Well, where do I start…

The festival was one of the best for me. I heard great music, connected with friends, found a very dear friend unexpectedly, danced, played music late at night, got little sleep and loads of inspiration. Wed. and Thurs. were rainy, rainy, rainy. Both days were so rainy that the roads into the festival grounds were closed, so we had to carry our things in. I had arrived on Tuesday to drop off supplies for the Activities 4 Kids tent, so I was able to pitch my tent that day. I also had help carting things and did it gradually over the course of the festival. I was amazed by everyone’s good spirits in spite of the hardships. Friday and Saturday were gorgeous days. I would almost say that they were perfect days with no hint of what was to come. Then came Sunday…

The day started out overcast but okay. I went to the information tent to find out the forecast. I was told that we were expecting very severe storms in the afternoon, around 2 pm, with high winds and possible hail. I passed this info on to a few folks, packed up my things and moved my car to a spot by the road that I knew I could get out of. I’m so glad I did.

My job every year is to run the Activities 4 Kids tent. When the rain started, it came down in buckets. You couldn’t even see across the path. Then came the winds and the hailstones the size of ice cubes. I had my hands full trying to keep our big festival tent up and all the families calm. As you can imagine, there were a lot of screaming and crying kids, so we sang. When I finally had it fairly stable and all the children in the middle and away from flying debris, I went for my radio to call site crew and security. That’s when I found out that both food tents were down. My 4-year old granddaughter, who has been raised by me since she was a year old, had left with her dad to get lunch and then the Volunteer food tent to ride out the impending storm. You can imagine my own worry, wondering where she was now that the tent was down.

She had quite an adventure of her own, having been separated from her dad in the confusion of the collapsing tent. She was with my 14-year old grandson (in the food tent), who had seen her dad go to try to hold the tent posts and keep the tent from flying away, and was carried out of the collapsing tent by him and his friend. She was completely safe, thanks to my grandson’s clearheadedness and his friend’s help, and was taken in by two separate groups of people. The first group they found didn’t have a vehicle down below, so they huddled around her, like a football huddle, with her in the middle. They sang songs and gave her and the other two kids a science lesson on how hailstones are formed and what makes them different sizes. Then he found a van, that was packed full of people. He talked them into taking in the two girls then went to find her dad, me and his mom. He found us pretty quickly, and we took them to our friends’ school bus which was in deep water, up to my knees, but not going anywhere. They had fallen in the deep water many times and were shivering, so I dried them off and wrapped them up before leaving to see what was happening and what I could do to help. A little later, someone offered to bring them hot cocoa. They had also rummaged around in the bus and found cookies. That made things much better.

It’s very interesting to see first hand how people react in a crisis. Although there were a few who panicked, most everyone worked together very smoothly. There were paying customers who came around helping in the Med tent, helping site crew with the clean-up, and helping me get my A4Kids stuff disassembled and packed up. Eileen Ivers and her band set up on the grass by the workshop stage and played their planned set to help keep everyone’s spirits up. I was home by 7 pm. When I left, things were running smoothly again. I was there with my three kids and two grands. We all have our own stories and are all fine. It was too bad it had to end the way it did. All in all, we had a great festival and look forward to next year.

There are a couple of videos on YouTube, including one of the volunteer tent when it started collapsing, that are kind of cool and also frightening for those of us who were there.

I would love to hear other stories from folks who were there.

Actually it’s quite fun. But, I must say, it’s hard to play at a slow beat. Practice is in order. I can and I will. Only two weeks before our last recording session. If I can figure out how to post a mp3 of me playing it I will. To be continued.

I think the tune will light up with the bass drum. Now all I have to do is to relearn the bodhran. I am thinking of buying a new one, but they are so expensive. Old Songs has one, and they said they will have it at the office for me to play tomorrow. It’s like $400.00. I think it will be a great instrument to have in our collection. I’ve always wanted to play one anyway. Keepin’ on truckin’.

From The Daily Gazette, 11-7-07, Page D8

LIVE IN THE CLUBS

Folk duo Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh blend genre’s past with its present

Partners in life and music doing their part to keep traditions alive

BY PHILIP SCHWARTZ Gazette ReporterReach Gazette reporter Philip Schwartz at 395-3111 or pschwartz@dailygazette.net.

Deb Cavanaugh and Dick Kavanaugh get passionate when the subject of traditional music arises. And in a conversation with the folk duo — billed as Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh — that subject will inevitably come up.
Over coffee and tea at a cafe near their Albany home, the couple, both life and musical partners, get into the importance of folk music, the need to keep traditions alive and how it’s all tied to our understanding of American culture and history.
“It’s important for us to know and remember our culture,” Cavanaugh says, “and it’s getting lost and increasingly becoming a corporate culture.”
Managing to avoid a self-righteous tone, both Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh talk about their mission (though they don’t expressly use that word) to help pass along the traditions of folk through their workshops and performances. And by singing old songs alongside their originals, they seem to relish being part of a kind of folksong dialogue that stretches back through history, but still touches the present.

ORGANIC GROWTH
When they first started playing as a duo, however, there wasn’t any sort of overarching commitment to traditions or preservation, Cavanaugh said. “It’s become more of a focus over the years,” she noted. “I started with just saying ‘I’d like to do some traditional stuff.’ Then as time went on, it became more deliberate.”
Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh have been life partners for 14 years, their coupling somewhat fortuitous considering the similar last names. Cavanaugh, a full-time musician who teaches and gives workshops, has been playing all her life.
“I grew up in a family where there was always singing,” the Stamford, Conn., native said. “We were always playing music. We would often, after dinner, clear the table, sit and sing. . . . I was singing harmonies when I was 3. The first time I got a paying gig, I was 15.”
By contrast, Kavanaugh, an electrician by trade, grew up in Delmar with a purist’s love of folk and acoustic blues, but didn’t start playing until his mid-30s. Similarly, his partner, though she spent her younger days concentrating on the piano and vocals, waited until age 40 to take up the stringed instruments that are so much a part of the Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh sound: mandolin, dulcimer, guitar. The stringed instruments he plays are guitar, mandolin, fiddle and banjo. Live performances can include any combination of those, in addition to Cavanaugh’s limber jack or Kavanaugh’s pennywhistle.

TIMELESS SONGS
The traditional songs they play, meanwhile, center on the old-time Irish and Southern U.S. traditions. Anti-war and labor songs such as “Green Fields of France,” “Mrs. McGrath,” “Masters of War,” “Granite Mills” and “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” are all part of the repertoire. But underneath it all is a slight, if mild, tension between Cavanaugh’s want to infuse new influences and Kavanaugh’s more purist nature. This can be a strength, however, Cavanaugh said. “That’s what makes us interesting,” she said. “Dick has that traditional focus and I want to be wild and do whatever.”
Playing traditional music, however, can be somewhat of an occupational hazard in a culture obsessed with youth and the taste of now. Even among an evolving roots-music community where younger generations of artists are bending what folk means, Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh still have the earnest, sweet sound that’s typical of their baby boomer generation and the time that generation ushered in the first folk boom. Nevertheless, Kavanaugh maintains that this music is just as relevant today, and will continue to be for the next generation.
“There’s a string of commonality to folk music where it touches everyone,” he said. “I feel like most of these traditional songs are timeless. Sing a song like ‘Green Fields of France’ and that was written about World War I. It still moves people. Not much has changed, you know. We’re still fighting wars.”

“That’s what makes us interesting. Dick has that traditional focus, and I want to be wild and do whatever.”

DEB CAVANAUGH

Folk singer and musician

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