2019 Newport Folk Festival
Fort Adams Park, Rhode Island
June 23, 2019
Written by Stacey Lovett
July 26-28th marks the 60th annual Newport Folk Festival at Fort Adams Park in Rhode Island. This legendary music festival cultivates musical innovations and the 2019 edition serves “folk” up in the greatest illustration of all of the savory elements to emerge from the melting pot.
Born out of the city’s jazz festival the line up each year still draws from an amalgamation of culture & sound – a port of growth and change through song, harboring a musical perspective towards a global consciousness and understanding. The folk fusion among the featured musicians join activism and artistry, formulating communal ideas that nurture a little more perspective with each note.
The 2019 lineup features some major currents carving through the landscape of the music world. The female collective are raising their voices with power projects cresting through the genres. The Highwomen is one such mission birthed from the visions of Brandi Carlile, Marin Morris, Amanda Shires, and Natalie Hemby to pave the way for women’s representation in the music industry. This power in numbers in the connections being made not only among these exalted talents but with performers across the pond in a global folk movement. Dynamic acts like the UK’s Yola, Jade Bird, and Courtney Marie Andrews meld their spirit and fluidity into the “new folk” crusade and do so lending their voices to a global conversation. I’m With Her is another collaboration of minds and voices to be featured at this year’s festival which showcases the songwriting talents of Sarah Jaroz, Sara Watkins, and Aoife O’Donovan banding together shared harmonies of thought into a greater capacity to be shared with the masses. The future is indeed female shifting into the voice of a new era – a poetic mystique that is raging up through the masses with equal parts of grace and power and singing the independence of mind and spirit, refining and humanizing what wasn’t always justly represented. Showcases – both apparent like the Future Is Female stage and the clandestine set of ♀♀♀♀ :The Collaboration – all lend to the alchemy of this movement in music and culture alongside solo pop culture powerhouses like Sheryl Crow and Kacey Musgraves.
Our Native Daughters are an element that bridges the gap between this women’s movement and the conversation of adversity often overlooked in American history. They frame a counter perspective to the mainstream view surrounding black women in our history and lend their voices to a greater re-visitation of roots in music and culture. With bringing awareness back to our foundations comes a natural obligation to preserve it as well. The notable Cresent City musicians of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band are scheduled to perform and continue carrying that torch, resonating the roots of jazz and musical fusion alongside robust acts like Stephen Marley, J.S. Ondara, Jupiter & Okwess, and Cedric Burnside who have brought their cultures both in and outside of the US to the American forefront of sound.
Lending to the higher calling, Newport 2019 will also feature jam band trailblazers Phil Lesh, Trey Anastasio, & Warren Haynes who have bred their organic hybrid of roots and innovation into that which celebrates and cultivates a higher consciousness of what a musical collective serves to the masses. At this point in musical history transcending boundaries is nothing new and opens up an endless realm of creative possibilities. Lukas Nelson & the Promise of the Real is also on the bill to do just that – present a real view of rock and country bred out of his own legendary genetic influence all the while devoting energy to much of the higher perceptions his father does. Spreading this free thought in music and philanthropic endeavors is a powerful platform to join the modern mainstream audience, for music is the great unifier, and Newport merges the importance of both maintaining the original vision of what the founders intended with proceeds allocated to each musician’s charity of choice.
Newport has always provided a stage for unification and change, electrifying the greater consciousness and re-writing the once written word into notes that carry on through time crafting the conversation a little deeper with their own melodies. The lineup for the 60th incarnation of the festival looks to prove this detail with a milestone of its own undocking a new view of music on the banks of its own harbor and continuing a dream of musical and cultural innovation.
For the complete lineup of all of the talent gracing the stage this year, visit http://www.newportfolk.org/lineup
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