A Queer Folk Music Revival
LGBTQ+ singer-songwriters and followers found inspiration at gathering after the Folk Alliance International conference, writes Alan Richard
A showcase of up-and-coming and veteran LGBTQ+ singer-songwriters here in New Orleans felt like a spiritual revival this past January.
As singer-songwriters Joy Clark and Jennifer Knapp, two of the evening’s performers, finished their set of inspirational songs at The AllWays Lounge & Cabaret, the evening’s host Flamy Grant spoke up.
“You’re not gonna find that shit anywhere else,” Grant said during the Jan. 25 event. “I don’t know about y’all, but I needed it.”
Following the Folk Alliance International conference and billed as The Gayest Show on Earth, the event was planned by Grant — whose album CHURCH was nominated for Best Album at the International Folk Music Awards held on Jan. 21 — and Ben Grace of Black Oak Artists.
It was a time to celebrate music that’s often deeply personal, and a moment to heal in a heavy world, especially for the LGBTQ+ community, for women, immigrants, and people of color.
The event was only two weeks after the killing of Renée Nicole Good while protesting the federal government’s violent immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. National Guard members carried automatic weapons as they walked outside the Folk Alliance conference hotel on Canal Street and other areas of New Orleans.
The evening was even “more powerful than I thought it would be,” Grant said, following the event. “It was a really lovely reprieve to be with people, and we don’t have to explain ourselves to anyone. We can simply be.”
Many of the evening’s performers in pairs or trios traded songs and stories for the audience of perhaps 100 or more.
Wiley Gaby, a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter originally from the woods of Wakulla County, Florida. “I liked Dolly Parton and Wonder Woman and all that shit,” Gaby said. He sang IDAGF No More, a rocking country single from his album coming later this year. He followed it with a ballad called Marylou, a song about the intergenerational trauma of an upbringing that betrayed the family’s religion supposedly based on grace and forgiveness.
“Marylou, I’ve forgiven, though you never asked me to,” Gaby sang. “It’s just something you taught me to do.”
He shared the stage with Ever More Nest, or singer-songwriter Kelcy Mae Wilburn (sometimes a full band and sometimes solo) from New Orleans, who harmonized with Gaby. She performed several songs that addressed religious hypocrisy, borrowing language from an old hymn, declaring “This is my story, this is my song.”
Next, Sav Madigan of The Accidentals (her group with Katie Larson, which had a a major folk music hit called Wildfire written with Kim Richey) was joined by her Michigan-based friend Jilian Linklater of The Rebel Eves (her group with Katie Pederson and Grace Theisen).
Madigan introduced her song about a two-headed calf, which sounds ridiculous but is nothing less than a stunner. Based on a poem by the late Laura Gilpin, Madigan sang in a sweet whisper about a freak of nature who’s actually gifted with greater sight than others.
“When you learn to love the dark, you see twice as many stars,” she sang. The audience roared with applause as she finished the song.
“Fuck you guys,” she said, smiling through her tears.
Linklater introduced her terrific song Queen of Overthinking by reminding artists and fans in the room to “give yourself room to breathe.”
“Every song doesn’t have to be a song that changes the world, Sometimes, a moment’s just a moment,” she said. “It’s still a magic thing you’re holding.”
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