Alejandro Escovedo tops list of final wave of Philly Folk Fest headliners
The Mexican American rocker has been added to the bill, along with bluegrass, Irish music, Creole and Sacred Steel bands.
The final list of main stage headliners at the Philadelphia Folk Festival is in, and Alejandro Escovedo tops it.
Austin, Tex. based Mexican American rocker Escovedo will be joined by five more new additions when the Folk Fest returns from Aug. 15-17. Cedric Watson et Bijou Creole is a band fronted by San Felipe, Tex. born and Lafayette, La. based accordion player Watson, who specializes in blues and R&B influenced zydeco.
Eileen Ivers is an fiddle player who is a founder of the Irish music band, Cherish the Ladies. Upstate New York sibling band the Gibson Brothers is a veteran bluegrass outfit.
The Lee Boys is a funk and soul Sacred Steel band from Miami. And Ordinary Elephant is the wife and husband folk duo of Crystal and Pete Damore.
Philly songwriter John Flynn will also perform, and emcee the main stage.
Escovedo’s long musical history goes back to his 1970s San Francisco punk band the Nuns, through his 1980s cowpunk days with Rank and File and Austin guitar army True Believers, as wells as a decades of a long solo career during which he’s collaborated with Bruce Springsteen and John Cale, among others.
In recent years, he’s made timely music about the immigrant experience with Italian band Don Antonio, and he played a terrific show this spring at City Winery Philadelphia in which he mixed music with stories from his life, which he is working into a one-man theatre piece.
The new additions will join previously announced acts including John Gorka, Sonia Disappear Fear, Irish music traditionalist Solas, author and musician Elijah Wald, and hip-hop and harp duo Kuf Knotz and Christine Elise.
Also on the bill are bluegrass banjo player Alison Brown, folk multi-instrumentalist John McCutcheon, acclaimed Oklahoma songwriter John Moreland, blues and folk duo Tim O’Brien with Jan Fabricius, and singer-guitarist Reggie Harris.
The list of new additions includes three married couples in folkies Robin and Linda Williams, folk rockers Pete and Maura Kennedy of the Kennedys, and Goldpine, the Americana duo comprising Kassie and Benjamin Wilson.
The Folk Fest happens at the Old Pool Farm in Upper Salford near Schwenksville in Montgomery County. Tickets are available at folkfest.org