Books&writers

BOOK REVIEW Joni Mitchell at the Mariposa Folk Festival in 1970. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.

Massimo – as does Hill – examines the minutiae of running a festival. The parallels between the two events are striking: both started within two years of each other, both in resort towns, and both at times succumbed to the in-fighting and limited revenue streams most non-profits face at some point. Each held to the premise that no artist, regardless of stature, should be given preferential treatment – or more money. Part of the festivals’ early ethos was that folk was music of the people, and all people should be treated equally. That sure keeps the costs low.

While Massimo provides the context above, Hill offers more details, having scoured the Mariposa archives at York University for past correspondence, invoices, programs, photos and more. His work is in part indebted to the groundbreaking research of Mariposa scholar Sija Tsai, but owes much to his own role as current Artistic Director of the festival as well. At times, the discussion gets a little too inside-baseball, which will appeal less to the general music reader and more to those curious about folk music’s inner dynamics or the battles of running a festival. However, if you have any friends in the Canadian folk music community, you’re bound to find them quoted in Hill’s lengthy – and often entertaining – interviews.

As both Mariposa and Newport round the corner towards their 60th birthdays, perhaps newbie festivals can look to their history for advice on what and what not to do in order to keep appealing to a fickle public. Keep talking about music, ask what it means, allow it to change. Folk music can offer a barometer for understanding our relationship to popular music at large; a kind of conscience by which we measure our treatment of artists or the political climate. The festival is a product of our time: a yearning for connection with fellow listeners when music has otherwise been siphoned into individualized experience. It’s also the result of trying to keep music a commodity, a way to pay our musicians’ rent, when all other commercial models have failed. We need the festival for both of these reasons, but we cannot assume the audience is uncritical in their engagement with it. The fact that Mariposa and Newport are still around while other festivals crash and burn demonstrate the need to keep adapting, letting go of outdated ideas of what music is supposed to be, and listening to the listeners.