Jay Sweet of Folk Festival 50 in Newport, RI: The Well-Rounded Radio Interview
Charles McEnerney
Posted On July 27, 2009
As Host + Producer of Well-Rounded Radio, a big part of what I love doing for the podcasts I produce is having an interest in a topic and then getting to dig into it thoroughly before I interview a subject. As a series about music from every genre, Well-Rounded Radio is partly about music I like and love and want to share with others and partly about interviewing music industry “thought leaders” who are paving the way for whatever the music industry looks like in the future.
This month, I get to do a bit of both by interviewing Jay Sweet, the Producer of George Wein’s Folk Festival 50 (the festival formerly known as the Newport Folk Festival). Sweet is also the Editor-at-Large at Paste magazine and gets to frequent all kinds of music festivals, so our hour-long conversation (interwoven with music from 25 artists who are performing at the festival on August 1st and 2nd) was a real treat.
The Folk Festival 50 line-up includes The Avett Brothers, Balfa Toujours, Joan Baez, Billy Bragg, The Campbell Brothers, Neko Case, Guy Clark, Judy Collins, Dala, Dear Tick, The Decemberists,Brett Dennen, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Tim Eriksen and the Shape Note Singers, Fleet Foxes, Arlo Guthrie, Iron and Wine, Ben Kweller, Langhorne Slim, The Low Anthem, Del McCoury, Tift Merritt, Tom Morello: The Nightwatchmen, Joe Pug, David Rawlings Machine, Josh Ritter, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, Pete Seeger, Mavis Staples, and Gillian Welch.
Besides Jay Sweet’s obvious enthusiasm for the music, the festival, and the experience, I think the interview is great at painting a picture of what the festival has meant to its audiences over the years and hints at where it might be heading in the future. With the demise of record and book stores, I keep fearing we’ll all be hunkered down in front of our computer screens and buried in our mobile devices all the time, but maybe music festivals like Folk Festival 50 (and the recent No Depression Festival) will keep evolving to become the meeting place for us music lovers to connect in person. I can only hope!
And if you can’t make it to Newport this year, follow me on Twitter for updates and listen to NPR’s web casts.
Read a preview of the interview and hear it in a downloadable mp3 -Charles McEnerney, Host + Producer, Well-Rounded Radio, Jamaica Plain, MA
