Newport Folk Festival

It was announced repeatedly that record numbers of people had flocked to the Newport Folk Festival this year, and each time the anouncement was made the crowds cheered themselves with an enthusiasm reserved only for artists of the most reknown. The success of the box office, however, did not insure the success of the festival, and the vast numbers in attendance were just so many witnesses to the end of an era and the demise of an institution.

Many of those who went to Newport this year did not do so to listen to folk music, and of the ones who did, a significant group found themselves generally bored with what was offered. The people were hungry for electronic devices and instruments, for electric music, and whenever such music was offered it was eaten up.

Even Ramblin Jack Elliot, an established and respected member of the folk community, could not resist the temptation to incorporate the elecric into his act--during his set in the Saturday night concert he brought two members of Taj Mahal's blues band on stage to accompany him on a number they obviously had not rehearsed beforehand.

The tone therefore had clearly changed since Bob Dylan's abortive performance in 1964 when he was hooted from the festival's stage because he appeared playing electric guitar accompanied by a rock band. Perhaps not strangely, with Dylan's return to grace, many unhappy aficionados spent a good portion of this year's festival waiting for and speculating on the possibility of his appearance. And with some of Dylan's more zealous followers speculation lapsed into exhortation and attempted conjuration. Nevertheless all such efforts failed.

A feeling of waiting and speculation permeated all the concerts, however, and this feeling made it difficult to enjoy or appreciate what actually was happening on the stage. The reason for this was partly due to the audience, its great impatience and at times actual rudeness, and partly to the directors' mismanagement. Too many artists were scheduled for any given concert and time was allocated insensitively. One could not help being disturbed when the Junior Wells-Buddy Guy Blues Band was hustled off the stage because time was pressing only to be subjected to forty minutes of Janis Ian's middle class, adolescent hang ups and juvenile polemic later in the evening.

The concerts were consistently troublesome with the exciting and moving exception of the tribute to Woody Guthrie which closed the festival. Though each concert was supposed to have its own unifying theme none came off as compositions, as coherent moments save the Guthrie tribute, which was extraordinary in its beauty--and that was because Woody's friends and son succeeded in bringing him to life: and he was an extraordinarily beautiful man and brilliant poet of America.

Each night's concert had high points and some performances are particularly worthy of note. Such was Richie Havens' performance Thursday night and it served to salvage what began as a complete disaster. Havens is an artist of great power and he brought the audience to its feet with "Run, Shaker Life," a spiritual which rocked the tired and irritated thousands. Havens was also to introduce Jerry Merrick, the author of "Follow," a song which he had made known; and Jerry played with rare simplicity and delicacy.

On Friday night Arlo Guthrie was outstanding, and there can no longer be any doubt that Arlo knows other "songs" besides "Alice's Restaurant." Arlo is an artist who is incredibly witty and imaginative and although his raps are somewhat reminiscent of Jack Elliot's, he is a great story teller in his own right and is evolving a form that provides tremendous freedom. Arlo is also an excellent musician, and that fact is somehow reassuring or at least worthy of admiration.

And there were others--B. B. King, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy, Jack Elliot, and Janis Joplin--a dashing moving beast who hypnotized this viewer at least--but somehow many things fell flat. The spirit of the festival seemed to disintegrate further with each passing day. Saurday afternoon, virtually all the workshops broke up as thousands gave up their individual designs to hear Junior Wells and Buddy Guy; and they were magnificent, but violence was done to the Newport idea, and perhaps more was done as greater numbers began to think in terms of a rock and blues festival for the future.

Next year the festival will probably not be in Newport. There are problems with the conservative town, a highway is being built through the present site, and other locations where the festival would actually be welcome are thought to be more desireable. Nevertheless, the continuance of a festival at all is, in many ways, becoming contingent upon groups and personalities playing rock blues who can draw enough people to make it financially solvent. And these very groups and the people they attract are subversive of the festival as a folk festival, and naturally so.

The times are changing. Many of those present at Newport were too young to have grown up with an appreciation, understanding and respect for Pete Seeger; and some who once had these have forgotten.