Gene Shay

FOR SURE, there'll be some very familiar faces at the 50th annual Philadelphia Folk Festival, returning to the Old Pool Farm in Upper Salford Township in two weeks. Seasoned perennials such as Arlo Guthrie, Tom Rush, Tom Paxton and David Bromberg are among the guests coming back for the big birthday party, along with some of their rarely here contemporaries (Levon Helm, Jorma Kaukonen) and young turks of note like the Wood Brothers, Justin Townes Earle, Hoots & Hellmouth, Dan Bern and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue.

How do you explain the enduring popularity of the Philadelphia Folk Festival, which moves into its third decade this weekend? "I've got a theory about the longevity of the Philadelphia Folk Festival and the loyalty of its audience," suggests the event's most visible founder and spokesman - folk DJ and festival emcee Gene Shay. "There's a high comfort level, because there are so many festival traditions. The first year you come, you get a good positive image and want to come back.

When the legions of pickers, strummers and acoustic music-makers descend on the Old Pool Farm near Schwenksville for the 34th Philadelphia Folk Festival on Friday, they'll find much comfort in familiarity. There will be performances by longtime festival vets Tom Rush, Janis Ian and Dave Van Ronk, and short-term festival vets Susan Werner and Joseph Parsons. The banjo, mandolin and guitar players will be out in force in the parking lots and camping areas, taking the folkie do-it-yourself ethic to heart.

Year in, year out, you find many of the same souls schlepping out to the Old Pool Farm in Upper Salford township. They're all attending the Philadelphia Folk Festival - nowadays with their children and even grandchildren in tow - to listen to folk music under a burning sun and chilly moon, packed like lemmings into a makeshift, often muddy campsite. What's the motivation here - apart from their common love of contemporary and Celtic folk music, blues and bluegrass? Jonathan Takiff talks to Gene Shay, one of the festival's founders, and spotlights this 30th-year extravaganza.

A FUNNY THING happened on my way to Schwenksville, chatting it up with some of the powers behind this weekend's Philadelphia Folk Festival. Given how the event is celebrating big - marking the 50th annual music fest (and gathering of the tribes) - I expected organizers to be waxing nostalgic about all that's been and gone. You know, "the good old days. " But then I got on the horn with Levi Landis, executive director of the festival's parent organization, the Philadelphia Folksong Society, and discovered he's a relatively young folknik of 29. Not much "history" to share there.

Not everything's coming up green next weekend, so if Irish music doesn't shake your shillelagh, consider the Philadelphia Folksong Society's annual Spring Folk Festival, at Swarthmore College March 12 and 13. It's an event the whole family can attend. Folkies will see some familiar faces from past Folk Festivals. Scheduled to perform March 12 at 7:30 p.m. are Mike Cross, John Flynn, Magic Slim & the Teardrops and Norman & Nancy Blake. Gene Shay hosts the concert. The lineup of events March 13 includes a children's concert from 1 to 2 p.m., followed by a coffeehouse featuring some of the area's well-known performers and workshops.

Sophie Tucker, Totie Fields and Belle Barth, who frequently performed in Philadelphia, are united in the hereafter to share songs, memories and anecdotes in a new musical play. It's called Sophie, Totie and Belle and it opens Wednesday at Odette's Cabaret Theater, South River Road, New Hope. This "raunchy" production features Vikki True as Tucker, Penny Larsen as Fields and Joanne Bradley as Barth. Thomas Studer appears as the men in their lives. Sophie, Totie and Belle was written by Chicago playwright/author Joanne Koch and Albany, N.Y., college professor Sarah Blacher Cohen.

David Bromberg was born at St. Agnes Hospital in South Philadelphia, and before his family moved to New York, the dazzling guitarist, who will perform at the Philadelphia Folk Festival this weekend, spent the first few years of his life in either Chester or West Chester. "I know they're very different, but I can't remember which," says the 65-year-old singer and songwriter, who last month released Use Me , a genre-hopping roots-music album featuring Los Lobos, Vince Gill, Linda Ronstadt, and Levon Helm on Appleseed Recordings, which is based in one of the places Bromberg may be from.

A great thing about the music business is that you never know who you might trip over in the dark and discover. Might even be someone who'll wind up scoring a No. 1 album (this year's critically applauded "Mission Bell") and a hot-ticket tour. So it was that I first encountered a wet-behind-the-ears Amos Lee nine years ago, literally in the dark,at a Northeast Regional Folk Alliance conference, performing for a "crowd" of 10 in the tacky lounge of a Catskills resort. On Tuesday, by contrast, Lee will headline a verging-on-sold-out homecoming show here at the 1,800-seat Merriam Theater.

Not rain, not heat, not the bugs of summer - nothing has halted the Philadelphia Folk Festival, now in its 38th year. Each August, longtime festival-goers greet one another as old friends. They have watched each other's children grow up, watched each other grow gray at the temples. The kids now have kids of their own, who form another generation of fans. Altogether, as many as 20,000 people annually descend on the Old Poole Farm in Schwenksville, Montgomery County, for the festival.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the building of the Philadelphia Folk Festival and the Berlin Wall. Thankfully, the festival is still standing, through the efforts of more than 2,500 volunteers. Proceeds from the event support the Philadelphia Folk Song Society's mission and musical education programs for schoolchildren throughout the Philadelphia region. The festival, founded by the society based in Mount Airy, actually began in Paoli, as the Hootenanny. It's one of the longest continuous events of its kind.

