The audience in the rain in 1997 at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.R Tinker/Supplied
It was supposed to be a one-off. The first Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1974 was a free three-day event called the Winnipeg Centennial Folksong Festival, in celebration of the city’s 100th anniversary. At the end of the weekend, songster Leon Redbone earned a 20-minute standing ovation.
They’re still clapping.
On July 10-13, the Prairie institution celebrates its 50th edition of songs, folk music fellowship and unpredictable weather. The festival was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The 50th anniversary is great, but in a world where the Regina Folk Festival was just shut down, I think just putting this on every year is an amazing feat by a bunch of dedicated humans,” says Chris Frayer, Winnipeg Folk’s artistic director since 2005. “It’s a testament to the community.”
Seventy-eight acts will play on nine stages during the festival, which starts with an evening concert headlined by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit on Thursday. Among the other scheduled performers at Birds Hill Provincial Park are Fred Penner, Allison Russell, Ani DiFranco, Peach Pit, Waxahatchee, Bruce Cockburn, Begonia and Lake Street Dive.
In honour of the event, we’ve compiled a list of landmark moments in the festival’s history.
Bruce Cockburn was one of the headliners at the first Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1974.Supplied
1974: The first festival
Two of the big names at the inaugural event were rising singer-songwriters Bruce Cockburn and Murray McLauchlan, both managed by Bernie Finkelstein, who, while pleased to see two of his artists headline the bill, wasn’t sure what he was getting them into.
“People in Canada didn’t really know what a festival was really, and I’m not sure I did either,” Finkelstein says. “I remember there was a tremendous number of mosquitos. But Bruce and Murray were fabulous, and the people loved it.”
Co-host Peter Gzowski was among the enthused. At the end of the event, he announced that the festival was too good to let go and he was donating his paycheque to keep it alive. People in the crowd reacted, waving money in the air. Organizers grabbed baskets to collect it – there would be a second festival, and, it turns out, 48 more and counting.
1985: Pete Seeger, k.d. lang and concession stand Canadiana
Pete Seeger performing as it rains at the 1985 festival.RTinker/Supplied
It rained, not uncommon at Winnipeg Folk. Pete Seeger, an old hand at this, switched from guitar to banjo – he didn’t mind the hillbilly instrument getting wet.
A young k.d. lang, who a year earlier had released her first album with the Reclines, A Truly Western Experience, made her festival debut. And at the concession stands, a Canadiana calamity: the fried dough treat known as elephant ears had its name changed to whale’s tails.
1987: Rosalie Goldstein succeeds Mitch Podolak as artistic director
Bus service from the city to the festival site was introduced, with new artistic director Rosalie Goldstein metaphorically in the driver’s seat having succeeded co-founder Mitch Podolak.
Podolak had created a festival model built on a sense of community and a battalion of volunteers. “Folk festivals are utopian at heart,” the late populist told The Globe and Mail in 1998.
Goldstein introduced daring eclecticism to programming that embraced the global music rage of the era. She booked Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the South African male choral group that gained international notice after singing on Paul Simon’s 1986 album Graceland.
Rosalie Goldstein (right) succeeded festival co-founder Mitch Podolak (left) as creative director in 1987.T Galbraith/Supplied
1990: Happy campers
The festival’s campground culture took hold in the 1990s. Overnight attendees decorated campsites and had jam sessions after the day’s scheduled performances were done.
“Initially it was just utility camping, a place for you to lay your head at the end of the night,” Frayer says. “But eventually the campground became a festival within a festival, with its own mini-store, a place to fix your bicycle and buy pizza.”
In recent years the festival has trimmed back some of the campsite extracurriculars: “We’re best at hosting people at the festival site itself,” Frayer says. ”We want people to hear the music.”
1992: Controversy as Pierre Guérin succeeds Rosalie Goldstein
Goldstein, described in a 1992 Globe story as a “brash, passionate, cheerfully outspoken ball of energy,” was dismissed after the 1991 festival. Officially, the reason given for her ouster was budget overspending. Unofficially, she clashed with board members on such innovations as beer tents.
