San Francisco Folk Music Club presents Sat. & Sun., June 21 & 22, 2014 noon to 10:00 p.m. Presidio Middle School 450 30th Ave. (near Geary), San Francisco 4 stages with music and dance performers Evening concerts ♦ 54 music workshops ♦ Open mic 12 scheduled jams as well as impromptu jamming 36 dance workshops ♦ Evening dance parties Singing ♦ Singer‐songwriters ♦ Family program ALL EVENTS FREE! ALL AGES WELCOME! Details online at www.sffolkfest.org How can you help? We’re glad you asked! 1) Help the planning committee The festival planning has been going on since December. Depending on your skills, your interests, and the time you have available, there are many ways you can help with the planning process. Committee meeting attendance is not required! Look on the website (www.sffolkfest.org, Festival Support Volunteer Pre‐Festival Volunteer Opportunities) to see the list of positions that are open, and email the festival directors at sffff‐[email protected]. 2) Volunteer at the festival With almost 150 volunteer shifts to fill, we need your help — setup & takedown, parking lot, greeters, instrument check, info and sales tables, kids’ crafts, raffle ticket sales. Sign up for as few or as many two‐hour shifts as you like. Email our volunteer coordinator at sffff‐[email protected]. 3) Be on the stage crew We need to staff 3 live performance stages with MCs, sound mixer board operators, and sound assistants. Any prior hands‐on experience considered. For sound positions, this includes audio students, home recording and live music/band sound experience. Send an e‐mail describing your interest and experience to sffff‐[email protected]. folknik www.sffmc.org Volume L, Number 3 newsle�er of the San Francisco Folk Music Club May/June 2014 friends and families making home-grown music together Oh, Come Angel Band... July � Campout—Boulder Creek About �� years ago we printed in the folknik a poem The SFFMC campout will once again be in the red- by Ed Bronstein. It was inspired by our Friday night woods at the Boulder Creek Scout Reservation—the sings and the picture which was painted, and still same place as last year’s July �th and Labor Day appears, on my front window here at ��� Clayton. campouts. It’s about a mile from Boulder Creek, The picture is a copy of a several-centuries-old off Bear Creek Road. The address: ��� Scout Ranch woodcut which shows some androgynous angels Road. See the a�ached flyer on the front of this playing a variety of musical instruments. folknik for a map. Ed repeated the poem at my ��th birthday party D����: The camp will be for three nights: Friday, and there was hardly a dry eye in the house! July � beginning at �:�� ��, Saturday, July �, AND (A lot of old timers were there.) —Faith Petric Sunday night, July �. Leave Monday, July � at ��:�� ��. This is a new checkout time. Editor’s note: It is now about �� years since this poem was first printed in the folknik and it’s part of SFFMC N�� R����: Adults: ���/night per person, kids history. Faith’s note above is from a previous reprint. under ��: ��/night per person, up to two kids in a They were ordinary people; they did ordinary things family. Additional kids in the same family are free. Yet, one night they sang together and they heard the Day use: ���/person. rush of wings. R�����������: Again, no advance registration. It all began one evening when they met, as friends Register at camp only. It’s first-come, first-serve for will do, campsites and tent cabins. There are about �� tent To share a bit of wine and cheese and sing a song or two cabins, which are usually enough for those who But the hour grew late in singing and dawn crept ‘cross the land want them. To find them still in harmony singing Angel Band. Activities There was no reason to stay so late, there were other J��� ��� ���������: Informal jams in the day- things to do time and around the campfires at night, two nights Yet a spirit had come upon them —made them sing of open mics, and varied workshops. We’re planning the whole night through workshops on various topics: two and three-chord With not a thought that they were caught they sang songs, songs Faith sang, songs from Rise Up Singing, all night and then When further met, enraptured yet, they sang all night beginning guitar, and many more. Some sugges- again. tions: songs of the Carter family, Malvina Reynolds, You and I, we were there too, all standing hand in hand Bill Staines, and instrument