. When musicians come together on stage that have never come together before its magic. There's just something special that happens and I think anyone who comes walks away with that feeling."

Posted March 9, 2004