This past Labor Day weekend, the 26th Annual Tumbleweed Music Festival returned to being a LIVE festival in Richland’s Howard Amon Park, and by any measure, it was a remarkable weekend! Our theme for this year is “Good Friends”.
The festival began on Friday afternoon with setting up the info booth and beginning to remember how to HOLD alive festival! The Friday evening “New Horizons” concert brought us some remarkable performances from young singer/songwriters, some making this their first public performances! They were Joelle Plummer, Gwen Good with Kaylie Dawes and Kira Maghan, Dylan Long, Saphryn Luna and Depth Charger. We’re definitely going to be going after most or all of these folks to be openers for future Coffeehouses and Concerts!
Saturday morning saw our machine rev to life under perfect weather conditions for a full slate of performances. We had new people volunteering to run sound for some of our stages, and not only did they all excel at their positions, they’re eager to return next year to do it again! Walking around the park all through the day, every performer and attendee that committee members talked to about the festival used the same word: “Wonderful!” Aside from a few small behind-the-scenes bumps, by golly we had a festival when and where we said we would! One Saturday highlight was when the Mexican Folkloric dance group “Alegrias de Mexico” had so many young people dancing, they had to move outdoors onto the patio of the Community Center, where their lovely movements and flashing colors enchanted the large crowd who gathered to watch and provide extremely heartfelt applause!
Sunday saw a continuance of the perfect weather for another full slate of performances and workshops, and a continued joy in being together again. A number of Tumbleweed first-timers were smitten with the festival and are eager to come back again, as eager as we are to have them return! The long-awaited guitar raffle took place during the Sunday concert, with Niel Kierulff walking away with the prize (for a second time!) Thanks to Gene Weisskopf for donating the guitar in 2020!
At the same time as the live festival was beginning, the virtual segment of TMF2022 went live on our festival website https://tumbleweedmusicfestival.org, with 24 recorded performances (and one recorded workshop) from Tumbleweed family members as far afield as California and southeast England! There is also a compilation of this year’s Jane Titland Memorial Songwriting Contest finalists performing their songs, including the announcement of the winners and the “People’s Choice” winner as well. These performances, as with our two previous virtual festivals, will remain available online for the foreseeable future.
This year’s festival was truly (as always) an intense group effort. The Tumbleweed Planning Committee was led by Co-coordinators Micki Perry (who handled the live festival) and David Carson, who have now passed on their positions to the new Coordinator for 2023, Katrina Knight. Micki and David express their huge and heartfelt thanks to everyone on the committee who worked so hard all the year to pull this off once again.
On Saturday afternoon, the finalists for this year’s Jane Titland Memorial Songwriting Contest performed their songs live on the West Stage, for an appreciative audience and the three judges! The finalists and their songs were:
This year’s songwriting contest winners were:
The headline performers for the traditional Tumbleweed benefit concert on Saturday evening at this year’s Tumbleweed festival showed a wonderful blending of musical diversity, while maintaining the strong connections with the Tumbleweed family.
Our openers were “The Great Sänger and Didele” (WE LOVE THOSE GUYS!) The “Tillesquat Two-Oh” served up their usual complement of great musicianship and hilarity. It is possible that “Squid Boy” made a brief appearance.
After the presentation of the songwriting contest winners’ prizes, and Eric Schaffer’s performance of his winning song My Friend, The Tri-Cities’ own Trillium-239 took the stage and provided us with their trademark blend of complex melodic lines and quirky lyrics, highlighted with masterful arrangements on a variety of instruments; Cello, Guitars and Banjo provided thoughtful support for their tight vocal harmonies. Trillium-239 consists of Janet Humphrey, Mary Hartman, and Michelle Cameron.
Our closer for the 2022 Tumbleweed benefit concert was our beloved Tumbleweed family member Dan Maher. A longtime radio host, Dan is a song collector, songwriter, and great sing-along leader. Dan described his set as “general folk with killer sing-alongs!”
As Dan was a Headliner this year, the concert was emceed by Wes Weddell.
The festival concluded with a Contra dance at 8 PM on Sunday, featuring a live band and caller in the Community Center Stage.
The band this year was “Prestwold Players,” and Mitchell Frey was our caller.
The dance was well-attended and a good time was had by all!
The Three Rivers Folklife Society, and the Tumbleweed Music Festival, were absolutely delighted to announce that YM Cho, of Chicago and Arizona, was the winner of the Logo Contest for the 2022 Tumbleweed Music Festival!
Ms. Cho found out about our contest from an internet search, and we couldn’t be happier with the fabulous art that she’s brought us to symbolize this year’s Tumbleweed theme of “Dear Friends.” Ms. Cho received the cash prize of $150 for her winning design, which was featured in all of this year’s publicity materials and merchandise for the Tumbleweed festival.
Congratulations and a huge thank-you to Ms. Cho for her winning design! We’d also like to express our great thanks and appreciation for all the other entrants to this year’s contest; the planning committee was spoiled for choice this year, with a total of nine entries vs. our normal 3 or 4, and that led to a LOT of discussion, let me tell you!
