This past weekend, I attended the North Carolina Folk Festival. Greensboro was home to the National Folk Festival for a triennium, and when its stint was over, the city saw fit to keep the party going in the form of the NC Folk Festival. An annual scheduling conflict kept me from experiencing the National Folk Festival much when it was here, but with that out of the way, I was pleased to take in a couple of days of the NC Folk Festival this year.
The NC Folk Festival was headlined and curated by Rhiannon Giddens, a Greensboro native MacArthur "Genius" fellow, and talented folk, bluegrass, and old-time musician. I've had the pleasure to see her perform numerous times over the past few years, and caught her twice during the folk festival. Should you see her on a bill near you, I urge you to seize the opportunity.
That said, a quick on-brand note as it relates to the folk festival: Just as I've opened the playbook for High Notes, so too has the folk festival in the past, describing folk as music with authentic national/ethnic roots and casting its net such that Grandmaster Flash headlined the national festival a few years ago. To that end, I'll note that as the American college marching band in general, and the HBCU marching band specifically, is a uniquely American institution, there's no reason we shouldn't see Greensboro's own Blue and Gold Marching Machine from North Carolina A&T State University at future festivals.
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