Get ready to Find Your Folk! One of the region’s most anticipated musical events, the Ann Arbor Folk Festival is also the largest annual fundraising effort for The Ark, Ann Arbor’s non- profit home for folk, roots, and acoustic music. Presented by Bank of Ann Arbor, the festival is renowned for its overall excellence and the quality of talent it showcases year after year. Featuring a blend of renowned and up-and-coming performers, the program provides audience members with the opportunity to hear artists they know and love while discovering great new talent.
The festival delivers the full spectrum of “Ark music,” presenting a taste of what’s happening on the leading edge of acoustic music while delving into the very heart of folk and roots traditions. This year’s Folk Fest kicks off celebrations of The Ark’s 60th anniversary in 2025!
Check out the information below to see how to Find Your Folk at the 48th Ann Arbor Folk Festival and follow The Ark on all our social media channels for music, video, artist info and updates. All funds raised through the Festival benefit The Ark. More info at www.theark.org.
*program subject to change
TICKET INFO:
Ark Member Presale: Monday, October 21, 10am – Friday, October 25, 10pm with access
code. Become a member at theark.org
On sale to the public: Friday, November 1, 2024 at 10am Tickets: https://mutotix.umich.edu/overview/5190
TICKET LEVELS:
(All prices are for one ticket on one night of the festival)
$70
Mezzanine and lower balcony seating
$47.50
Upper balcony seating
$120 ($50 tax-deductible)
Gold Circle – main floor seating
$250 ($150 tax-deductible)
Platinum Circle – within the first 10 rows
• An invitation to our Folk Festival Pre-Glow Party prior to Saturday’s program • Parking pass
• Recognition in the Festival program
2025 ANN ARBOR FOLK FESTIVAL ARTISTS FRIDAY, JANUARY 24 & SATURDAY, JANUARY 25
KETCH SECOR, Festival Emcee
Ketch is best known as the founder and frontman of Old Crow Medicine Show, a two- time Grammy Award-winning juggernaut whose triumphs include induction into the Grand Ole Opry and double-platinum certification for their iconic hit single “Wagon Wheel”. It is impossible to overstate the influence of Old Crow, whose literary songwriting, true-to-life roadside adventures, and high-octane live performances helped spur artistic shifts in country, Americana, folk, pop, and rock music spheres since the band’s formation in 1998.
A singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, author, speaker, and teacher, Ketch commands every stage like a charismatic evangelist with a message: Everyone should have a seat at the table. Ultimately, Ketch is a mentor and a co-conspirator as well, working and writing with other artists as he also produces albums, offers advice, and builds community. “We feel worshipful of the privilege of being alive on Earth when we congregate around music,” Ketch says.
https://www.ketchsecor.com/
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24 WAXAHATCHEE
One of the hardest working singer-songwriters in the game is named Katie Crutchfield. She was born in Alabama, grew up near Waxahatchee Creek. Skipped town and struck out on her own as Waxahatchee. That was over a decade ago. Crutchfield says she never knew the road would lead her here, but after six critically acclaimed albums, she’s never felt more confident in herself as an artist. While her sound has evolved from lo-fi folk to lush alt-tinged country, her voice has always remained the same. Honest and close, poetic with Southern lilting. Much like Carson McCullers’s Mick Kelly, determined in her desires and convictions, ready to tell whoever will listen.
And after years of being sober and stable in Kansas City–after years of sacrificing herself to her work and the road–Crutchfield has arrived at her most potent songwriting yet. On her new album, “Tigers Blood”, Crutchfield emerges as a powerhouse–an ethnologist of the self–forever dedicated to revisiting her wins and losses. But now she’s arriving at revelations and she ain’t holding them back.
https://www.waxahatchee.com/
JOSH RITTER
One of today’s most thoughtful and prolific voices, Ritter has released ten studio albums including 2019’s widely acclaimed, “Fever Breaks”, of which NPR Music praised, “He remains a hydrant of ideas while embodying an endless capacity for empathy and indignation, often within a single song.” Josh performed a stand out set at the 2003 Ann Arbor Folk Fest, and in 2006 Paste Magazine named him one of the 100 greatest living songwriters. Josh’s latest record is the just-released “Heaven, or Someplace as Nice” – a collection of songs he calls “very near to my heart.”
