The Brooklyn Folk Festival holds its 15th edition this year on November 10-12 at St Ann’s Church. Tickets are on sale now. To celebrate the milestone, they’re presenting a Folkways Records 75th anniversary celebration, including an all-day centennial tribute to Harry Smith, who curated Folkways’ iconic Anthology of American Folk Music series.
The Harry Smith tribute is on 11/11 and will start with a “reenactment” of The Anthology of American Folk Music, Volume Three, with BFF artists covering the album in full. Then New York Dolls frontman David Johansen will perform with his early-2000s band The Harry Smiths. There will also be a screening of Harry Smith’s “Early Abstractions” films with a live improvised score by Peter Stampfel (The Fugs) and friends.
Meanwhile, upstairs at St. Ann’s they will present “Treasures from the Archives,” a program of “rare and video shorts and audio interviews including excerpts from Smith’s seminal interview with John Cohen for Sing out! magazine, a video interview with John Cohen and excerpts from a rare Harry Smith interview with P. Adams Sitney from the 1970s.” Special guests are still TBA. There will also be a reading and conversation with biographer John Szwed about his new book Harry Smith: Cosmic Scholar with Harry Smith Archives Director Rani Singh.
The “Celebrating 75 Years of Folkways Records” programming also includes Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Alice Gerrard, Peggy Seeger, Sonia Sanchez, The Fugs, Charlie Parr, Jake Blount, and Dom Flemons, and other Brooklyn Folk Fest 2023 performers include Jake Xerxes Fussel, Nora Brown, Kashiah Hunter & the Sacred Sounds, Larry & Joe, Hurray for the Riff Raff’s Alynda Segarra, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, and more.
Tickets for the 2023 Brooklyn Folk Festival are on sale now. Check out the lineup below and for full details/schedule visit the BFF website.
BROOKLYN FOLK FEST 2023 LINEUP
David Johansen
Ramblin’ Jack Elliot
Alice Gerrard
Peggy Seeger
Sonia Sanchez
The Fugs
Charlie Parr
Jake Blount
Dom Flemons
Nora Brown
Jake Xerxes Fussell
Kashiah Hunter & the Sacred Sounds
Larry & Joe
Alynda Segarra
Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton
Erik Frandsen
Down Hill Strugglers
Songs of Slavery and Emancipation
Felipe Perez y Sus Polkeros
Sandy Rogers
Wyndham Baird
Fatboy Wilson & Old Viejo Bones
Ali Dineen
Feral Foster
Mamie Minch
Jackson Lynch Band
Katie Martucci
Albanie Falletta
Kyle Tigges
Wolf van Elfmand
Beareather Reddy
Samoa Wilson Trio
Barry Clyde
Hopalong Andrew
The Jalopy Chorus
Peter Stampfel
Lone Piñon
