Visiting Maine
Our family has enjoyed attending New Bedford's Summerfest and the Lowell Folk Festival since we moved to Boston (almost) ten years ago. This year, for the first time, we attended the American Folk Festival in Bangor. As it turns out, this year our favorite Cajun group, the Bruce Daigrepont Cajun Band was making its only appearance in the northeast quarter of North America there. Over the three days of the festival, we caught all three performances of the BDCB and the accordion workshop Bruce participated in. We also got to chat a bit with both Bruce and with Gina Forsyth (the band's phenomenal fiddle player). Of course, lots more went on at the festival -- so much so that there were some groups that we never got to hear (except briefly in passing). Even so, we heard the Dixie Hummingbirds, two Eskimo throat singers (Nukarik), a band led by the son of a blues guitarist we used to hear long ago in Chicago (Bernard Allison), a group of "New Orleans Indians" (Big...