Hello folks and fellow lovers of music and Americana poetry,
Plans for the 17th edition of the Gamble Rogers Folk Festival are moving right along. Lots of changes are coming your way. In response to popular demand (and financial exigencies untold) the festival is coming back to its roots...the St. Augustine Amphitheatre! But read on...we have a production planned that will reduce the ticket prices substantially, bring us back to the point of our origins 17 years ago and showcase our very lovely historic city (all in one weekend if you can imagine that!). One of the big highlights of using the Amphitheatre again will be the fact that we will be adjacent to beautiful Anastasia State Park. For folks who like to camp and do a little pickin and grinnin around the camp fire, Anastasia State Park is perfect and a short walk into the Amphitheatre grounds. So, if you do intend to camp, please make your reservations early. Visit their website.
The actual plans for the weekend event are still evolving but here are some highlights that are pretty well settled. The festival will open Friday night by meshing with the First Friday Art walk in downtown St. Augustine. This features an open door tour of local art galleries beginning at 5 PM. We are trying to arrange for local and regional performers to be live at the galleries. At 7:30 PM we will have a stage show at the waterfront St. Augustine Marina which was our most beautiful venue last year. The flavor of the show, the possibility of dancing afterwards, connectivity with local night life for after show events, are all in the planning stages so stay tuned.
On Saturday, we will have live performance from 1 PM to 10 PM at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre. During daylight hours we will have at least three stages running concurrently (including of course the Amphitheatre Main Stage). After a brief pause for dinner, we will have the headliner show on the Main Stage. We are actively seeking the talent for all phases of the festival so if you are a performer and have not applied to perform please do so.
Sunday is still in the mix. We are exploring several possibilities and will keep you updated as details solidify.
Our hope is that we will be able to drop our prices substantially and even perhaps in half from the past several years. Our focus is to produce the quality event that everyone has grown accustomed to and yet work within the limitations of a strained economy. So have faith and make plans now to attend. Any ideas or comments you might have are always welcome (paul@gamblerogersfest.org).
On another note, The Gamble Rogers Folk Festival will be producing a festival fund raiser concert to take place on Saturday March 24th at the Flagler College auditorium here in St. Augustine. Negotiations are underway for the performers and we will get the word out as soon as we have contracts. Please plan to attend as these fund raiser concerts are always superb and the proceeds help keep the dream alive.
Finally, we need more volunteers. If the notion of getting in to the festival in exchange for a few hours of effort is not enough to get you to join in the fun, then just try to imagine the boundless self-satisfaction that comes from involvement with a non-profit organization whose focus in life is keeping arts and music alive! Besides....Gamble will smile down on you!
Warmest regards,
Paul Linser
Gamble Rogers balanced a love of balladry and folk songs with a passion for the oral tradition and storytelling. The son and grandson of influential architects, Rogers was described as both a "modern troubadour" and the "resurrection of Will Rogers and Mark Twain". Rogers was a master performer--enchanting an audience with Travis-style guitar finger picking and relating downright rib-tickling tales about the inhabitants of the fictitious Oklawaha County.
The Atlanta Constitution called Rogers, "an American treasure worthy of inclusion in the Smithsonian". Rogers was just hitting his peak when he died, on October 10, 1991, trying to save a man from drowning. The recreational area in Flagler County, where the accident occurred, was later renamed, "The Gamble Rogers Memorial Park".
In the liner notes of his album, Fruitcakes, Jimmy Buffett dedicated the recording to Rogers' memory and wrote that Rogers, "taught me how to move an audience with dialogue and delivery as much as with music". In 1993, Rogers was posthumously awarded a Folk Heritage award.
~ Craig Harris, All Music Guide
It is nice to find a place of your own where you can relax and enjoy great music in historic downtown St. Augustine. The purpose of the Gamble Rogers Folk Festival is to continue the tradition of folk and other music and expose children to the power of this art form. Families can enjoy this event together and experience original music in a natural setting. Furthermore, the tented stages with plenty of seating, are arranged in a manner where you can stroll from one stage to another and enjoy a variety of musical styles and performances.
In addition to the music, artists like Joe Mark have added to the cultural consciousness of this musical event. Since the early days of the Gamble Rogers Festival, Joe Mark has been painting Gamble’s stories and setting the mood with his unique, vibrant watercolors.
