Folk Roots Radio Episode 204: Hillside Festival 2015

Jul 17 2015

This week’s Folk Roots Radio focuses on the upcoming Hillside Festival, taking place from July 24-26 at Guelph Lake. The show features interviews with Hillside Artistic Director Sam Baijal and Chris McKhool, the leader of the Hillside-bound Sultans of String. Hillside has something for everyone – a great mix of music, fabulous community workshops, a dedicated children’s area, an artisan village and great food… and there are still some weekend and day passes available. To learn more about the festival, visit hillsidefestival.ca – one of the best and most informative festival websites out there. Yet another thing that the Hillside Festival does very well indeed!

This week’s mystery theme was all about “guitars”, a companion piece to last week’s one about ‘banjos’. It gave us a chance to play new and relatively new songs by Jonathan Edwards, Tom Chapin, Ken Whiteley and Paul Sachs alongside classics from Guy Clark, Michael Jerome Browne and The Jayhawks, while featuring some fine picking and strumming, and a new jazzy guitar instrumental from Bellwood ON’s Gary Beck. And all our choices were acoustic. Well, almost all… The Jayhawks rocked out a bit towards the end. And it makes me wonder what next week’s mystery theme will be all about… Mandolins? Fiddles? Ukuleles? Accordians? You’ll have to listen to find out.

As we were focusing heavily on the Hillside Festival we didn’t have time for a guilty pleasure segment however if you have one you’d like to share – that song you still love though you think other people would find it unfashionable (believe me, they won’t), get in touch. We’d love to play it for you! And, if you have a good story about why you love that song, so much the better.

Well, that’s all we have time for this week. Check out the full playlist with artist links below and share your love for all the great folk and roots music out there. Thanks to all the artists who share their music with us, and thank you for listening. We’ll see you next week! You can listen to this show again on Mixcloud by following the link below.

Folk Roots Radio – Episode 204 by Folk Roots Radio on Mixcloud

Mystery Theme: “Guitars”

Jonathan Edwards
This Old Guitar
Tomorrow’s Child (2015, Rising Records)

Guy Clark
The Guitar
Somedays The Song Writes You (2009, Dualtone Records)

Tom Chapin
Guitar Child
70 (2015, Sundance Music)

Ken Whiteley & The Beulah Band
Hands On That Guitar
Ken Whiteley & The Beulah Band (2015, Borealis Records) CDN

Paul Sachs
Hank Williams Guitar
Survival Is the New Success (2014, Self)

Michael Jerome Browne
Guitar Mama
Drive On (2005, Borealis Records) CDN

The Jayhawks
Miss Williams’ Guitar
Music From The North Country: The Jayhawks Anthology (1995, American/Legacy)

Gary Beck
Fragrance
Fragrance (2014, Self) CDN

Michael Franti & Spearhead
Life Is Better (Acoustic)
All People (2013, Boo Boo Wax/Capitol)

Interview: Sam Baijal, Artistic Director at the Hillside Festival.