Folk festival brings community together

As the last sweet notes of the 2009 Sisters Folk Festival linger in the air over our splendid high desert plateau, the music lovers reflect back on a triumphant weekend of transcendent American music.

"It's the most fun you can have in a two-llama town," quipped encore performer, Susan Werner.

It was all that and much, much more, bringing people together through the universal power of music.

"I am so excited to be back. This festival is a smorgasbord of surprises and delights," said Werner. "I love Sisters. It's like being in Disneyland. The Western buildings, everything so clean. Is this for real?"

After a tribute to the fallen heroes and innocent lives lost in the 9/11 disaster, Chicago-born Werner opened the festival Friday night on the Village Green main stage to a full house with her sultry songs of deliverance and barbed humor - "spirituals for the spiritually ambivalent," as she politely qualifies them.

Festival executive director Brad Tisdel says there is a galvanizing relationship between the organizers, the artists and the patrons that makes this festival so unique.

"We've gone to great lengths to ensure the music is the primary focus," he said. "The intimacy of the venues brings out the best in the performances. It's been a great turnout and we're really happy."

Texan Kevin Welch treated the audience to his inspired brand of true-blooded Americana ballads and shared thoughts on his rewarding time as an instructor at the Americana Song Academy at Caldera.

"It's the coolest school I've ever been to," Welch said. "A beautiful setting with the lake. And last night I got to sleep in a teepee."

Welch was accompanied by multifaceted virtuoso Fats Kaplin on violin and mandolin, blending seamlessly into Welch's gripping, intimate songwork steeped with Western iconography and rugged individualism.

It was a weekend of memorable images and impressions: A chocolate lab service dog crawling across the grass to lick a forgotten paper plate. Glinting Festival buttons pinned to skirts and hats.

Brewed soda on a summer night, couples holding hands on blankets, some napping, toes tapping. The infinite delight of roaring applause and lustful eyes admiring the gleaming display of Breedlove guitars.

Todd Snider laid the welcoming crowd out cold, closing the main stage show Friday night with a hilarious, biting set of raw story songs and ballads peppered with blunt observations stripped right from the headlines.

Nothing is sacred in Snider's arsenal. He's a rag-and-bone-shop poet armed with a guitar and harmonica. He flashes a sly smile and says, "I just make this (stuff) up and I sing it to anybody who will listen."

His tunes ranged from legendary high-flying bank robber, DB Cooper, to the Pittsburgh Pirates' Dock Ellis pitching a no-hitter on LSD, and a song about the federal investigation opened to determine the meaning of the slurred lyrics of The Kingsmen's '60s hit, "Louie Louie."

Over at Bronco Billy's, an irresistible confection called The Quebe Sisters Band had sparks shooting off their bows with some electrifying fiddle playing and old-fashioned harmonies.

The Western swing band hails from Fort Worth, Texas where the three shining sisters were each state and national fiddle champions.

Tremoloco served up the lunchtime blue plate special on the main stage Sunday, delivering a spicy set of East L.A. Tex-Mex tunes. Tall Angeleno bandleader, Tony Zamora, tipped his black Stetson and grinned.

"We've had an excellent time here in Sisters and hope to come back soon," he said.

Legendary bluegrass personality Peter Rowan invigorated the crowd Saturday night, following the Portland indie sensation Blind Pilot. The Belleville Outfit closed the Saturday night show with a set so full of danceable music that organizers removed rows of chairs to make room for dancers.

On Sunday, Tisdel, a bit weary but still going strong after three solid days of orchestration, smiled and said, "I see a lot of love here. There is a mysterious and magical beauty in the performances and the experience and interactions. As for the future, there's always room for improvement and upgrading. We will continue to evolve and deepen as opposed to expanding."

That's good news to an audience who echoed a recurring sentiment: "There's no place I'd rather be."