Portland Folk Festival begins tonight

This is a wonderful weekend to catch some great shows in town .... choosing is going to be the most difficult part.  Don't get paralyzed and go nowhere ... it's all too good to miss .... I'll spread the choices over a couple of posts.

The inaugural Portland Folk Festival begins tonight and runs through Sunday. A $40 ticket will get you into all of the events that are spread throughout venues - large, small, indoors, outdoors - in four neighborhoods. There are free shows, cheap shows and higher ticket shows if you want to purchase individually.  There are shows that honor the past of folk music, and those that look to the future.  Some of the shows are simply typical Portland club shows - we have a lot of what I see as modern "folk" music - if you can define it as acoustically-based and lyrically driven (guess that covers a lot of territory around here).  I hope this is successful for the folks who put it together ... there's more info at the festival website, on Oregon Music News and in this article by Ryan White from today's Oregonian.