What the Folk?

Hello good readers, and happy Winter!  We have barely had a Winter here in Kansas City, with much higher than normal temperatures all season, and a measly 5 inches of snow, total.  I've only gotten to wear my favorite Winter coat, a kick-a** Montgomery Duffel Coat, for about 4 days.  Der Bingle loves temps in the teens, and we've had very few of those this season.

But enough about the weather.  I'm going to temporarily change directions here at the ol' blog, for a handful of posts over the next few weeks.  I went to the Folk Alliance International conference's Folk Fest last week, in it's 3rd year of (at least) a 5-year run here in KC, and got to see some extraordinary performers.  A $30 ticket bought 10AM-5PM access to music on 5 stages, with performers changing each hour.  I saw and talked to some great artists, and I'm going to take the next several posts and let you all know about them.

For tonight, as an into, here are some pictures from the Folk Fest.

 From the Sunday morning gospel brunch!

Sara Morgan, Arkansas-born, now Kansas City based, with dreams of performing at the Grand Ol' Opry.

The group known as Ayllu, with performers from Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, and midtown Kansas City.  They play South American-inspired music, and are all multi-instrumentalists, frequently within a single song.  Their set was absolutely smokin'!

Local musical extraordinaire Mikal Shapiro, playing with Ayllu.

The Young Novelists, a folk duo from Toronto.  More about them in a later post.