Remembering the Kent State Folk Festival, Part 2: A Highwoods Tale

Welcome back to our monthly series about the now-defunct Kent State Folk Festival. Click here if you missed the first installment. I was originally going to provide an early history of the festival this month, but figured I'd take a different approach and recall one specific year that was ... alarming.

I finally got around to reading Walt Koken's enjoyable memoir, Fire on the Mountain: An American Odyssey, published in 2017. Here's a quick review: It's a fast and interesting read, but he could have used a better editor. There were a number of spelling and grammar mistakes that, as a professional language-type, were hard for me to ignore. I suppose that's the challenge with self-published books. However, the stories about Koken's early days as a musician, the forming of the Highwoods Stringband and their rambling career provided great insights and plenty of entertainment. I have to thank Lynn Frederick for passing along the book to me. But let's get back to the Kent State Folk Festival.

The Highwoods Stringband played the festival twice, in 1975 and in 1977. In Chapter 40 of Koken's book, titled "Gettin' Upstairs," he writes about the band's 1977 appearance and the hi-jinx that ensued.

That year was the 10th Kent State Folk Festival, held Feb. 18-19 and featuring the Hotmud Family, John Jackson, Magpie and Cris Reitz during Friday's concert; while the Highwoods, "Poor Howard" Stith, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Nimrod Workman and the Hi-Flyers (from Kent) headlined the Saturday concert.

Koken writes that the Highwoods played often with the Hotmud Family, calling them a "sister" band. One little tidbit I learned that relates back to my Ohio fiddlers repertoire project was regarding the tune "Big Scioty" and Van Kidwell, a fiddler from Kentucky who moved to Dayton, Ohio, and sometimes played with the Hotmud Family. Koken claims that Kidwell may be the source for the version of "Big Scioty" commonly played today. The tune is named for the Scioto River, which runs through southern Ohio.

However, the centerpiece of the chapter concerns an incident that happened right before the Highwoods were about to perform. I actually first heard the story from Doug Dorschug, who played guitar and sang for the band, in a Fiddle Hangout thread I started last fall.

Poor Howard, a solo singer/guitarist, was onstage, and the Highwoods were backstage getting ready. When they were informed that Poor Howard was nearing the end of his set, the Highwoods grabbed their gear and made their way down the stairs from the dressing room. A member of another band, Dave Edmundson, in an exaggerated show of making way for bass player Jenny Cleland, backed into the fire alarm.

Poor Howard was told to keep going despite the alarm blaring. Shockingly, the audience stayed put. Eventually, the fire department arrived and turned off the alarm. Poor Howard, indeed. 

Afterward, Koken writes that the Highwoods performed a good set, rousing the audience to their feet and capping the evening by having them dancing out of the auditorium in a long, snaking line. The performance was captured on tape and eventually released on CD in 2004 as Highwoods Stringband, LIVE! The album is sadly out of print now.

Dorschug said what made the Kent State Folk Festival a good event was the organizers and local people who were involved, including Kerry Blech, "another longtime friend."

"I was sitting in the hall watching a show and at intermission turned around to see a big blonde girl with a half pint of Jack Daniels tucked into her belt," Dorschug wrote on Oct. 4, 2018. "I thought, 'I’ll bet this would be an interesting person to get to know,' and that proved to be the case. The walls and ceiling of her kitchen were decorated with strands of spaghetti that had been thrown there to see if they were done — souvenirs of memorable meals."

What's clear about these remembrances is that the old-time and folk music community in Kent, Ohio, during the 1970s was strong and vibrant. While there may have been challenges with getting student organizers during certain years, the Kent State Folk Festival was an undoubted success.

“It generally sold out," Blech wrote in an email dated Sept. 13, 2018, "workshops were full, too, as were mini-concerts during the day.”

Although February in Northeast Ohio can be brutal with bitter cold, heavy snow and unceasing grayness, the Kent State Folk Festival proved to be a draw for old-time bigwigs like the Highwoods, providing a source of income during the lean season.

"In those days we tried to get as many festival gigs as possible, since the audiences were bigger and consequently they usually paid better," Koken writes. "But even if we got five hundred dollars for a weekend, after two to four days' travel expenses and meals, splitting the remainder didn't go very far amongst the five of us. Consequently we were living low rent, and doing other types of work during slow times. Most of the big festivals were outdoors in the summer, so the Kent State event was a boon for us in the winter."