Weekend To-Dos: Ozark Folk Festival
Melanie Safka.
OZARK FOLK FESTIVAL
City Auditorium, Eureka Springs, $20-$65.
The nation's longest continuously running folk festival returns to Eureka Springs for four days of as authentic a genre celebration as you're likely to find anywhere. The event features 14 performers, several free concerts, a songwriting contest, open mic events, a downtown parade and arts and crafts. Nightly headliners include Noah Earle and 3 Penny Acre, Vagabond Van and Patty Larkin. This year's featured headliner, New York-born Melanie Safka, who performs on Sunday at 2 p.m., hit the national stage as the voice of “flower power” with her song, “Beautiful People,” at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in 1969. She was booked as the first solo pop/rock artist ever to appear at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, the Sydney Opera House, and in the General Assembly of the United Nations. The event is guest hosted by Greg Klyma, noted by the Buffalo News as “a man hellbent on becoming Buffalo's own Woody Guthrie.” The festival is divided among venues including the City Auditorium and the Gem. For a complete performance schedule and venue listing go to www.ozarkfolkfestival.com/schedule.html or call 888-855-7823.
—Paul Peterson
City Auditorium, Eureka Springs, $20-$65.
The nation's longest continuously running folk festival returns to Eureka Springs for four days of as authentic a genre celebration as you're likely to find anywhere. The event features 14 performers, several free concerts, a songwriting contest, open mic events, a downtown parade and arts and crafts. Nightly headliners include Noah Earle and 3 Penny Acre, Vagabond Van and Patty Larkin. This year's featured headliner, New York-born Melanie Safka, who performs on Sunday at 2 p.m., hit the national stage as the voice of “flower power” with her song, “Beautiful People,” at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in 1969. She was booked as the first solo pop/rock artist ever to appear at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, the Sydney Opera House, and in the General Assembly of the United Nations. The event is guest hosted by Greg Klyma, noted by the Buffalo News as “a man hellbent on becoming Buffalo's own Woody Guthrie.” The festival is divided among venues including the City Auditorium and the Gem. For a complete performance schedule and venue listing go to www.ozarkfolkfestival.com/schedule.html or call 888-855-7823.
—Paul Peterson
