AD James Keelaghan will “amplify” best aspects of the Summerfolk festival

Summerfolk's new artistic-director James Keelaghan at the Georgian Bay Folk Society offices. BILL HENRY/QMI Agency/The Sun Times.

BILL HENRY
Sun Times staff
Important aspects of James Keelaghan’s life in music so far began at Summerfolk – his Laskin guitar, his long partnership with Oscar Lopez.
Keelaghan first played the annual Kelso Beach folk festival in the early 1980s. He has just signed on as artistic director.
The Calgary-raised guitarist and then-fledgling singer and songwriter was still a student, paying for a university history degree with music, playing Summerfolk that year behind the traditional folksinger Margaret Christl.
Garnet Rogers heard Keelaghan play, told Keelaghan he needed a better guitar, promised to look around. That October, Rogers showed up in Calgary with a guitar Grit Laskin made, and helped Keelaghan finance the cherished instrument he has played throughout his career and around the world over 25 years.
“That guitar’s been an integral part of my life,” Keelaghan said in Owen Sound this week. “Had he not seen me here, liked what I did, hated my guitar, I would not have that guitar that I’ve used to record every single one of my albums, written every one of my songs on.”
A decade later, Keelaghan’s long association with fellow guitarist Oscar Lopez also began at Summerfolk.
Booked under their own names, they met, jammed, joined each other’s bands for main stage sets, and pursued the mutual musical interests over several years and recordings.
Both stories illustrate Keelaghan powerful associations with the festival he has played maybe 10 times over the years, and is now programming for next August after signing a contract with the Georgian Bay Folk Society recently.
He was in Owen Sound in that new role earlier this week,
connecting with board members, local roots musicians, Summerfolk supporters and media representatives.

Ruth Parsons, left, president of the Georgian Bay Folk Society, shares a laugh Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011 with Summerfolk's new artistic-director James Keelaghan at an informal meet and greet event Tuesday at the GBFS offices to introduce the acclaimed singer-songwriter and his new programming role with the annual Owen Sound folk and roots music festival. BILL HENRY/QMI Agency/The Sun Times.

His plan for the festival, he said in a lengthy interview at the GBFS office, is to change very little at first. Most of his focus will be to “amplify” what’s best about the festival.
Essential to that is maintaining the sense among performers that Summerfolk is among the best festivals to play, largely due to the festival atmosphere which allows musicians to connect, coalesce and bring that energy to the audience.
“Summerfolk is one of the best festivals at that,” Keelaghan said. “I think there was a time when it was close to losing that and there’s been a lot of work to bring that back, and a lot of great work to bring that back. I’m not going to come in here and radically change things. I don’t think it needs that. It’s just amplification and helping the organization to attain the kind of sustainability that it needs to carry on for another 37 years.
Keelaghan said he will eventually add new ideas from festivals he has played at in North America, Europe and Australia and New Zealand which similarly celebrate the music.
“What all the best festivals have in common, I think, is the respect that they pay to the performer and the space that they give the performers to be able to hang out together, because that really creates the scene,” he said.
It’s the last big Canadian festival each summer, but small enough for an intimate bond among performers and musicians.
“So there’s always at Owen Sound a feeling that you want to play one more note. You want to sing one more song. You want to hang out for one more round of drinks with your friends,” Keelaghan said. “Any folksinger, any acoustic musician worth their salt, in North America or Europe, wants to play this festival. If they don’t want to play this festival, they’re out of their minds.”
Keelaghan has always accepted offers to play Summerfolk ahead of others.
“I’ll take Summerfolk because I want to be here for the scene. It feeds my spirit and it feeds my soul,” he said. “I’m not concerned about the monetary aspects of it, I’m concerned about being here for me and feeding my thing.”
Keelaghan is counting on that performer’s perspective, along with connections in the folk industry and a keen sense of the business after 25 years recording and touring to help schedule a mix of performers with broad appeal.
His hiring as AD comes after the folk society has weathered a highly-publicized financial crisis. In October, the board said if an emergency fundraising drive couldn’t bring in $25,000 by December, there could not be a festival next August.
While financial concerns are not Keelaghan’s responsibility, his role at this stage is certainly in the shadow of that crisis.
“My contribution to the financial side is about getting people into the park and maybe tweaking some things here and there,” he said. “I have an artistic budget and I have to work within that budget, but there are things to do within that budget to change things up a bit, to change the feel of the festival a little bit, but not radically.”
His goal is to solidify the artistic direction so people can confidently buy tickets every year “sight unseen.”
It’s too early to discuss many new ideas for next year, but one would see a stage left unprogrammed until the festival begins. It would be a place where acts that click together offstage might bring something new and unscheduled to the audience, or where especially popular groups could be given additional stage time.
“I want to introduce a little degree of anarchy in the programming.”
He’ll take care to hire some performers who know one another and have a connection. That ups the odds of interesting things happening as the music, rather than the performers, drive the event, Keelaghan said.
“Because I’m out at festivals, I have a real good idea of who those people are, who plays well with others and the others that they play well with.”
Although new to arts administration, he has participated at the board level with the Calgary Folk Festival, helped design the Winnipeg Folk Festival’s folk school and was a founding board member for the North American Folk Alliance.
After showing a long interest in singing, Keelaghan’s parents gave him a guitar at 14. That led to an interest in roots and folk music fed by Calgary’s vibrant folk scene, with six all-folk venues, ranging from an 80 seater to a small, 480 seats theatre. He was inspired seeing Steeleye Span, Maddy Prior, Jesse Winchester, Martin Simpson and Stan Rogers.
He recorded his first CD soon after university and with 10 more recording since has built a career touring festivals and listening rooms around the world. His compelling songs and stories once prompted the esteemed American music critic Dave Marsh to label him “Canada’s finest songwriter.”
With two sons, one five and one two, Keelaghan said part of the AD job’s lure is the opportunity to tour less and spend more time at home in Perth with his young family.
“There are parts of my life that I’ve been missing out on because of touring,” he said. “Those years with the boys are precious.”
After relocating just a year ago from Winnipeg, any consideration of moving to Owen Sound is “totally in the future at this point,” he said. Meanwhile he’s “humbled and hopeful” about the new job.
“I think it’s going to be a real blast and I hope that I’m able to bring to Owen Sound the festival everyone wants to hear.”
bhenry@thesuntimes.ca

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