In addition to his work as a musician, Ritter is also a national best-selling author, having released two novels to date: 2021’s “The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All” and 2011’s “Bright’s Passage”. Released to critical attention, Stephen King wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Bright’s Passage “shines with a compressed lyricism that recalls Ray Bradbury in his prime…This is the work of a gifted novelist.”
JOBI RICCIO
Born and raised in Morrison, Colorado – a tourist town in the foothills outside of Denver that’s home to Red Rocks Amphitheater – Jobi Riccio grew up surrounded by music and found inspiration in artists ranging from Sheryl Crow to Joni Mitchell. Sonically, Jobi’s music exists between worlds, melding the classic craftsmanship of her songwriting with modern indie-leaning production to forge a lush, expansive sound that feels traditional and experimental all at once.
She has received significant acclaim for her songwriting, including winning the 2019 NewSong Music Competition and the 2019 Lee Villiare Scholarship from her alma mater Berklee College of Music. More recently Jobi was awarded the 2023 Newport Folk Festival John Prine Fellowship, chosen as a 2024 Luck Reunion Artist On The Rise and was nominated for the Americana Music Association’s 2024 Americana Honors and Awards in the category of Emerging Artist of the Year.
Her debut album, “Whiplash” (out now on Yep Roc), has garnered praise from The New York Times, Billboard, NPR, and The Nashville Scene to name a few. “This is the kind of album where you leave knowing an artist better than you ever thought you could in less than 40 minutes, and learn a thing or two about yourself in the process” Says Marissa R. Moss, who named “Whiplash” her number one Country album of 2023 for Stereogum. Not one to be confined into any one mold, Riccio’s “Whiplash” introduces influences from a variety of genres, while still holding space for her love for all decades of country and Americana music.
https://www.jobiriccio.com/
ADEEM THE ARTIST
Adeem Maria (they/them/theirs) is a seventh-generation Carolinian, a makeshift poet, singer-songwriter, storyteller, and blue-collar Artist. They began toiling at their instrument in 2002 when their family relocated to Syracuse, NY and used songwriting as a vehicle to process the ensuing culture shock, their faith, and later their journey through apostasy.
Blending a homegrown affection for Country Music with the emotional ballyhoo of alternative folk in the early aughts, they have created a unique brand of Americana that pays homage to John Prine and John Darnielle (of The Mountain Goats) in equal parts.
On “Cast-Iron Pansexual”, they received praise from Rolling Stone & American Songwriter for their work exploring identity across coalescing subcultures. Traveling to Carolina to get their Tarot read while straddling the duality of being a “blue collar boy” who is a “complicated dame,” Adeem excavates unwonted stories of the forgotten south.
https://www.adeemtheartist.com/
AFRO DOMINICANO
Afro Dominicano is a World Music band that centers its music on what they call Afro Caribbean soul. They blend traditional folkloric genres from the Dominican Republic such as Perico Ripiao, Palo, Merengue de Orquesta, Bachata with Reggae, Bembe, Calypso, and Samba, Funk, Rock, and other African rhythms. They have completely impacted the performance art industry by breaking the barrier of the musical genre; seamlessly entering and exiting them with grace and expertise.
Afro Dominicano is not just a band but a social movement, they believe in uniting individuals from all around the world through their music. This can be experienced during their live performances, where race and ethnicity disappear because despite all our differences we all have something in common; our love for music, and that unites us.
https://afrodominicano.com/
SATURDAY, JANUARY 25
TOAD THE WET SPROCKET
Any music fan who grew up in the ‘90s, before the rise of streaming platforms, will tell you that when a record store clerk made a music recommendation, you took it seriously. These unsung tastemakers had their finger on the pulse of lesser-known, excellent bands. So it speaks volumes that many of Toad the Wet Sprocket’s earliest champions were record store clerks who put the Santa Barbara quartet’s early albums into unsuspecting listeners’ hands, convincing them to overlook their unusual band name and give them a shot. And that’s all it took. Lead singer Glen Phillips’ heartfelt, introspective lyrics expressed in his deep, buttery croon backed by the earnest instrumentation, catchy melodies and vocal harmonies of guitarist Todd Nichols, bassist Dean Dinning and drummer Randy Guss had fans hooked from the outset.