A FUNNY THING happened on my way to Schwenksville, chatting it up with some of the powers behind this weekend's Philadelphia Folk Festival. Given how the event is celebrating big - marking the 50th annual music fest (and gathering of the tribes) - I expected organizers to be waxing nostalgic about all that's been and gone. You know, "the good old days. " But then I got on the horn with Levi Landis, executive director of the festival's parent organization, the Philadelphia Folksong Society, and discovered he's a relatively young folknik of 29. Not much "history" to share there.

This year marks the Philadelphia Folk Festival's 50th birthday. But it's been a few years since the festival organizers' realized that the august institution, which takes place every August at the Old Pool Farm in Upper Salford Township near Schwenksville, needed to attract a younger audience to ensure that it has a future to compare with its storied past. In recent years, festival bookers Rich Hardon and Jesse Lundy have brought in marquee names like the Decemberists and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco to give the fest a contemporary buzz.

David Bromberg was born at St. Agnes Hospital in South Philadelphia, and before his family moved to New York, the dazzling guitarist, who will perform at the Philadelphia Folk Festival this weekend, spent the first few years of his life in either Chester or West Chester. "I know they're very different, but I can't remember which," says the 65-year-old singer and songwriter, who last month released Use Me , a genre-hopping roots-music album featuring Los Lobos, Vince Gill, Linda Ronstadt, and Levon Helm on Appleseed Recordings, which is based in one of the places Bromberg may be from.

FOR SURE, there'll be some very familiar faces at the 50th annual Philadelphia Folk Festival, returning to the Old Pool Farm in Upper Salford Township in two weeks. Seasoned perennials such as Arlo Guthrie, Tom Rush, Tom Paxton and David Bromberg are among the guests coming back for the big birthday party, along with some of their rarely here contemporaries (Levon Helm, Jorma Kaukonen) and young turks of note like the Wood Brothers, Justin Townes Earle, Hoots & Hellmouth, Dan Bern and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue.

Russell Brand 's invasion of America is complete: The British comic stars in the top two box office draws of the weekend. He rules the roost in Dinsey's Hop , about happy bunnies who get even more hopped up on joy. It's the weekend's top earner with $21.7 mil, according to studio estimates. The live-animation combo pic, which cost $63 mil to manufacture, has made $68.2 mil since its April 1 opening. Brand plays the title role in the No. 2 picture, a mild remake of the 1981 sex comedy Arthur , which opened this weekend with $12.6 mil. Hanna , a spy thriller about a wee bonnie teen lass (the explosive Saoirse Ronan)

A great thing about the music business is that you never know who you might trip over in the dark and discover. Might even be someone who'll wind up scoring a No. 1 album (this year's critically applauded "Mission Bell") and a hot-ticket tour. So it was that I first encountered a wet-behind-the-ears Amos Lee nine years ago, literally in the dark,at a Northeast Regional Folk Alliance conference, performing for a "crowd" of 10 in the tacky lounge of a Catskills resort. On Tuesday, by contrast, Lee will headline a verging-on-sold-out homecoming show here at the 1,800-seat Merriam Theater.

Live music and more, tonight through Thursday, compiled by Shaun Brady, Tom Di Nardo, James Johnson, Sara Sherr and Jonathan Takiff. POP . . . plus Elton John: The "Rocket Man" promises lots of hits (aka "your songs") for all the "Crocodile Rock"-ers. And he's sure to be lighting a special "Candle in the Wind" for Liz Taylor. Wells Fargo Center, 3601 S. Broad St., 8 tonight, $29-$149, 800-298-4200, www.comcasttix.com . Eric Taylor: Seasoned Texas troubadour has been hailed as "the William Faulkner of songwriting" by Nanci Griffith, who admired him so much she married the guy. Hear for yourself in this intimate showcase, with intros and conversation with the artist served up by Philly folk DJ legend Gene Shay.

On a recent afternoon, Gene Shay, the face of the Philadelphia Folk Festival, peered through the rear window of a restaurant near Rittenhouse Square and looked half a century into the past. This, Shay explained to a visitor, had been the back room of Ed and Esther Halpern's Gilded Cage coffeehouse, legendary epicenter of the Philly folk scene. It was in this room that much of the planning for the first folk fest took place. And it was here that the seeds of the all-volunteer "Straw Hat Brigade," the people who made the festival go, were planted, Shay said.

I have a confession to make: Until last year, I had never been to the Philadelphia Folk Festival. "And he calls himself a music critic?" you might ask. Well, I had excellent reasons - or lame excuses, depending on your point of view - for never heading out to Schwenksville to the august Philadelphia institution. This year, marking its 48th anniversary, it comes on the very same August weekend as the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. The fest began updating its programming last year in pursuit of younger festival-goers.