CiTR

Mission Folk Music Festival Special, featuring many of the performers at this weekend's Mission Folk Fest. Back to its best as a celebration of community, Canadian music, and multicultural sounds from around the world, Mission kicked off last night. I included some interviews from last weekend's Vancouver Folk Music Festival: Debashish Bhattacharya from Kolkata - the inventor of the Hindustani slide guitar and a true virtuoso; Allison Russell, former resident of Montreal and Vancouver and now a Bird of Chicago and a member of Our Native Daughters, she released Outside Child this year to great acclaim. What a remarkable singer, songwriter, musician, activist, and champion of the downtrodden - especially young, abused women; and Molly Tuttle, stunning guitarist, lovely singer, and brilliant songwriter, she showcased her new album and superb new band right after our little chat. I added a dose of personal nostalgia, going back to my college days on the Ents Committee at Staffordshire University (then known as North Staffs Polytechnic) where we booked the likes of English soul band Kokomo, G.T. Moore & The Reggae Guitars, blues diva Jo-Ann Kelly, and Scots folk rockers JSD Band. I added some real tasty new music from Sudan, Marseilles, Chile, Estonia, and all across Canada. I also celebrated a monumental Celtic session we held on Granville Island during the week, with 10 fiddlers, 2 uilleann pipers, and multiple mandolins, banjos, and guitars - plus yours truly on the bodhran. What a week it was!!