Folk Alliance Day 1,, "Imagination Is a Discipline," the 2023 Folk Music Awards' Vision of Change

 

Sara Curruchich

“They say women hold up half the sky,” NPR's Ann Powers began at last night’s Folk Alliance International awards. She added, “They’re holding up more than half the sky tonight,” the comment met with exuberant cheers and applause.

The Alliance’s infrastructure has seemingly always been women. But with Board president Ashley Shabankareh replacing Amy Reitnouer Jacobs, and the Alliance’s new executive director Neeta Ragoowansi replacing Aengus Finnan, the women at the top of the organization are clearly holding their own.

Guatemalan singer Sara Curruchich opened the evening with an all-woman band—marimba, acoustic guitar, drums, and bass—performing the spirited, march-like, anthem, “Mujer Indigena.” Mujer Indigena video Janis Ian received two awards, one for lifetime achievement and one as artist of the year for her 2022 album The Light at the End of the Line. Most of the award recipients—including Leyla McCalla, Molly Tuttle, Anais Mitchell, Aoife O’Donovan, Marcy Marxer and Cathy Fink—were all women, and the evening closed with a tribute to John Prine that featured a surprise appearance by Iris DeMent.

Josh White, Jr. Sings "One Meatball"

But the award Powers gave was a posthumous lifetime achievement award for singer Josh White, given to his son Josh White Jr. After a touching tribute to his father—cast out on the road as a child by the de facto lynching of White’s own father into a rough and tumble youth witnessing “more violence than any child should see”—Josh White Jr. led the room in a sing along of his father’s biggest hit, the tragicomic “One Meatball.” Josh White Jr. Playing "One Meatball" a few years ago This was immediately followed by Leyla McCalla alone with her cello singing White’s “The Riddle Song.”  

Even Jimmy Lee Beason II, the representative of the Osage Nation who gave the land acknowledgment, cited a woman, Buffy Sainte-Marie, as the first artist who came to mind when he thought about his connection to folk music. He added that he thought of what he was doing as, “Not so much a land acknowledgment as a native people acknowledgement,” reminding those in attendance that “we’re still here, and still resisting” and recalling the crucial role played by folk in the 60s and 70s. He said the music “gave Native voices a platform that is still sorely needed.” 

Leyla McCalla Sings "The Riddle Song"

In her lifetime achievement award speech, Janis Ian echoed Beason’s call by stating how she’d always hoped to give “voice to the voiceless.” Ironically, 2022 was a year in which the “Seventeen” and “Society’s Child” singer both released what she feels is the best album she ever made, The Light at the End of the Line, and permanently lost her singing voice.

Ian reflected on the loss. “I don’t know what to say yet to be honest. It’s been less than six months,” but she added, “I came to a realization of how much time I wasted.”

Of course, she noted this is a feeling common to artists. “Artists are born looking at the hourglass and watching it run out. We measure time by how much we’ve accomplished of what we plan to accomplish.”

To help, Ian advised the artists in the room to, first, “Trust your talent”—to steer them to the uncomfortable places they need to go and to steer clear of business dealings that don’t feel right.

She also underscored the spirit of the evening with a call to “Be brave.” Recognizing, she had not always been particularly courageous herself, she had some thoughts about how to go about it. “If you pretend to be brave long enough,” Ian said, “You will be brave.” Adding that heroic people have to act the part first. With a self-deprecating smile and an implied wink, she confided, “There’s more sleight of hand to this business of being a ‘legendary’ and ‘heroic’ person than you might think.”

Then, Providence, Rhode Island’s Jake Blount sang “Seventeen” before a performance by Irish singer Wallis Bird. With a gregarious laugh, Bird joked about the pressure she felt singing in front of Ian. She then moved the crowd to sing along with Ian’s 2022 “Better Times Will Come.” Janis Ian's "Better Times Will Come"

Wallis Bird sings "Better Times Will Come"

Tying themes together, People’s Voice Award winner Leyla McCalla quoted prison abolitionist Mariame Kaba with “Hope is a discipline.” McCalla then added “I believe that imagination is also a discipline.” She acknowledged that, though we live in a capitalist, colonized society that works to keep people from realizing their own power, “The work that we do as artists is the active undoing of this conditioning.” Furthering such connections, Dan Rafferty of the Shambala Festival (which received a sustainability award) said that the environmental solutions “are inseparable from the fight for social justice,” calling once again on the crowd “to bring about the change that’s sorely needed.”

Award shows are problematic events, honoring a handful of “stars” in their field while the breadth and the depth of the real community around any organization, certainly Folk Alliance, isn’t really made up of stars and is so much larger than any such show can convey. At their worst, such events tend to celebrate the wrong people. But what’s remarkable about the Folk Alliance awards each year is how it recognizes itself as setting the tone for a community bent on, sure, selling their work, but more generally striving to change the world.

The night ended with a tribute to perhaps the most unassuming practitioner of that vision, John Prine. The award went to Oh Boy, which reportedly is the second oldest indie label in the business. That took this writer back to both my delight and puzzlement finding a new John Prine album, Aimless Love, at a Stillwater, Oklahoma grocery store back in 1984. I thought maybe Prine lost his record deal. I was worried about him. Little did I know, Oh Boy would not only keep the rest of Prine’s career going but provide a venue for everyone from Todd Snider and Kelsey Waldon to Kris Kristofferson.

Iris DeMent, the Milk Carton Kids, and Company

Fiona Whelan Prine and Prine’s adopted son Jody Whelan accepted the award, Fiona declaring, “If John wasn’t folk, I don’t know what is.”  And Jody once again reminded the Folk Alliance of its power and potential.

“[Oh Boy] started with faith in the community, the fan community,” Whelan said. Then he added that the label would come to realize how much it needed “the larger community” to survive. To be clear, Whelan said, “The only place you could hear Oh Boy’s music was folk DJs.”

With that, the Milk Carton Kids played a cover of Prine’s “That’s the way that the world goes round” before backing Iris DeMent as she sang “Mexican Home.” Delight united the room as we celebrated “that sacred core that burns” inside us all.

The whole show is broadcast here: 2023 Folk Music Awards