instruction. Our voices raised into the night singing Angel Band. Anyone can lead a workshop. If you’d like to lead The night was made for singing with candles flicker- one, or have suggestions for a topic, email Phyllis ing low at [email protected] or sign up at camp at As voices merge and mingle in the firelight glow the workshop bulletin board near the registration The good and gracious lady at whose home we sang table. ‘til dawn Cried, “You’ve made this house a house of song! Let it We will schedule them at camp. be so from now on.” O��� ����: Usually the second and third nights of It was then that on her window, by some invisible hand camp, about �:�� �� at the main outdoor amphithe- A picture was painted for all to see: there stood The Angel Band ater. A sign-up list will be at the registration table. Oh, Friends, the glass may someday break or the S�������: Bring your swimsuit! The July �th painting fade from sight (continued page 8: July 4th Camp) But still the spirit will remain that makes us sing all night Fold-in/Folk Sing Sun, June 29 And we will live, and love, and laugh, and sing The fold-in is at noon, on Sunday, June ��, at because we must, the home of Marv Sternberg & Shary Levy, ���� Further dawns are ours to see before we turn to dust- Cedar St., Berkeley, ���-���-����. For there are songs yet to be sung and great things to be planned Help with the folknik, enjoy a meal a�erwards, Before we go to Paradise to join The Angel Band. and make music. Bring a potluck dish and instruments. the folknik, Volume L, Number 3 Page 4 May/June 2014 Reviews & Reminiscences Pete Seeger is still in our thoughts, and as promised last time, we have a second brief remembrance of Pete from Bob Reid. Thanks again to Bob for sharing his thoughts. Just arrived at Page 4 Headquarters and available for review (Send an e-mail to Beth Berkelhammer, folknik Page 4 editor, if you are interested in reviewing the following): RICK PARK, Mr. Gen-U-Wine Plays Bottleneck Slide Guitar. Woodlark Music. Booklet of 11 songs and tunes, most of them Rick’s originals, with accompanying music CD. Both standard notation and guitar tab are provided, plus lyrics. Writes Rick: “We’re pleased to present this little package as a slide-guitar playing method that can be used by almost anyone, and applied to virtually any type of music: folk, country, blues, ‘Hawaiian,’ even some classical or steel-string instrumental styles.” To learn more about Rick’s music, poetry, artwork, or his Gen-U-Wine Bottleneck Guitar Slides (“82,000 sold since 1974”), visit www.rickparkarts.com. Got a new CD or book we should know about? Mail review items to Beth in care of the SFFMC. Your book or CD will be listed here, and claimed (we hope but cannot promise) by a willing reviewer. Send your reviews via e-mail to [email protected]. Please enclose your review in the body of your e-mail or attach it in a Word file; 250 to 400 words is an appropriate length for a review. REID ON SEEGER, REDUX large extended family. They taught me so much that my It feels to me like Pete was always a part of my life. As a life has been bursting to use it and has become bigger kid I listened to his records. When I was about 12, I went because of it. Getting to travel, cut wood, sail, sing with to a private summer-school program in an old farmhouse Pete, and to watch Toshi operate her artistic touch with the out in the country. They took us on field trips. I remember telephone and food . I saw the power of their a day making a tour of Beniamino Bufano’s sculptures partnership and their love. around San Francisco, then winding up at his studio and Pete told me many things, most I struggle to remember, having him show us around. One of our field trips was to but he said that the money that his music has brought in the Berkeley Folk Festival, which took place at U.C. has allowed him to spend 10 percent of his time on music Berkeley, but it wasn’t held in a concert hall. It was held and 90 percent of his time on what is important. in classrooms and hallways. I heard the bluegrass and old- —Bob Reid timey music of the New Lost City Ramblers, with their CHARLIE KING, So Far, So Good lovely harmonies. I remember Dev Singh, who played the Vaguely Reminiscent Sounds, 2013; www.charlieking.org mouth bow. This two-CD set is a collection of songs that Charlie King But most of all, I remember Pete Seeger. Here was this has written and performed over the last 40 years.