Do you miss standing in a crowd and being whisked away by live music? The Women of Folkways concert presented by Northern Lights Folk Club is back in person with performers coming from across the country.
“It’s always such a beautiful experience, partly because we tend to bring in women from out of town,” says Dana Wylie, performer and programmer of the Women of Folkways concert. “We always end up doing quite a lot of collaboration. That’s a really big part of it, and that’s always pretty magical. And obviously we couldn’t do that online last year.”
The Women of Folkways concert honours the women named in the Folkways Records catalog. Folkway Records might be an American label, but it has unique Edmonton ties. Moses Asch founded Folkways Records, originally named Asch Records, in 1948 in New York. His son, Michael, was an anthropology professor at the University of Alberta, and Moses would visit Edmonton often.
“Moses and his wife would visit Edmonton in the ’70s and ’80s, and apparently Edmonton reminded him of Brooklyn when he was a kid, so he always felt a strong connection,” says Wylie. “In 1985, he and his wife donated the entire Folkways Records catalog, which at the time was 2,200 records, to the library at the U of A. Since then, the university and our city has had this kind of interesting connection to the Folkways Records label.”
In addition to Wylie, the 2022 Women of Folkways lineup includes Terry Morrison, Maria Dunn, Linda McRae and Shawna Caspi. The artists are coming from Nashville and Washington, Nashville, Toronto, Edmonton and even Nanton in southern Alberta. It’s also the exact same lineup that performed virtually last year.
Women of Folkways is going on a mini-tour including stops in Calgary, Edmonton and Vermillion between March 11 and 13. The Edmonton concert is on March 12 at 8 p.m. at the Parkview Community Hall (9135 146 St. NW). Tickets are $25 in advance or $30 at the door.
Northern Lights Folk Club will continue to require proof of vaccination and active mask wearing.
