THANK YOU TO ALL OUR FESTIVAL SPONSORS Presenting Sponsor Producers Circle Design Sponsor Applauders Circle Sponsors Circle Media Partners Welcome to the 44th Ann Arbor Folk Festival This year The Ark presents an Ann Arbor Folk Festival like no other: a musical feast delivered to you at home, wherever that happens to be. In 2020 we counted ourselves lucky to have presented the Ann Arbor Folk Festival before Covid-19 arrived and changed the landscape so completely. This year, with venues shuttered and tours canceled, we’re thrilled to be able to present the Folk Festival at all. We’re deeply grateful to our Presenting Sponsor, Ford Motor Company Fund, and to all of our corporate partners for making this virtual production possible. And this year’s artists? We can’t thank them enough for bringing all this music to us at a time when we need it most. Although we miss being together in person, the virtual format does have some advantages: the 44th Ann Arbor Folk Festival is packed with nearly twice the number of artists we’re usually able to present. Featuring some of our closest Ark Family as well as a few artists we’re just getting to know, this year’s Folk Fest promises to be one for the ages. Another advantage to the virtual format: you can enjoy the program for a full week following the initial broadcast. In addition to showcasing some of the finest folk- and roots-based artists playing today, the Ann Arbor Folk Festival is The Ark’s largest annual fundraising event, typically supporting our presentation of over 300 shows each year in the 400-seat Ford Listening Room at The Ark. This year funds from the Folk Fest are more important than ever as we develop new ways in the pandemic environment to continue delivering our mission of enriching the human spirit through the power of music. Thank you for loving and supporting this music and The Ark in all the ways you do. Live music will be back. We’ll be ready! In the meantime, we invite you to put up your feet, turn up the volume and find your folk from the comfort of your home. Be well, Marianne James, Executive Director Anya Siglin, Program Director Charlotte Csicsila, Development Director Barb Chaffer Authier, Marketing Director Tom Stoll, Annual Giving Manager Emily Jo Ross, Operations Director Kathy Stanecki, Accountant Alison Reed, House Manager Karen Hillegonds, Office Manager Joe Giese, Technical Manager Allison Morris, Development Assistant Jennifer Durr, Peggy Geeseman, Tim Joy, Night Managers Dedication John Prine October 10, 1946–April 7, 2020 When we say The Ark wouldn’t be what it is today without John Prine, that’s not just a figure of speech. John Prine was the headliner for the very first Ann Arbor Folk Festival in 1976, at a time when the club was deep in debt, and closing the doors was a distinct possibility. And he played for free, asking only that his transportation be covered. People sometimes ask us for inside information on what Ark performers are like, but the onstage John Prine, bemused yet warm, was the real John Prine. “John was just one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet,” then program director Dave Siglin told the Ann Arbor News. “He was wide open—you could just walk up to him and talk to him. Total strangers could talk to him, and he was kind of shy, but he liked people and he always gave 100% in every performance.” John Prine started out as a folk-singing mailman in Chicago’s south suburbs, appearing in small clubs in the glory days of Chicago’s folk scene. His first newspaper review, in 1970, came from the pen of film-critic-to-be Roger Ebert, who wrote, “He appears on stage with such modesty he almost seems to be backing into the spotlight. He sings rather quietly, and his guitar work is good, but he doesn’t show off. He starts slow. But after a song or two, even the drunks in the room begin to listen to his lyrics. And then he has you.” John played many shows at The Ark, the Michigan Theater, and the Folk Festival (in 1976, 1989, 2007, and 2018). Each time he came with some new life lessons and hard-earned wisdom under his belt. But in some ways, John Prine really never changed much at all. Songs from all phases of his life have an instantly identifiable mixture of streetwise humor and untrammeled imagination. And there was always something new to find in the classics that made him famous—slices of life like “Dear Abby,” take-no-prisoners antiwar pieces like “Sam Stone,” anthems for the try-to-stay-sane generation like “Spanish Pipedream (Blow Up Your TV),” portraits of everyday desperation like “Angel from Montgomery,” the widely covered “Hello in There,” which