“I’ve shed all the tears I’m going to shed about this,” Goldstein told The Globe after the firing. “I’ll stand on my record. I know I have good ears and I’m proud of the festivals I’ve programmed.”
Ani DiFranco and Barenaked Ladies made their festival debuts.
Pierre Guerin, pictured in 1994, took over Goldstein’s role at the festival in 1992.G Ainsworth/Supplied
1998: A festival turns 25
A live CD recorded during the 1997 festival was released, Cockburn returned after a 14-year hiatus and DiFranco made her fourth and final appearance of the decade. The programming was much more adventurous than the traditional acoustic folk from a quarter-decade earlier.
Upon the festival’s 25th anniversary, Guérin, artistic director from 1992 to 2000, began to tell people that it’s not a folk music festival, it’s a folk festival: “That allows us to present a variety of music that is aware of its roots without being hard-core, traditional, acoustic music.”
Singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco in 1998 at the Winnipeg Folk Festival.D McKnight/Supplied
2008: Rain fails to dampen enthusiasm, and Ray Davies works out the kinks
Soggy weather caused organizers to move Saturday mainstage programming to a smaller stage. On early Sunday, when the rain stopped, cars jammed the road into the festival as people returned.
“It was a perfect summer day, and the festival finished in fine form,” Frayer says. “Ray Davies opened with Waterloo Sunset and played a lot of Kinks’ classics.”
2014: A backstage meeting leads to a Grammy Award
Backstage, Joey and David Landreth of Winnipeg folk-rockers the Bros. Landreth handed bluesy U.S. singer-guitarist Bonnie Raitt a copy of their CD Let it Lie. Nine years later, Raitt won a Grammy Award for her cover of the Let it Lie song Made Up Mind.
“I wanna thank the Bros. Landreth for writing this kick-ass song,” Raitt said in her acceptance speech for best Americana performance.
Frayer, who witnessed the meeting of Raitt and the songwriting brothers, says a byproduct of festivals is artists getting to meet and talk with each other: “There is a lot of special stuff that happens at festivals because artists get to hang around a bit.”
Bonnie Raitt won a Grammy Award for her cover of a Bros. Landreth song nine years after meeting the duo at the Winnipeg Folk Festival.Supplied
2015: All is kosher with Arlo Guthrie
Elman’s kosher pickles have been a beloved fixture in Winnipeg refrigerators for decades. A plan was hatched to throw sample packages of cucumber products into the audience when Arlo Guthrie played 1967’s The Motorcycle Song, on which he dared to rhyme “pickle” with “motor-sickle.”
But Guthrie said he didn’t want to play the tune, which put Frayer in, well, a bit of a pickle. Fortunately, the Alice’s Restaurant’s singer was joking.
“He played it, and it was great,” Frayer says. “It was a fun, participatory gag. People who were there will always associate Elman’s pickles with Arlo.”
2023: Local artist Boy Golden saves the day
Local musician Boy Golden filled in with just a days notice in 2023 at the Winnipeg Folk Festival.Matthew S. Duboff/Supplied
On the festival weekend’s Friday night, local alt-country musician Boy Golden (the stage name of Liam Duncan) received a frantic text from his agent asking if he could get his band together to play the next night in place of cancelled headliner Sierra Ferrell. On short notice, Boy Golden filled in.
“It was an opportunity that could only happen by fluke, but it ended up being a pivotal moment for us in our scene,” he says.
Boy Golden was born and raised in Brandon, a two-hour drive from the province’s capital. He has attended the festival all his life and says his CD collection and eclectic taste in music would not have happened if not for the festival’s merchandise tables.
“The music I purchased at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, I would not have been able to find in Brandon. My parents are going this year, and so am I.”
The Winnipeg Folk Festival takes place July 10-13. Information at winnipegfolkfestival.ca.