Now celebrating over 30 years as a band, Toad the Wet Sprocket is still making music and touring with the same spirit of unwavering independence that started it all over three decades ago. They share in the kind of musical chemistry that can only come from meeting in high school and writing, recording, and touring over the course time. Even with everything that’s changed over the last few decades, one of the band’s main drivers has remained the same since they first started performing together in high school: bringing people together to experience music as a binding force and to help them feel like they belong.
BRUCE COCKBURN
One of Canada’s finest artists, Bruce Cockburn has enjoyed an illustrious career shaped by musical diversity. His journey has seen him embrace many styles while travelling to such far-flung places as Guatemala, Mozambique, and Nepal, writing memorable songs about his ever-expanding world of wonders. Throughout his career, Cockburn has captured the joy, pain, and faith of human experience in song. Whether singing about retreating to the country or going up against chaos, tackling lies or embracing ecclesiastical truths, he has always expressed a tough yet hopeful stance: to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.
For his many achievements, the artist has been honored with 13 Juno Awards, an induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, as well as the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, and been made an Officer of the Order of Canada. His commitment has made Bruce Cockburn both an exemplary citizen and a legendary artist whose prized songbook will be celebrated for many years to come.
THE MILK CARTON KIDS
A Grammy Award-nominated neo-traditional folk duo from Los Angeles, Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan formed The Milk Carton Kids in early 2011, shelving their solo careers in favor of a collaborative project that focused on harmonized vocals, entwined acoustic guitars, and rootsy songwriting. They released their first two albums – – the live “Retrospect” and studio “LP Prologue” — later in 2011, at which time they also began a pattern of persistent touring. Known on the road for their adversarial, Smothers Brothers-evoking comedic banter as well as their virtuosic guitar skills, they added a backing band to the project for the first time in 2018 with their fourth studio album, “All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn’t Do”. The duo pared things down for subsequent releases including 2023’s “I Only See the Moon”.
https://www.themilkcartonkids.com/
JOY CLARK
Louisiana born-and-raised singer-songwriter and guitarist Joy Clark is charting her own path with her debut album “Tell it to the Wind.” As the youngest of five children born into a tight knit, deeply religious family just outside of New Orleans, her release is both a declaration of her independence and a love letter to the traditions that shaped her.
Joy’s songcraft, paired with sophisticated progressions, and themes of freedom, love and self-acceptance gained her notice on the national folk and Americana scenes just a few years ago with appearances at Americanafest. Joy teamed up with one of her musical heroes, 4x Grammy-nominated Margaret Becker, to make her debut album. “Tell it to the Wind” marks Clark’s arrival on the national stage as a proud, queer, Black woman blending the social consciousness of folk, the rhythms of Southeast Louisiana, and the soul-centered music she grew up with.
https://joyclarkmusic.com/
WILLI CARLISLE
Born and raised on the Midwestern plains, Willi Carlisle is a product of the punk-to-folk music pipeline that’s long fueled frustrated young men looking to resist. After falling for the rich ballads and tunes of the Ozarks, where he now lives, he began examining the full spectrum of American musical history. This insatiable stylistic diversity is obvious in his wildly raucous live performances, where songs range from sardonic trucker-ballads like “Vanlife” to the heartbreaking queer waltz “Life on the Fence,” to an existential talkin’ blues about a panic attack in Walmart’s aisle five. With guitar, fiddle, button-box, banjo, harmonicas, rhythm-bones, and Willi’s booming baritone, this is bona-fide populist folk music in the tradition of cowboys, frontier fiddlers, and tall-tale tellers. With a quick wit and big sing-alongs, these folk songs bring us a step closer to breaking down our divides.
Produced by the GRAMMY Award-nominated Darrell Scott, Carlisle’s latest album “Critterland” considers where we come from and where we are going. The album is a wild romp through the backwaters of his mind and America, lingering in the odd corners of human nature to visit obscure oddballs, dark secrets, and complicated truths about the beauty and pain of life and love.
https://www.willicarlisle.com/
About The Ark: Considered one of the top music clubs in the world, The Ark is renowned for the quality and breadth of its programming. The Ark is an intimate 400-seat club presenting performers who fall into the wide-ranging genres of folk and roots music. The Ark, now in its 59th year, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the enrichment of the human spirit through the presentation, preservation and encouragement of folk, roots and ethnic music and related arts. The Ark provides a welcoming atmosphere for all people to listen to, learn about, perform and share music. Visit theark.org for more information.
316 South Main Street • Ann Arbor, MI 48104 • (734) 761-1800 • www.theark.org
