2022 Winnipeg Folk Fest lineup includes legends Judy Collins and Buddy Guy, Grammy-winners Portugal. The Man
'This is what we were all holding on for, right?' exec director says as festival returns after 2-year hiatus
The sounds of traditional string instruments mixed with modern electronic beats and music from around the world will once again fill the air at Birds Hill Park this summer.
On Friday, the Winnipeg Folk Festival released its first lineup after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it brings together an eclectic mix of music from here in Mantioba and around the world.
"I cannot tell you how excited I am. I mean, this is what we were all holding on for, right?" executive director Lynne Skromeda said in an interview with CBC's Janet Stewart.
Headliners this year include Portugal. The Man — an indie rock collective from Portland, Ore. — and Australian multi-instrumentalist Tash Sultana.
"Portugal. The Man is a huge, huge thing for us," Skromeda said.
The band won a Grammy Award for best pop duo/group in 2018 for their single Feel It Still. Their new single, What, Me Worry? is featured in the lineup release video produced by the festival.
Sultana, who describes themselves as a "gender fluid multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, producer and engineer," gained fame with the release of their 2016 single Jungle and released their second full-length album, Terra Firma, in 2021.
Award-winning lineup
The lineup includes many decorated musicians, with plenty of Grammy, Juno Award and Polaris Prize winners and nominees.
Colombian-born, Toronto-based artist Lido Pimienta's music blends the Afro-Indigenous rhythms and sounds of her birth country with modern synthpop.
Her 2020 album Miss Colombia won a Grammy for best Latin rock, urban or alternative album, and her debut album, La Papessa ,took home Canada's $50,000 Polaris Prize in 2017.
The next year, Pimienta presented that same award to another Winnipeg Folk Fest 2022 performer. Operatic tenor and composer Jeremy Dutcher won the Polaris Prize for his Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, written in the Wolastoq language.
Montreal-born singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Allison Russell's first solo album, Outside Child, was a 2022 Grammy nominee for best Americana album, and is up for songwriter of the year and contemporary roots album of the year at this year's Junos.
Familiar faces
Old-school fans have plenty to get excited about, too.
Blues guitar legend Buddy Guy returns to the festival for the first time in nearly 20 years.
Jerry Harrison, keyboardist for post-punk pioneers Talking Heads, has reunited with guitar wizard Adrian Belew, of King Crimson fame, to recreate their work on the seminal album Remain in Light.
Soul singer Bettye Lavette and folk icon Judy Collins are also set to perform.
The presence of these artists on the bill "really speaks to the heart of who we are and who we've been," said Skromeda.
The lineup is also well stocked with local musicians to check out, including the theatrical Winnipeg-based roots musician Boy Golden.
He's joined in the lineup by collaborator Fontine, of Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan, who is making her debut as a solo artist after performing with a number of Winnipeg bands.
Winnipeg indie musician JayWood — who released a re-recording of his debut E.P. Some Days on the Brooklyn, N.Y. label Captured Tracks last year — will also appear.
Other Manitoban acts this year include Tataskweyak Cree Nation R&B and hip-hop artist Sebastian Gaskin, country singer-songwriter Bobby Dove, and banjoist Allison De Groot, formerly of Oh My Darling, along with her collaborator, North Carolina fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves.
Dealing with COVID-19
The festival, which normally draws thousands of people to the park north of Winnipeg each July, was put on hold in 2020 and again in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Organizers had hoped to hold smaller, in-person concerts in August at the festival's main stage, but that was cancelled as the pandemic's third wave washed over the province.
Anyone attending this year's festival must be fully vaccinated, organizers announced last November.
At that point, Skromeda said this year's festival will be crucial to the organization's financial future.
On Friday, she said the festival is confident its site will be safe for attendees.
"We're feeling really good about the fact that even though we know there's a risk, we also feel this is the time to start bringing back what it is that people know and love, which is the Winnipeg Folk Festival."
