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41st KENT STATE FOLK FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES LINEUP
INCLUDING ROSEANNE CASH, DR. JOHN, DAVID BROMBERG AND MELANIE;
TICKETS NOW ON SALE

KENT, Sept. 29, 2007—The Kent State Folk Festival announced today that the 41st Festival, to be held Nov. 8-17 in Kent, will include Kent State Ballroom mainstage performances by Grammy-winning country artist Roseanne Cash and eclectic musical masters Dr. John and David Bromberg. Other Festival events, scheduled for the Kent Stage, include Woodstock sensation Melanie, "A Salute to the Folk Years" with Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks, and three concerts celebrating special folk music genres:  Bluegrass Night, Honky Tonk Night and Jam Band Night. Tickets for all events are now on sale.

In addition to mainstage concerts, the Festival will include Folk Alley ‘Round Town on Friday, Nov. 16, an evening of regional folk performers in more than thirty Kent venues named for 89.7 WKSU's top-rated Web site, FolkAlley.com. The Festival's longstanding free folk music workshops will be held on Saturday, Nov. 17, once again at the Kent State Student Center. Schedules for both Folk Alley ‘Round Town and workshops will be available mid-October at www.kentstatefolkfestival.org.

The Festival will open on Thursday, Nov. 8 at 8 PM at the Kent Stage, 175 E. Main Street in Kent, with Melanie, a Woodstock sensation whose guitar and vibrant voice have sold 80 million records. Since the days of free love, Melanie has continued her extraordinary musical career with performances around the world, raised a family, won an Emmy, opened a restaurant and written a musical about Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.

Opening the show is Steve Forbert, who went Top Ten with "Romeo's Tune" nearly 30 years ago and remains a master of plainspoken eloquence, Nashville-style. His performances continue to be witty, socially conscious and imbued with romantic optimism.

Next up in the Festival lineup on Friday, Nov. 9 at 8 pm is Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks with "A Salute to the Folk Years." Young Dan Hicks was inspired to pick up the guitar by ABC's folk music jamboree Hootenanny, way back in 1963. Now the San Francisco Chronicle says he's a national treasure, and he is touring with a lively tribute to the music that shaped him, including The Rooftop Singers, the Weavers, Leadbelly, Buffy St. Marie, Josh White and others.

On Sunday, Nov. 11 at 7 pm at the Kent Stage, the 41st Festival presents Bluegrass Night, with Mountain Heart and Tim O'Brien. Acoustic ensemble Mountain Heart, who describes their stage presence as "incomparably exciting," has appeared at the Grand Ole Opry more than 100 times, won Grammys, ACM, CMA and IBMA Awards, and shared the stage artists as diverse as Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Yonder Mountain String Band. Joining them at the festival this year is beloved folk artist Tim O'Brien, a child of West Virginia and a self-described song sponge. In addition to his own prolific and successful songwriting, O'Brien's repertoire comes from the American South, Ireland, and anywhere else in the folk music tradition that he finds songs "telling the truth about the human condition."

The festival takes a few days off at the beginning of its second week and resumes with Honky Tonk Night on Wednesday, Nov. 14 at 8 pm at the Kent Stage. The star of the show is Wayne "The Train" Hancock, the master of hillbilly swing. His authentic, original blend of honky tonk, western swing, blues and big band breathes youth into traditional country with a dash of big band horns, boogie-woogie piano, scorching rockabilly beats, heavenly Hawaiian steel licks and some wigged-out hillbilly jazz guitar. Joining The Train is Joey Allcorn, an up-and-coming young country artist from Cleveland whose first album is called 50 Years Too Late.

On Thursday, Nov. 15 at 8 pm at the Kent Stage, it's Jam Band Night with Blue Sky Mission Club and People of Earth. Blue Sky Mission Club combines soul, country, zydeco and rock traditions with pointed social commentary and jumping-zydeco-pop beats. They're joined by People on Earth, a western Pennsylvania-based quartet that combines creative instrumentation and genre-transcending arrangements and melodies with elements of funk, jazz, disco, bluegrass and improvisation.

For its final 2007 event, on Saturday, Nov. 17 at 7:30 PM in the Kent State Ballroom, the Festival presents folk music icon Dr. John and musical master David Bromberg with the Angel Band, a new vocal trio.

Dr. John, known as Mac Rebennack to friends and family, is celebrated as a living embodiment of musical heritage in that magical and troubled city, New Orleans. His colorful musical career began in the 1950s on recordings with Professor Longhair, Art Neville, Joe Tex and Frankie Ford, but his breakthrough came with his 1968 album Gris-gris. Since then, it's been a rich forty years of voodoo mysticism, funk, rhythm & blues, psychedelic rock and Creole roots.

It hasn't always been easy to be Dr. John, but it hasn't been dull either. The latest storm to sweep through his life, however, was the one we all know about. His album, Mercernary, was recorded at New Orleans' Piety Street Studio in the spring of 2005, just a few months before Katrina, and in November 2005, he released Sippiana Hericane. Proceeds benefit the New Orleans Musicians Clinic, the Jazz Foundation of America and the Voice of the Wetlands.

Joining Dr. John is David Bromberg and the Angel Band, an ensemble that combines Bromberg's eclectic musical mastery in blues, country, jazz, folk and classical with a vocal trio that includes his wife, Nancy Josephson. The Angel Band formed from Bromberg's efforts to return live music to a café in struggling downtown Wilmington, Delaware, where he and his family make their home. Jen Schonwald and Kathleen Weber round out the seraphim, and together they have recorded their first CD, Beautiful Noise.

Tickets for Kent State Folk Festival concerts are now on sale:

Reserved seating tickets for Melanie ($20), Dan Hicks & Hot Licks ($20) and general admission seats for Mountain Heart and Tim O'Brien ($18), Wayne "The Train" Hancock ($15) and Blue Sky Mission Club and People on Earth ($15) are available at the Kent Stage, at Woodsy's Music, 135 Water Street in Kent from 10 AM-6 PM Monday-Friday, and through www.kentstage.org.

Reserved seating tickets for Roseanne Cash ($30, Gold Circle $45) and Dr. John and David Bromberg and the Angel Band ($35, Gold Circle $50) are available through Ticketmaster or the KSU Box Office in the MAC Center, open Monday-Friday 8:30 AM-4:30 PM. Reduced service fees apply to tickets purchased at the KSU Box Office.

The 41st Kent State Folk Festival is a production of 89.7 WKSU, a service of Kent State University. The festival is made possible by the generous support of Kent State University and the City of Kent. Additional support is provided by Superior Beverage/Twisted Tea, Audio Technica, Metroparks Serving Summit County, Cascade Auto, and Backpacker's Shop and Ohio Canoe. Media sponsors include Northern Ohio Live Magazine.

Media inquiries regarding the 2007 Festival should be directed to:

Bob Burford
330-672-9154
burford@wksu.org

or

Rebecca Wilson
330-524-2067
rswilson@raex.com