For the first time ever, two legendary Folk Festivals on two continents are teaming up to spread the word about a few talented artists. The Newport (US) Folk Festival has joined the Cambridge (UK) Folk Festival in a unique sharing agreement, where certain artists play both festivals.
This year, a pair of acts are “twinning” – the term used to describe those playing both historic festivals. I caught up with Darlingside and Kaia Kater at the Newport Festival last weekend in advance of their Cambridge appearance.
Darlingside
Boston based Darlingside is a well-tuned harmony machine. The quartet formed at Williams College in Massachusetts almost a decade ago and has since built a huge following. Their brand of four-part harmony and mainly acoustic instruments is quite unique, a contemporary “baroque bluegrass” blend, with all four voices leaning into one microphone.
I spoke to Darlingside guitarist/vocalist Harris Palseltiner, who was eager to play Newport.
“We’re thrilled! We have always looked forward to visiting the Fort and have heard magical things about it, especially how awesome the community is there – both the people that come to listen and the artists that come to play. We understand there is a lot of cross-pollinating between the acts with people jumping in on each other’s sets, a sort of communal music thing, and that same community is reflected in the people who are there attending the festival. We’re excited to see what it means to be part of the family.”
At most festivals, playing an 11 AM slot is generally not considered ideal for the musicians. At Newport however, that’s never been the case. Folks line up hours before the gates open and the tents are always over-flowing with fans.
“I like the early in the day performances because there’s a relaxed morning feel about it where everybody’s sort of open to splashing around in the sounds. The pacing of a morning set I really like, the energy of it is very relaxed. We’ll have to wake up really early so that our voices are up and running by that hour of the day,” noted Palseltiner.
Exquisite Harmonies
The band members met while students at Williams about ten years ago. “We sang together in school at Williams. When we graduated we moved into a house on the Connecticut River in Hadley, MA, near Northampton. We were all living together, and we had a little floating raft that we’d go out and write on. It was great.
“We moved from an indie rock band to clumping around one microphone and removed percussion from the setup. That way we could focus more on the vocals and the vocal harmonies and really make more transparency in the sound, create a more tactile experience. With less production, we’d just clump around the microphone and sing together, bluegrass style, sort of a return to roots. We did that about five years ago around the same time we moved to Boston and we’ve been doing it ever since.”
The band is excited about the Cambridge Festival.
“They refer to us as one of the acts that is ‘twinning,’ explained Palseltiner. “I like that verb, it’s kind of cool,” he noted. Many past performers at Newport are appearing at Cambridge, including Rhiannon Giddens, First Aid Kit, Patti Smith and John Prine, among others.
Darlingside also play the Thekla in Bristol on Tuesday, August 7th and The Guildhall in Leicester on Wednesday, August 8th (Sold Out).
Kaia Kater
Kaia Kater is a 24-year-old Canadian native who has been lauded for her banjo playing and songwriting. I spoke to Kater after her set at the Newport Museum Stage, where she played to a capacity crowd. She smiled when she heard there was a long line out the door, notwithstanding the mid-summer heat.
“I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the amount of enthusiasm for what I do and that’s something that’s kind of a buoy. I think artists and musicians spend a lot of time alone and sometimes question what we do. It was really kind of emotional and heartwarming. I’ve wanted to play Newport forever; every songwriter wants to play Newport. It’s so legendary, it’s where Joni and Leonard Cohen met, it has history.”
Kater is relatively new to the Festival scene. “I’m just really starting my festival run. I played the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival last week and then I’m heading to the Cambridge Folk Festival next week,” Kater noted.
Canadian Folk Heritage
The Montreal, native got her start in music at a young age.
“It was a pretty organic evolution. I always really liked songwriters. I’m Canadian, so my family was really obsessed with Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. A lot of my family are also singer-songwriters and my grand-dad builds guitars. I started off with banjo because it was interesting to me and I liked the way it sounded. At first it was traditional music and I tried to marry the two together – songwriting with traditional music. I’m still really on that path.”
Kater is looking forward to playing Cambridge in a set curated by Rhiannon Giddens (more here). “I’m really excited to see what her ideas are for collaboration. The idea was to have our individual sets but also have these collaborative elements.”
Her folk roots are deep. In addition to her Canadian heroes, she admires many contemporary artists.
“I’m a really big fan of Aoife O’Donovan, I love her songwriting. I’m a big fan of Rhiannon of course, as well as Hubby Jenkins,” both formerly of the Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops. “It’s exciting to be at Newport because there are so many people doing what they do in these different genres and its exciting to watch people make their art.”
Kater has her third album coming out in October, her first on the Folkways label. It’s called “Grenades” and its all original songwriting with interludes which are interviews with my Dad about his time living through the US invasion of Grenada in 1983.”
Political events on the island forced her father to emigrate to Canada. “He became a political refugee in Canada and eventually got citizenship. He just got his Master’s Degree. That’s going to frame the whole album, the arc of it,” explained Kater.
Don’t miss these two up and coming acts this weekend at the Cambridge Folk Festival.
Kaia also plays a London show at The Nest Collective this Friday, August 3rd and Sidmouth Folk Week on Tuesday, August 7th.
https://www.cambridgelivetrust.co.uk/folk-festival
Photo Credit: Kaia Kater by Todd Cooper