Chillin’ Like Dylan at the Brooklyn Folk Festival

St. Ann Church, Montague Street, Brooklyn, NY – Sat., April 18

Five-year-old music critic Charlie B. and his clerical sidekick, John, headed to Brooklyn last Saturday to catch the afternoon sets at the 7th annual Brooklyn Folk Festival. Sponsored by the Jalopy Theater and Tavern (Jalopy.biz), the festival offered three evenings and two days of music, all in the 19th century glory of the St. Ann & Holy Trinity Church on Montague Street.The echoes of Bob Dylan (and Llewyn Davis) reverberated through the festival, which has a homegrown, even down-market vibe that is unusual in this era of slick production.

Anyone even tangentially familiar with the light and sound shows at SXSW or electronic dance music fests would have thought the Brooklyn Folk Festival more resembled a bingo night crossed with a thrift store sale, but all the better for the casual visitor looking for a laid-back vibe on a Saturday afternoon. The refreshment area in a side room of the church featured folding tables under Christmas lights, as scores of attendees, many with instruments on their backs, milled around nibbling on home-baked cookies and listening to Mat Callahan and Yvonne Moore strum the Irish revolutionary songs of James Connolly. 

In the main section of the church, 200 or so of the folk faithful sat in pews and listened to a lightly amplified set that ranged from King Isto’s Tropical String Band to the 10-member Brotherhood of Jug Band Blues and a number of solo practitioners.

The act that Charlie (or at least his scribe) most wanted to see was Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, a 26 year-old virtual reincarnation of delta bluesmen from the 1930s. Everything about Paxton – his clothes; his abundant talent at guitar, fiddle, and banjo; his soulful delivery; and his lack of good eyesight – is as perfect as a Coen brothers’ caricature.

Alas, Paxton’s set went down late on Friday night, far past Charlie’s bedtime, so we contented ourselves with a 17th Century English murder ballad, some ultra-soft Hawaiian numbers, and a few songs from the jug band.

Truth be told, we had to leave at one point during the Hawaiian set to fortify ourselves with Haagen Dazs ice cream (cookies and cream with chocolate sprinkles on top).

We made it through more music than I thought we would and we emerged into the brilliant sunshine of a gorgeous spring day. Walking down Montague Street to the R train under magnolia blossoms, Charlie opined that the festival had been a good time. And so the next generation begins its journey into a well-worn heritage.    

— submitted by Charlie and John Britton. NY, NY