Festival

 I truly did not mean to watch all of "Festival," the 1967 Murray Lerner documentary about the Newport Folk Festival, because I had other things to do and I thought I knew what it would be like. It sucked me in and I couldn't stop watching. Lots of music, all great, very diverse. Interesting interviews with artists and audience members that felt casual and unmanicured. I wished the musicians were identified because I didn't know them all and my phone couldn't identify them all. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Johnny Cash I knew, of course, but so many more. Some fabulous blues artists - so fortunate that people could hear them live. The folk revival in the '60s came at just the right time. "Festival" gently probes the culture behind the revival and takes in many viewpoints. 

As often in old documentaries, I'd love to know where some of these people are now or what became of them. There's a kid who says his father is a multimillionaire and had a huge, expensive bar mitzvah, but he's obsessed with the old blues artists like Son House. And to his credit, he says he has never lived their difficult experiences and their lives have been very different, but he just loves it and it strikes something in him. It's interspersed with interviews from the actual blues artists. Fascinating stuff.