Hopefully the sun will be shining on the day of the third annual Blue Sky Folk Festival at East Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Kirtland. It’s a day-long (11am-7pm) event featuring performances, workshops, jam sessions, food, clogging lessons, family crafts, and a playground and storytelling for kids.
Regardless, there will be plenty of tents for jamming and an indoor stage for the headlining performers. And what a lineup! At the top of the bill is Nora Jane Struthers & the Party Line who performed at Happy Days Lodge in Cuyahoga Valley Nation Park in February.
Struthers’ fresh face, unfussy soprano, tunes about humble folks, and carefully curated vintage wardrobe suggest a simple country girl. But the Virginia-bred, New York-educated former English teacher who now lives in Nashville brings a craftsmanship to her work that reveals worldlier background than a backwoods upbringing.
Struthers quit teaching in 2008 to dedicate herself to music; her first-place win at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2010 vindicated that choice. Her recent sophomore album, Carnival, has earned high praise for what she calls her “classic Americana.”
Others on the bill include WKSU folk music host Jim Blum, central Ohio duo Bob & Wendy who play harp and hammered dulcimer, and Northeast Ohio artists Mr. Haney, Pete McDonald, Rachel & the Beatnik Playboys, the Herrick Trio, and Spoon Too Soon.
It’s $10 at the door, $8 for senior, and free for kids. But if you bring an instrument to join in the jam sessions, you get $5 off your admission.
http://www.blueskyfolkfest.com/
Photo: Nora Jane Struthers & the Party Line