Festival Blog
No Depression: Doug Heselgrave
Chick Magnets: Calgary Folk Festival - Saturday evening - The Head and the Heart/kd lang
"Look at you Calgary! You're so grown up" - kd lang from the mainstage Saturday night
It's true. Calgary has had image problems ever since I can remember. Most famous for its beef, cowboys and rodeos, it's been an uphill climb for the frontier city to get any respect. As an editorial in The Calgary Herald noted on Sunday, most people in the world think 'Alberta' is a song by Eric Clapton and have no idea that it's a place where millions of people have made their homes....
“It’s a Godly Thing” –Ernest Ranglin and Jason Wilson in conversation
In a perfect world, Ernest Ranglin would need no introduction. The 79 year old Jamaican guitarist has made inestimable contributions to the development of ska and reggae music – having played on hundreds of seminal recordings as well as famously tutoring Bob Marley on his guitar technique – but sadly many people in the larger musical community have still never heard of him...
The Calgary Folk Music Festival - Saturday
After the cold and rainy weather yesterday, I didn't know how much music I'd be able to take in today, but as I'm a guest of the festival, I thought it best to head down to the site early. So, with a pack full of almost all the clothes I brought with me, I began to walk the mile or so from the hotel to Prince's Park. At first, light rain threatened to ruin my resolve, but the closer I got to the site, the sunnier it got. By the time I was at the entrance, swarms of people in short pants and t shirts appeared from every direction and this welcome sight along with the sounds of busker banjos in the air, immediately put me in a much better mood...
"ohhh the wind and rain" - The Calgary Folk Festival - Day One preview
Friday afternoon
Call me an optimist. It had been raining on and off for two weeks in BC, but miraculously the weather has co-operated with me up until now as far as going to music festivals is concerned. Having spent the last two weekends at The Vancouver Island Music Festival and Vancouver Folk Music Festival respectively where I remained miraculously untouched by the inclement weather, I guess I was feeling a little cocky when I packed my bags for Calgary. I left my raincoat at home (something a Vancouverite rarely does) and got onto the airplane in shorts and a T shirt and packed little else for my two day visit to Calgary’s growing Folk Music Festival. It’s been hammering rain for hours, black clouds are moving across the sky and the crackle of thunder and lightning are everywhere. Somehow, I thought that I would encounter one of those prairie heatwaves that Alberta is famous for. No such luck so far....
