Folk Fest goes digital

greatriverfolkfestival.bandcamp.comGRFF/Dave Schipper

2021 has seen the 45-year-old La Crosse Great River Folk Fest become a digital music supplier with a move of THREE offerings on Bandcamp, the streaming & digital music offering that brags that fans have paid $766 million on their platform and $14.4 million in the last 30 days. It truly sounds like a oxymoron saying digital folk music, but the fest was looking at being out of stock of their 25th anniversary CD “Music From the Heartland.” It was such a gem of live cuts from the fest recorded by Wisconsin Public Radio and they knew another CD printing was not viable. Bandcamp was quickly chosen over the more popular Spotify because it offers an easy purchase of a download AND free 3 streams of complete songs, rather than a ultra-small streaming return. The CD has such a rich local history including Brett Huus of Soundstrations baking the tapes that WPR had almost discarded, and truly took a community to obtain all the licenses and prepare liner art. You can listen right here too:

Given the idea of having a library of music in the Bandcamp site then quickly evolved to how the fest could raise money while increasing the awareness of its popular Songwriting contest. Two more CD downloads quickly evolved and were published to their page. First idea was a collection of songs from the 2020 Songwriter Contest. Dave Schipper orchestrated this pretty easy because as a preliminary judge he had all the emails and some of the music he owned. What a curated beauty of 14 songs from outstanding songwriters spanning the globe from Spain to Germany to Canada to Madison WI to Rochester MN to name a few. Per Dave, “This was easy and a passion to put together because they have become friends, and yes John Louis from Minneapolis, MN, Songa from Chippewa Falls WI and Shanna in a Dress from Boulder CO will all play the 2021 Great River Folk Fest for the first time and only because of the songwriter contest” Here's the Bandcamp link:

Dave wasn’t done because the obvious question was “How about the past winners? And yes, this effort was more difficult.” The website has listed the history nicely but from 2009 – 2020 is really a long time in the walk of life; but Dave preserved and truly put an eclectic mix of songs from each winner. The collection goes from the first winner Mike Caucutt, who is known more in La Crosse as Mr. Blink, to last year’s winner Shanna in a Dress. To really celebrate the connection, this year’s 2021 fest will include FIVE past winners of the contest, Mike and Shanna, plus Greg Gilbertson, Blaine Howard, and from Elk River WI Tim Fast who was there 2010 winner. Again take a taste of the winners:

The fest would prefer you ultimately buy the CD's as digital downloads because it is funding keeping the Songwriting Contest as "Free to Submit"

So what’s next? Dave said he’s planning a 50th anniversary CD with live cuts from the fest; but he’s a little nervous about that one and the work it will entail. Get your early bird tickets to hear these great songcrafters live at the festival Aug 27-29th at Riverside Park.

https://www.greatriverfolkfest.org/

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