Concert

Boston Folk Festival

UMass-Boston

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September 25

Crooners and strummers have to work harder than sparkly pop stars, it seems. The annual Boston Folk Festival last weekend showed that they do work harder. Shuttling between the bright orange seats of the UMass Science Center and lawn chairs and coolers outside, I was rewarded by artists buff enough to take the bruises from hours of practice, by new and high crystal voices, and music coaxed out of beat-up guitars by unmanicured hands. This Saturday was the story of the unglamorous side of the American music dream.

A prime example of sweat and storytelling is Richard Shindell, a sensitive middle-aged singer/songwriter of growing fame but not fashion sense. Shindell appeared haggard in his black t-shirt and jeans, but as he wended his way through signature songs like "Darkness, Darkness," "Reunion Hill," "Arrowhead" and "Are You Happy Now?" the crowd warmed. Under the influence of his strong strumming hand and carefully written lyrics, he evoked images ranging from a traffic jam on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a young Confederate soldier running scared. The audience received new songs like "Wisteria" with less enthusiasm. Perhaps such mini-flops could be attributed to the decidedly unattractive set. There was no chance for stage-rushing, since the Boston P.D. fences kept Shindell far from the calm crowd. Shindell creates passion in more intimate venues, where the audience can see the sweat on his brow and get closer to his wink and smile.

Men were not the only workers here. Forget the Dixie Chicks as a symbol of kick-ass country or folk. Squeezing into the sappily labeled side show, "Small Victory: Songs of Faith and Redemption," I discovered a batch of female folk artists who, even in their sometimes cliched anguish over lost love, came out as women who knew the value and pain of an honest day's labor. All too ready to dismiss this as another whine-fest on my way in, I instead was caught up with the crowd in wildly applauding the willowy Dee Carstensen strumming her harp siren-style and wailing in a thin voice reminiscent of Sixpence None the Richer. But these women were no naifs. Cheryl Wheeler's crystal clear voice whispered and cried up and down the scales and gave slightly melodramatic lines like, "don't wonder why you left/wonder why you stayed so long" truly tragic depth.

But the real show-stealer was the Kennedys (Pete Kennedy and his wife Maura Boudreau), who had the final performance on the Showcase Stage. So Pete had bad hair--still, when he lifted up his old guitar to thump, tweak and coax out crowd-rousing guitar solos that flew from Spanish-style romances to jazzy Broadway show tunes, you forgot all about it. The captivating backgrounds of their songs were impressive as well: they wove classics like Faure's "Pavane" and Bach's Jesu, "Joy of Man's Desiring" into songs inspired by remote sources such as Greek myth. By the end of their set, the Kennedys had the crowd screaming, whistling, and singing along with them to the familiar Beatles chorus, "She loves you/Yeah, yeah, yeah."