A Review of the 60th Philadelphia Folk Festival

From August 18th to 21st, I got to enjoy my first Fest in 3 years with my Bacchus Boy friends and the Gunther Family, camping out in rain-free weather.  This medley of live music includes Michael Franti & Spearhead (San Francisco), ADG7 (Korea), Arrested Development (Atlanta), The Punch Brothers with Sarah Jarosz and Watchtower (Nashville, LA, NYC) and Talisk (Scotland).

The Festival is put on annually by the Philadelphia Folksong Society, and it is one of the longest-running folk music festivals in the US.  George Britton, who helped to found the Folksong Society and the Fest was my guitar teacher in elementary school.  His influence on me continues to this day!  I’ve been attending each year for almost 20 years now.

In addition to the Gunthers and the Bacchus Boys, I look forward to catching up with friends and luminaries between listening to music, eating, dancing, people watching, and occasionally sleeping.  This time around I encountered Val Vuolo, John Flynn, Miles Thompson, Val Gorski, Christine Lavin and I got the privilege of sitting on the side of the stage to watch a real master, Livingston Taylor, charm the crowd.

After losing two years of the Fest to COVID, this was a critical year for the Folksong Society to recoup some of its losses and to re-engage fest goers.  The addition of Arrested Development, Michael Franti, along with Tom Rush, Livingston Taylor and the Punch Brothers stretched the traditional boundaries of Folk, and offered something new to a new generation of Fest-goers.