Murray Lerner’s film “Festival” is a cinematic synthesis of four Newport Folk
Festivals in which the art of folk music is pictured in transition during its most
crucial years. The range is from Bob Dylan performing “Tambourine Man” and
Joan Baez doing “Farewell Angelina,” to country artists like Johnny Cash
playing “I Walk the Line” to the Georgia Sea Island Singers. The range is also
from the high-priced professionals like Peter, Paul, and Mary to the authentic folk
dignity of living legends such as Son House and Mississippi John Hurt. Joan
Baez, Donovan and Judy Collins are all on view, as are Pete Seeger, the Ed
Young Fife and Drum Corps and numerous others that give a feeling of
community with the whole American present, and continuity with the American
past. Indeed, the long-haired Newport audiences pictured sleeping on beaches
and on the grounds, in sports cars and battered station wagons, plunking banjoes
and guitars, swapping tunes between formal concerts, and talking about folk
music, seem not a rupture with the American past, but an expression of carrying
forward an American idealism and social concern.

Track Listing
1) Hannah – Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band w/ Mel Lyman
2) If I Had A Hammer – Peter, Paul and Mary
3) Rocky Road – Sacred Harp Singers
4) Traditional Spiritual – Georgia Sea Island Singers
5) Clog Dance – Blue Ridge Mountain Dancers
6) Black Mountain Rag – Tex Logan and The Lilly Brothers
7) Green Corn – Pete Seeger
8) Codeine…And It’s Real – Buffy Sainte-Marie
9) Deep Blue Sea – Pete Seeger
10) Lordy, Lordy – Odetta
11) Go Tell Aunt Rhody – Joan Baez and Peter Yarrow
12) Mary Hamilton – Joan Baez
13) All I Really Want To Do – Bob Dylan
14) All Our Trials – Joan Baez
15) Blowin’ In The Wind – Peter, Paul and Mary
16) And The War Drags On – Donovan
17) Turn, Turn, Turn – Judy Collins
18) Viet Nam, Your Latest Game – Donovan
19) Just Can’t Keep From Cryin’ – Odetta
20) Times They Are A Changin’ – Peter, Paul and Mary
21) Highway 61 – Fred McDowell
22) Keys To The Highway – Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry
23) Candy Man – Mississippi John Hurt
24) Maggie’s Farm – Bob Dylan
25) Instrumental – Ed Young Fife & Drum Corps
26) Feed Me, Jesus – Swan Silvertones
27) Help Me, Jesus – Staple Singers
28) Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round – Freedom Singers
29) Go Tell It On The Mountain – Fannie Lou Hamer
30) We Shall Overcome – Freedom Group Finale w/ Odetta
31) I Was Born In Chicago – Paul Butterfield Blues Band
32) Son House Blues – Son House
33) You Hear My Howling Early In The Morning – Howling Wolf
34) Pack Up Your Sorrows – Mimi and Dick Farina
35) Flute Instrumental – Spokes Mashiyane
36) Cheek Slapping – Cousin Emmy
37) Russian Song – Theodore Bikel
38) Anathea – Judy Collins
39) I Walk The Line – Johnny Cash
40) Ruby – Osborne Bros.
41) Farewell Angelina – Joan Baez
42) Tambourine Man – Bob Dylan
43) Rising Of The Moon – Peter, Paul and Mary
44) Down By The Riverside – Group Finale w/ Baez, Odetta and Seeger