is the definitive song about old age, and profound little bits of fantasy like “Clocks and Spoons.” He spoke to the everyday experience of ordinary people with a simple honesty and an extraordinary ability to reach the heart of the listener. John released 18 albums, including one with bluegrass great Mac Wiseman, and each one is an American treasure. He beat cancer twice but was felled by COVID-19 on April 7, 2020. Later in life, honors poured in. Bob Dylan called his songs “pure Proustian existentialism.” He won three Grammy awards, including a 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award, and was nominated 11 times (next week, the win total may be boosted). He was the first songwriter to perform at the Library of Congress, and in 2016 he won the prestigious PEN New England’s Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence Award. But to us he’ll always be the artist who seized the rudder and steered us through stormy seas, early in the days of The Ark. On Sunday, Janaury 31, 2021, many beloved musicians with Michigan roots will pay tribute to John Prine by offering covers of his classic songs. Tickets to this livestreamed performance are available via the Ark website at theark.org/folk-festival The tribute will be available for rebroadcast through February 7. In Memoriam Each year as Folk Festival approaches, we at The Ark think of the long parade of musicians who have made the club what it is, and we take a moment to reflect on the ones we lost over the past year—the creative figures who’ve played The Ark, appeared at the Folk Festival, or just helped shape the genres that nurture the club and its audiences. The toll over the last year, partly because of the coronavirus pandemic, has been especially difficult. We dedicate the 2021 Ann Arbor Folk Festival to the memory of John Prine, without whom The Ark would not be what it is today. The worlds of country and bluegrass were especially hard hit in 2020. We lost the rough-hewn country poet Billy Joe Shaver, a songwriting genius whose outlook lay behind the entire outlaw country movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Billy Joe performed into great old age, and we were lucky to host him for several Ark shows including a memorable Fall Fundraiser. The bluegrass guitarist and singer Tony Rice played The Ark numerous times in at least five different bands. His genius extended from traditional bluegrass to the far edges of contemporary styles, and he has set the standard for every bluegrass guitarist who’s played The Ark since his heyday and influenced plenty of players outside the genre. Jerry Jeff Walker’s songbag, as anyone lucky enough to have heard him at The Ark knows, was much deeper than “Mr. Bojangles,” and his influence on the Texas songwriting tradition was profound. “I used to follow Jerry Jeff around like a Deadhead,” says Todd Snider. Hal Ketchum was the king of country singer-songwriters in the 1990s and played some fine intimate shows at The Ark. The career of Justin Townes Earle was still on the rise at the time of his tragic death, and we are proud to have brought his music to the world at three Ark shows and a Folk Festival appearance. And Steve Gulley was a member of the bluegrass band Mountain Heart that played roof-raising shows that have made the band a perennial Ark favorite. We lost several great folk songwriters in 2020. Chicago’s Michael Smith, composer of “The Dutchman” and in the words of Sing Out! “one of the few undisputed geniuses among singer-songwriters,” was a fixture at The Ark for many years. David Olney appeared at The Ark and penned songs recorded by Del McCoury, Emmylou Harris, and Steve Earle. Texas songwriter Eric Taylor had his songs recorded by Nanci Griffith and Lyle Lovett, and he appeared at The Ark in the early 2000s. And Canadian folk songwriter Laura Smith played The Ark in the 1980s. We were lucky enough to hear the great Joseph Shabalala at The Ark—he was still performing with Ladysmith Black Mambazo when they played The Ark in 2001. And an offbeat Ark show vividly remembered by anyone there was that of Angolan singer and guitarist Waldemar Bastos in 2018. We note with sadness the passing of several artists who took to the Ark stage as part of larger groups: Judy Dyble (Fairport Convention), Bill Eaglesham (bass player with James Keelaghan), Peter Ecklund (trumpeter for David Bromberg and others), and Bob Shane (The Kingston Trio). And two local theatrical veterans who performed at The Ark have passed on. Bob Beaupre was an Ann Arbor professional actor who did a one-man show in the late 1980s about Ernest Hemingway, called Hem.