The city of Bangor is proud to host the 66th National Folk Festival. Our citizens, businesses and regional community welcome your visit. A short drive from the festival site on the beautiful Bangor Waterfront lie the rugged Maine coast, the great North Woods of Maine, and a plethora of smaller communities offering their own cultural richness. You can easily visit the textile, logging, papermaking and agricultural areas – most very much alive with activity at this time of year. And recreation opportunities abound.

During the three-day festival, we will introduce a new feature on Maine’s maritime history and the art of boat building. You’ll also be entertained by artists and performers from around the globe. Sights and sounds, smells and tastes from the seven continents await you. Our festival is a celebration of community, offered free to the public with support from many friends and sponsors.

For three years, the National Folk Festival in Bangor has entertained more than 300,000 friends – many visiting our city for the first time. We’ve showcased Maine’s traditional arts including Acadian and American Indian cultures. We have been honored to share this with you, and we invite you to return in 2005 and join us for the premiere of The American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront.

As Maine and the nation embrace the creative economy, our city welcomes you to the best place in Maine to live, work and stay. Consider making Bangor, Maine, a part of your life – a part of your future. Plan now to visit Bangor’s fine museums, the nation’s longest-running community orchestra, the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, our many waterway excursions, or hundreds of restaurants, pubs and shopping options.

Enjoy your stay in eastern Maine and welcome to the city of Bangor!

Michael R. Crowley

Chairman, National Folk Festival

Friends, neighbors and visitors – welcome to Bangor!

2004 marks the third year that Bangor has hosted the National Folk Festival, and once again our waterfront is abuzz with activity. We’ll greet folks from across North America and the world and offer our unique brand of hospitality to newcomers to our city. Since the 1800s, Bangor has been a destination both for nature-seeking travelers and for Mainers looking for shopping and entertainment. Our ability to combine a cosmopolitan community with a rural setting is one of the things that makes the Queen City unique in Maine and the world.

In recent years, Bangor’s waterfront has become a special place for so many of us. There’s the annual summer concert series, plus paths and access for walkers, boaters and bicyclists, not to mention exciting new development and landscaping. While we are sad to see the National Folk Festival move on to Richmond, Va., in 2005, please join us again next August when The American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront will continue to bring world-class music and entertainment to the Penobscot River’s banks – a tradition grandly established by the National.

As you experience the National Folk Festival this year, we invite you to explore Bangor’s refreshing shopping and dining options or take an hour’s drive to the coast, the mountains or a great lake spot. We encourage you to explore the region and the many cultures that make up America as reflected in the music, dance, crafts and food featured at the 66th National Folk Festival in Bangor.

Dan Tremble

Mayor, City of Bangor

Sometimes I’m asked about the best National. But what I recall are precious moments at many Nationals, such as the one when Michael Flatley made his first great soaring leap onto the Meadow Stage at Wolf Trap. This was a decade and a half before Riverdance and Lord of the Dance made him a celebrity, and he was just 17, a fresh-faced plumber’s apprentice from Chicago. But that leap and the dance that followed served notice that a wild child from nowhere had arrived and would roil the waters of the dance world.

There was a special moment when an enchanted audience stomped the floor in crashing unison, calling out, “Tom-mee, Tom-mee, Tom-mee” until brilliant Round Peak fiddler Tommy Jarrell returned for a fifth encore. He stood erect and silver-haired before the microphone wearing a beatific smile until they hushed. “Children, I wish to God I could take all of you home with me,” he said.

The Bangor reaction to rockabilly ace Bill Kirchen was so positive that he said, “Hot damn, I feel like one of the GIs who liberated Paris.”

And some special moments at the National happened before most of us were born. In 1936, the festival was at the Texas Centennial in Dallas. They had history workshops with Texas Rangers and Comanches telling about fights they’d had out on the Plains in the 1870s. Old Confederates and old Yankees told about a war they’d once had. Ballad singer Elmer George came from Vermont and for perform-ances wore his wedding suit from 50 years earlier. Leota Ware was 11, a Kiowa Indian girl from Oklahoma, then segregated. The blacks, American Indians, Mexicans and whites sat in the dining hall together, and Leota told her grandmother about it when she returned home.

“Heaven will be like that,” her grandmother told her.

There will be precious moments at this festival. If you seek carefully, you’ll find an equivalent of Mike flying, Tommy’s fantastic tone and Bill’s infectious interaction with his new Bangor buddies. But I also urge you to sit quietly with Leota for a moment and share her pleasure and wonder at the goodness that grows out of our differences.

Joe Wilson

Executive Director

National Council for the Traditional Arts

Index

Advertiser index/4

Folk Festival opened our eyes to the river/5

FolkInfo/8-9

Dobro guitar master Jerry Douglas /10

FolkMusic/11-34,39

What’s in a name? The American Folk Festival/35

Map and schedule/36-37

Boat-building traditions on display/40-41

FolkDemos/42-45

Folklorists make connections/46

Food vendors list/47

FolkFood/48-49

FolkKids/50-51

FolkMarketplace/52-59

FolkFaces/59,62-64

FolkPreservers/65-66

Irish group Solas evolves with its music/67-68

Texas group brings conjunto styles/68

MaineEvents/69,71

Mark Your Calendars Now!

August 26-28, 2005

Bangor Waterfront

Bangor, Maine

The American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront debuts in August 2005. Mark your calendars now for another fantastic weekend for the entire family. Bangor’s very own festival will continue the tradition of excellence in entertainment established by the National Folk Festival during its three-year stay in Bangor. In celebration of America’s multicultural heritage, The American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront will continue to offer an outstanding blend of music, arts, folk arts and food.

To continue staging the festival as a free family-friendly event, support is being sought continually from public and private sources. The AFF needs your help to continue presenting this fine, diverse mix of activities and programming.

For information on donating, volunteering or getting involved with The American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront, contact:

The American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront

30 Main St., Suite 220

Bangor, ME 04401

(207) 992-2630

www.americanfolkfestival.com