As the “pocket-sized edition” of the Philly Folk Festival rolls into its second day (the real folk festival was canceled, as it was in 2020), this is as good of a time as any to look at the festival’s Main Line connections.
And there’s no other way to start this discussion than by acknowledging the person who WHYY described as Philly’s “grandfather of folk music” and co-founder of the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Penn Wynne’s own, Gene Shay (Shay died last April from “complications due to Covid-19”).
Of course, for people of a certain age, when you put the words “Folk” and Main Line” in a sentence, at least 95% of the time, that sentence will also include the words “Main Point.”
Proper research on this subject requires a search of the 2,700-member-strong Main Point Facebook Group. And of course, we’ll use the keywords “Folk Fest.” To be completely thorough, we’ll also search for “Philly Folk.”
Talking about the Main Point at the Philly Folk Festival
If you were to draw a Venn Diagram of the artists who performed at the Main Point, and the artists who performed at the Philly Folk Festival, there would probably be as many or more appearing in the shaded overlap area, versus those who only appeared at one venue or the other.
Take, for example, Dave Van Ronk. He performed at almost every Philly Folk Festival, beginning in 1968 until 2001. Van Ronk died in 2002.
Similarly, he first played at the Main Point in 1967, and performed there dozens of times after that.
1981 Philly Folk Festival
As is often the case, Van Ronk mellowed over time. But Harriton High grad, Michael Goldfarb, when he was 17, made his radio debut interviewing a very edgy Van Ronk for WUHY (which became WHYY) at the 1968 Folk Festival. Here’s what Goldfarb had to say about Dave Van Ronk.
I interviewed Dave Van Ronk at the PFF. He had done a set that was like an anti-performance. Self contained, barely projecting the songs about the only thing that crossed the stage apron was a sense of disdain at having to performs at all. I interviewed him in performer’s ten off to the side. Janis Ian, who would have been maybe 17 was sitting on his lap and they were joking, very big brother little sister vibe. he knew he had to talk to me was as graceless as he had been on stage, I asked him quite directly, Man, why do you bother performing since you obviously don’t like doing it. I was lucky he didn’t slug me.