{"id":23641,"date":"2023-07-01T00:11:40","date_gmt":"2023-07-01T07:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/?p=23641"},"modified":"2023-06-30T14:21:35","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T21:21:35","slug":"a-little-history-of-the-san-diego-folk-festival-and-how-it-got-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/a-little-history-of-the-san-diego-folk-festival-and-how-it-got-started\/","title":{"rendered":"A Little History of the San Diego Folk Festival and How It Got Started"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have organized and booked the San Diego Folk Festival for 20 years (mostly at San Diego State University), and it continues today in a slightly altered form as the Adams Ave. Roots Festival (Number 29 is coming up on April 27-28). Those early festival days, however, of small budgets, big enthusiasm, and a sort of disorganized way of doing things stick in my mind.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"

The Dillards<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In the beginning there was a committee, and the Associated Mens Students had $350 to do something with. Someone decided they should give it to us folk singers to put on a festival. We took $250 of that money and got Bill Monroe, who was on tour on the West Coast, playing LA\u2019s fabled Ash Grove for a Thursday night concert. Bill and a guitar player showed up, but his regular band hadn\u2019t made it to the West Coast yet. So, Doug Dillard, Mitch Jayne, and Dean Webb of the Dillards came down to fill out the band. The guitar player (I don\u2019t recall his name) had quit college to join Bill\u2019s band, knowing that he\u2019d be drafted and probably sent to Vietnam, which I later learned happened (I hope he made it back okay). What I remember about that concert is the irritating guy who kept calling out for Bill to play \u201cEarl\u2019s Breakdown\u201d and, considering Bill\u2019s long-time feud with Earl Scruggs, how embarrassed all of us somewhat hip bluegrass fans were, and how nice Bill was about it, telling the fan, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll be able to get around to that one as some of the boys don\u2019t know it, but thanks for asking.\u201d Bill gave a short talk on the history of bluegrass and another guy called out \u201c\u2026and you\u2019re king of them all, Bill!\u201d Bill answered, \u201cWell, I try to be.\u201d Rounding out the program at that festival were Sam Hinton, Stu Jamieson, the Possum Hunters String Band, Sandy and Jeanie Darlington, Kathy Larisch and Carol McComb, Gil Turner, Curt Bouterse, and several other locals, but the story of that first festival was Bill Monroe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the beginning there was a committee, and the
\nAssociated Mens Students had $350 to do something with.\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n
\"\"

The Possum Hunters<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Festival Number Two, in the spring of 1968, was a bit more disorganized. Bluesman Skip James was booked, got on a plane in his hometown, got off in Chicago, deciding he\u2019d had enough of flying, and took the bus home, so he didn\u2019t show up. Merle Travis, the great country music guitarist, showed up for a great country guitar workshop and then never came back for the evening concert. I found out ten years later from Smokey Rogers that he had met Merle and they\u2019d gone down to Tijuana. The festival featured some great music from Larry Hanks, Hank Bradley, Sam Hinton, Stu Jamieson, the Possum Hunters, Jean Redpath, Kathy and Carol, Ray Bierl, Mayne Smith, Guy Carawan, Mitch Greenhill, and others. The memories from the people who were there always talk about the no-shows and how brave Ray Bierl was to have to get up and tell the audience that folks weren\u2019t there yet and maybe wouldn\u2019t come. If the other music hadn\u2019t been so good, it would have mattered more. As a result of those problems, SDSU\u2019s Gary Solbue disbanded the committee and put me totally in charge of the music.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the way it\u2019s been for all of the 50-odd folk festivals, street fairs, blues festivals, banjo and fiddle contests, and roots festivals. Small budgets for entertainment (though not as small as those early days) and, except for a research grant in the 1970s and some money from SDSU one year, I\u2019ve only been able to get funding for putting these events together. So, when I find out that the Escondido arts center receives a $663,000 endowment, I\u2008just have to shake my head. Just once before I leave this mortal coil, I\u2019d like to have the money to do a\u00a0 big-budget music festival. I guarantee you it would be a festival this city of San Diego would never forget. This isn\u2019t bragging, it\u2019s just fact. Year after year I\u2019ve had to turn down performers who might have come, and it\u2019s always because of money. In spite of that, we\u2019ve had one hell of a run and I hope it continues for a long time. Angels, don\u2019t be shy.<\/p>\n

Recordially,
\nLou Curtiss<\/p>\n

Reprinted from the San Diego Troubadour, January 2002.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have organized and booked the San Diego Folk Festival for 20 years (mostly at San Diego State University), and it continues today in a slightly altered form as the Adams Ave. Roots Festival (Number 29 is coming up on April 27-28). Those early festival days, however, of small budgets, big enthusiasm, and a sort of disorganized way of doing things stick in my mind. In the beginning there was a committee, and the Associated Mens Students had $350 to do something with. Someone decided they should give it to us folk singers to put on a festival. We took $250 of that money and got Bill Monroe, who was on tour on the West Coast, playing LA\u2019s fabled Ash Grove for a Thursday night concert. Bill and a guitar player showed up, but his regular band hadn\u2019t made it to the West Coast yet. So, Doug Dillard, Mitch Jayne, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recordially-lou-curtiss"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23641"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23766,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23641\/revisions\/23766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}