Brilliant booking at Newport

Saturday at Newport was a wonderful day. The most wonderful thing for me was the number of young people at the festival.

Whoever was responsible should be lauded for creating a lineup that appealed to a very broad demographic.

With veterans like Ramblin Jack Elliott, Mavis Staples and Pete Seeger (not to mention festival hosts Bob Jones and Jim Rooney), holding down the legacy spots, and Billy Bragg and Gillian Welch representing my generation, the lineup was filled with young, talented musicians pushing out the boundaries of "folk" music.

There were 9200 in attendance, and that doesn't surprise me, because it was one of the nicest days of the summer, and one of the best festival line-ups I've seen in years. The side tents, which usually feature a number of empty seats, were brimming with people, who spilled into the aisles, and out the back and sides for performances by Brett Dennen, Langhorne Slim, the Low Anthem and Blood and Wine (more on that in a future post).

On the main stage The Avett Brothers portrayed a punk attitude embracing a traditional heart, the Fleet Foxes flew the freak flag and the Decemberists' Colin Melloy demonstrated that at the heart of his theatrical pop songs lay a tribute to folk traditions.

Founder and re-founder

So he can't call it the Newport Folk Festival, but a rose by any other name... George Wein started the Newport Folk Festival 50 years ago, and when new owners couldn't turn it into the Bonnaroo of the Northeast, he reclaimed it just in time to celebrate a half century of amazing music.

He, and longtime musical cohort, Pete Seeger, spoke to Vanity Fair.

Folk Festival 50 in Newport, takes place this weekend. Here's the lineup.

Not feeling so festive in NY

Most of us have heard that impresario George Wein has resurrected the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals.

But other festivals are not so lucky as Wein's former company seems to have fallen on hard times in the hands of new owners.

Many in NYC are bonarooing the day the new owners took over the shop.

An 83 year old white knight

Two years ago under one of the side-stage tents at the Newport Folk Festival I heard the first rumors. The company which produced the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals was being sold, and longtime producer George Wein was retiring.

"The new people want to turn the Folk Fest into Bonnaroo," a friend whispered. Bonaroo is the fabulously successful, multi-genre music fest held every June in the swampy heat of the Tennessee hills.

Wein, and his fellow producer Bob Jones had never ossified the festivals into something dusty and rigidly traditional. In fact they always took heat for bringing the new things along. Bob Dylan wasn't the first electric band at the 1964 edition of the Folk Festival, but he gets all the credit.

Well, the Newport Folk Festival wasn't quite Bonnaroo last year, but it did somehow yoke Jimmy Buffet's parrotheads, and the smoky inertia of Black Crow fans with the dreamy meanderings of Jim James. This strange lineup, along with the regional ambitions of Festival Networks put them deep in a hole, from which they apparently haven't climbed.

Re-enter George Wein. He's back. And he's ready to make the Newport Folk and Jazz Fests rise again. And there's no small sense of relief among folk fans who wondered if the Newport Folk Fest would disappear on it's 50th anniversary.

I hope I have half the energy and ambition Wein does when I'm his age.