Jim Lipson suggests you get out a highlighter, a map of downtown and the schedule for this weekend’s Tucson Folk Festival.
You’ll need them to keep straight who’s playing where. There are 120 acts, from local favorites and regional darlings to national acts and more than a few star-studded moonlighters — musicians who step outside their normal roles as members of this band or that band to play together just for the thrill of creating something new. With the exception of headliners — John McCutcheon on Saturday, April 30, and Nancy McCallion and the Scarlet Lettermen on Sunday, May 1 — performances are 30 minutes and shows overlap.
“Invariably there’s conflicts. What I will do is take my program and circle what I want to see,” said Lipson, coordinator of the 31st annual festival, being held on five downtown stages Saturday and Sunday. “We identify some knowns and some unknowns. Sometimes you go to a stage and you’re like, ‘Nope, this isn’t what I was expecting,’ and you let your feet do your talking.”
Then there are the acts that stun you into staying, even if your grand plan called for sticking around for just a song or two then beelining for a stage across the way.
“If you can’t get to everybody that you want to see there’s usually a good reason for that and usually it’s because you see somebody that you’re wowed by. You had no idea coming in,” Lipson said.
Here are three shows Lipson said that will make the 2016 Tucson Folk Festival his hottest ticket in town.
- The Mollys’ Catherine Zavala and her Minute2Minute band, an eight-piece outfit that plays only a handful of gigs a year. On its Facebook page (facebook.com/m2mtucson), the group describes its music as babushka folk with a twist and defines itself as a “Pulk Fonk performance troupe entertaining you with a crazy jumbled-up mix of musical sights and sounds from around the globe.” See them: Closing the La Cocina stage at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
- Another of those cool moonlighting acts is Woven Oak Trio, comprised of Run Boy Run fiddler Matt Rolland, Ryanhood guitarist/mandolin player
- Ryan David Green and Sweet Ghosts bassist Ryan Alfred. See them: 5 p.m. Satuday on the Courtyard stage.
- Tucson singer-songwriter John Coinman can probably count on one hand — maybe a hand an a half — the times he plays gigs each year in his hometown. He keeps pretty busy as Kevin Costner’s Modern West band leader and chief songwriter. Sometimes you can catch Coinman at Monterey Court. Once in a rare while you’ll find him at Club Congress downtown. But whenever he’s asked he clears his calendar for the Tucson Folk Festival. He headlined last year and this year closes out the Museum stage at 6:30 p.m. Sunday with his full band:
- Larry Cobb on drums,Blair Forward on bass, Neil Harry on steel guitar and Peter McLaughlin on acoustic guitar.
