The NEW Stage for the 2009 Festival!
The SUMMER MUSIC FESTIVAL CELEBRATES
OVER THREE DECADES OF MUSIC!
The McCall Folklore Society presents the 32nd or 33nd Annual Summer Music Festival this July at Roseberry, Idaho.
Starting from humble beginnings with local musicians and some of their out-of-town friends in the late 70s, the Festival has become a favorite site for national and international musical group, both for its friendly atmosphere and especially for the high caliber of music now being attracted to the McCall music scene.
Back in those early times, there were some accomplished musicians in the McCall area, but with limited venues for performing. Mostly they gathered together and jammed, sharing tunes and good times. Two such people were Patrick Harren, McCall's "resident Irishman," and Jim Cockey, who expanded his violin repertoire by learning a lot of the Irish and old-time fiddle tunes. Both were founding members of the McCall Folklore Society, along with many other local musicians who simply wanted to bring high-quality folk music to the area. Folklore organized itself for the purpose of presenting concerts, the first of which were mostly locals and people from Boise and the Moscow area.
Jim and Julie Cockey, Patrick Harren, David Simmonds, Ron (Bear) Seiler, Kathy (Goldie) Golden, Peggy Conway and Blaine "Be-Bo" Murray, and Susie Hurd were at those meetings and became the first board members. Ken Kuhn also provided a lot of support and a place to meet, (at the Conservatory). Jim and Julie did the paper work to get us registered with the Idaho Secretary of State as a non-profit. Articles of Incorporation and a Mission Statement were written and submitted.
Many of the original Folklore people were part of the "Music Circus," early California transplant musicians that wintered at the schoolhouse on Farm to Market Road, and their musical connections came from as far as Missouri and Maine, Utah , and Seattle, Washington . "Music Circus" and their friends. Music was at the core of their social life.
Everyone knew this or that hot group that could stop by McCall to do a concert on their way to somewhere else. Jam scenes were all over the place. They began to invite people from Boise, such as the Morse Creek String Band, and Cockey and others formed a local band called the Long String Valley Band to play a yearly concert in McCall. This initiated the festival. Another motivating factor was that local musicians wanted to have the opportunity to play with professionals.
The first festivals took place at the Alpine Theater, and the first year featured only local musicians. The second year the first outside group was for the Desseret String Band from Utah.
"That is what causes the confusion about how many years we have been running the festival," said Seiler. "Some folks start their count the first year before we actually hired someone to come from outside of the area."
There were workshops during the day and a square dance/BBQ on Sundays every year. It was a much bigger production in a lot of ways, but the format was similar to today's format. The big debate has been and will always be what type of music should be produced and put on the stage. There were always two camps, one that was more into pure traditional American folk/Irish music, and folks who wanted to sponsor a very broad range of music, e.g., salsa, African, etc. What you see today on stage is a reflection of that debate.
A few years later, along came Lawrence Smart, a guitar and mandolin builder, who met regionally and nationally-known musicians at trade shows, whom he invited to come and play. Thus the festival went from a one-day affair to two days, and the visiting musicians did workshops and jammed with the locals.
Festival organizers, however, always made it a policy to not grow beyond the ability of the local volunteers to handle. They started out at the Alpine Playhouse for the one-day shows, and then moved to the University of Idaho Field Campus site where the festival went to a three-day format, with the first night being for the locals to show their stuff, playing for free so that the proceeds could support the other groups on Friday and Saturday nights. The result became the annual Summer Music Festival.
Smaller concerts were also booked at other times of the year, to bring single and smaller group performers to town to entertain us during the off-seasons. Folklore has never intended for these concerts to produce a profit, but more in keeping with our love for live music, we often take a small loss in order to hear our favorite touring musicians.