It happens a lot when I talk with artists about the Newport Folk Festival, and this year it even happened on stage – people think that the festival has always been at Fort Adams, and that they are, for example, standing on the actual stage where Bob Dylan went electric, or are walking through the same backstage arch that Mississippi John Hurt passed under.
It pains me to tell people that the festival moment they’re remembering happened at Freebody Park, or at Festival Field off Connell Highway. But this year’s Newport Folk Festival was capped off by a moment that recalled someone who had actually stood on that particular stage and was no longer with us.
The festival ended on Sunday, July 28, with an hour-plus sing-along tribute celebrating the centennial of Pete Seeger, who died in 2014. And the finale was a success, in that it produced some lovely moments while at the same time proving how much Seeger was missed.
While the finale opened with Kermit the Frog and Jim James on “The Rainbow Connection,” the best moments came on songs Seeger made his own, such as “If I Had a Hammer,” sung by Alyndra Lee Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff and Brandi Carlile, the curator of Saturday’s finale, as well as a high-octane version of “We Shall Overcome” by The Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Rachael Price, of Lake Street Dive. Chris Funk, of The Decemberists, quarterbacked the final segment indefatigably, and the diversity of the performers, especially on Seeger’s signature songs, made a statement the man himself would have approved of.
I appreciated the widening of what’s considered a sing-along repertoire, especially “Everyday People,” performed by Lake Street Dive and Hozier around one mike, and Native Daughter’s “If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus.”
But some moments were a little impractical – it was great to see “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” sung to Judy Collins herself, by a collection of singers including Robin Pecknold, of Fleet Foxes, and James Mercer, of The Shins, but is it really a sing-along? Or “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” for that matter? (Even with a passport-style songbook handed out by the organizers, those aren’t easy to keep up with.) And while they didn’t play “Under My Thumb,” for the love of God who put it on the list? That song was a problem more than a half-century ago.
And the festival ended the only way it could have – with all remaining performers on stage. But they served mostly as chorus shouters to the unstoppable Ramblin’ Jack Elliott on (what else?) “Goodnight Irene.” For all the specificity that’s missing when performers relate Newport history – for all the times they stand at Fort Adams and remember something that happened in Freebody Park – it was odd how few times anyone referred to the fact that they were standing right where Seeger used to stand. I didn’t know Pete Seeger well, but I could feel his absence. And if I could picture the man, floppy hat, whispery voice and all, and tear up a bit, couldn’t everyone?
Rick Massimo 