Familiar faces and fresh sounds: Folk-rock luminary Steve Forbert joins Roots On the River line-up

Last June, as my friends and family and I sat enjoying Fred Eaglesmith's sardonic commentary in between songs at what was my seventh Roots on the River experience, I finally figured out what this four-day music festival in Bellows Falls reminds me of every year.

With its vivid cast of characters, entertaining banter, colorful stories, high-caliber performances and sometimes surprising connective tissue binding these tales and talents together into one extraordinarily satiating creative marathon, it's a bit like a Robert Altman film but without quite as much drama.

The starring role is masterfully played by Eaglesmith, of course, whose astute, salty sensibilities, raggedly beautiful lyrics and working man's heroism generate a crowd and culture that's impossible to define yet refreshingly distinct. While the roster of artists is a bit different every year, it's a given that the stage will be graced by consummate musicians with their own brand of songwriting and that by the end of the weekend the audience's musical tastes will have cross-pollinated and grown exponentially.

This event is something of an up-close and in person YouTube meets iTunes but with good eats, grass between your toes, great company and no banner ads. There's a delicious immediacy and accessibility about music festivals and ROTR seems to be particularly indulgent for the typical avid disciple. I've been known to jump up and buy a newcomer's CD before the end of the first amazingly good song and very often on my way to the merchandise booth I'll run into one of my longtime favorite musicians and stop for a quick chat. Fortunately, several of them are returning this year for another eclectic Roots on the River powerhouse line-up.

Tonight at 7:30 p.m. two of the region's most beloved singer-songwriters play the Bellows Falls Opera House, with Mark Erelli opening for and later accompanying Lori McKenna, both touring on exquisite albums that came out last year.

The festival revs up again at noon Friday, with an open mic at Boccelli's Café in downtown Bellows Falls and at 4 p.m. The Lonesome Brothers and The Clayton Sabine Band play across the street at the Farmers' Market. Then on the main stage under the Big Tent a couple of miles north, the Lonesome Brothers return at 7:30 p.m. followed by The Bottle Rockets and Fred Eaglesmith & The Flying Squirrels.

Saturday is the day to bring the whole kit and caboodle — camping chairs, blankets, cameras and kids — and settle in for 10 hours of top-notch country, folk, Americana, bluegrass, roots and rockabilly in a grit-steeped musical epic studded with glimmering guitars, world-weathered poetry and well-hewn voices, both comfortably familiar and entirely new. There's space to roam outside the Big Tent in between sets and, new this year, a Kids' Tent where the little tykes will be fed, watered and entertained while Mom and Dad soak up the earthy, original sounds of the Roger Marin Band, the Starline Rhythm Boys, Eilen Jewell, Sarah Borges, Steve Forbert, George's Back Pocket, Robbie Fulks and Fred Eaglesmith closing out the night.

Hold on, did I say Steve Forbert? He of the early '80s, boyish singer-songwriter on steep trajectory, "Romeo's Tune" fame? Why, yes, I did.

Forbert is joining Fred and friends for the first time this year while touring on his new CD, "Strange Names and New Sensations", and his presence at ROTR is sure to broaden the weekend's aural landscape and audience demographic yet further.

Since becoming one of the fastest rising folk-pop stars in the late '70s with the success of his first two albums, "Alive On Arrival" and "Jackrabbit Slim" — and having being laden with the expectation of becoming the "next Dylan" — Forbert has continued forging his own creative identity, living in Nashville, releasing more than two dozen records and touring with songs about life, love, hurt and hope, for devoted fans around the globe.

In his own unassuming yet assiduous way, Forbert helped an entire decade redeem itself, staying authentic and humble amidst punk posturing and bloated arena rock of the '80s and this purity of spirit prevails on his latest collection, albeit with a sharper lyrical edge than usual and a nicely stone-washed voice.

In "Baghdad Dream", his news-weary disdain for what the government is doing in Iraq comes through in bluesy hooks, guitar twang and lines like "It's enough to make you scream, what a well mismanaged scheme, Mr. Rumsfeld calls the shots and we all get what we got, oh the Baghdad Dream."

Other more ruminative tunes reflect Forbert's inner growth, revealing both regrets and acceptance of life's harsh lessons, as in the melodious and astute "Thirty More Years" and "Middle Age."

"Simply Spalding Gray" is a poignant composition built on ripened, stream-of-consciousness poetry, the kind of meditative veneration that can only come from a proficient writer who's got a few decades of experience from which to draw: "Swimming To Cambodia, Monster In a Box, this dude just flippin' sits there and they film him while he talks, they're ain't no sex or violence, might not float your boat, a water glass, a table, and a page or two of notes."

When I caught up with Forbert recently, I asked if reading poetry is part of his motivation as a songwriter.

"I couldn't carry on a very lengthy dissertation about poetry," he said. "But I like Worsdworth and Poe. My goal is to just keep the quality up — some of these songs I hear on the radio aren't even songs at all."

Regarding the evolution of the music industry over the three decades since his career began, Forbert was equally succinct. "I just admire people that can do a lot with a little. I wish we had more of that because you get so many big bombastic productions. Less is more sometimes."

Forbert's candor and viewpoint reminded me of what Fred Eaglesmith had said when I spoke to him prior to ROTR '06.

"The world is feeling really decadent these days, you know, everyone has too much money," Eaglesmith avowed, "and I was feeling decadent, like 'This is just gross, I'm out here with a six-piece band and a tour-bus and I'm singing songs about little people leading simple lives and I was starting to feel like it was all too big. You know so many bands are all 'bling-bling' now, so I just thought, I'm gonna go really small."

That credo is precisely what makes Forbert's presence at this year's Roots on the River a great fit. The folks who play this festival share simple, straightforward sensibilities and their mutual admiration spills into the audience until the atmosphere becomes positively familial and as comfortable as an old, well-made armchair. With Forbert adding his intelligent lyrics, emotive delivery and sage perspective to the mix, this year's crowd is going to be edified, entertained and delighted to hear a familiar troubadour's dulcet tones again.

Reverence will be flowing in every direction throughout the weekend, with a particularly notable absence at the center of it all, that of Eaglesmith's longtime comrade, mandolin and harmonica player, Willie P. Bennett, who passed away this past February. Bennett was cherished by ROTR devotees and his sweet smile, wry humor and luminous music will be terribly missed, most acutely at Sunday's more intimate acoustic show, which takes place at the stately Rockingham Meeting House.

Renowned Louisiana singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier, whose heartrending lyrics and resonant guitar glow in the cavernous hilltop colonial, will open for Fred Eaglesmith and the Flying Squirrels, who can always be counted on to rattle the tall windows with irreverent songs about rodeos, liquor and big ass garage sales as well pierce the breezy silence with plaintive tales of tired migrant workers, aging cowboys and broken hearted truck drivers.

The collective musicianship at Roots on the River is a rare convergence of masterful songwriting, hard-earned wisdom and fierce creative independence, with regrettable absences, new faces and old friends shifting this ever-evolving, always invigorating four-day tunefest.

And, like many of his cohorts, Forbert will be keeping it simple, with just a guitar, maybe a water glass and a page or two of notes.

Online: www.vermontfestivalsllc.com
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