Diversity - in musical style and in terms of who gets heard and who decides - has been a watchword of Americana and bluegrass for at least a decade. But those organizations and their annual conference/festivals have learned a lot from Folk Alliance International. FAI has been gathering annually for 38 years, and it’s always a feast of varied genres, regional and global traditions, and progressive passion. When I saw that Folk Alliance 2026 was heading for New Orleans, I decided it was time to go back and taste the folk music gumbo.
Among the official showcase artists chosen for this year’s event: Proven veterans like the Milk Carton Kids and Great Lake Swimmers; Instrumentalists like fingerstyle guitarist Yasmin Williams; African voices and textures from Mamadou Diabate and Cheikh Ibra Fam; Indigenous American folk singers like the fast-rising Agalisiga “Chuj” Mackey, who sings original country and western songs in Cherokee; and old-time string band from Bruce Molsky and Darol Anger. There was the brilliant Irish band I Draw Slow and Compass Records recording artist Meredith Moon. And I’m just skimming the surface.
There was, as always, a strong contingent of Nashville songwriters, including Amy Speace, Maya de Vitry, Kyshona, Robbie Hecht, Emma Swift, and Steve Poltz. And Folk Alliance went deep with Louisiana artistry, embracing the power of regionalism with the Lost Bayou Ramblers, Jourdan Thibodeaux, Corey Ledet, the Panorama Jazz Band, and patriarch Nathan Williams and his Zydeco Cha Chas.
Alas, I was limited in what I could hear because the news about impending Winter Storm Fern was not good, and I had to cut my Folk Alliance short, missing two days of music and conversation. I packed a half dozen interviews into Thursday and Friday before flying out early Saturday morning. I didn’t explore the sonorous chaos of the late night private hotel room showcases that the event is famous for. But I learned a lot and gathered voices from a variety of regions, styles, persuasions, and sounds. There’s no theme. Just fascinating people who’ve taken up the mantle of troubadours and truth-tellers.
Music cue: “Lesson” from Tell It To The Wind
Joy grew up in the suburbs of New Orleans and dove into its music culture after moving into the city for college. That’s where she started writing songs and getting serious about the guitar, which is in fact how she first got on the radar of roots music fans. She got hired by renowned percussionist Cyril Neville, veteran of the Meters and the Neville Brothers. She later became part of Allison Russell’s Rainbow Coalition Band, with whom she performed on late night TV and the Grammy Awards. And at last, in 2024, she realized a dream of releasing her own album, Tell It To The Wind on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records.
“My first Folk Alliance was 2020 when it was in New Orleans. So this is like a full circle moment. Because I remember myself coming into that with the realization that, yes, I love making music, and I would like to build an audience. I want an intentional audience. I don't want to play in rooms where people could care less if I'm there. I've done that before. Fast forward to 2026, I'm back, and people come up to me and they say, I love your music. I listen to you. That's what I wanted. That's why I'm still here.”
Music cue: “Elizabeth Brown” from Celestun
While many artists at Folk Alliance were taking on the world and its injustices, others were making music that’s more escapist and soothing. The recently formed acoustic guitar duo of Tyler Ramsey and Carl Broemel is an interesting case. They’re both seasoned touring musicians trying something new and offbeat. Since 2004, Broemel has been a multi-instrumentalist, including lead guitar - for the beloved Louisville KY rock band My Morning Jacket. Ramsey spent ten years playing guitar for Band of Horses. Friends from past tours and fans of each other’s musicianship, they started sending instrumental ideas back and forth during the pandemic, experiments that led eventually to this year’s new album Celestun, a mostly instrumental project that personalizes their mutual fascination with the graceful fingerstyle legacies of John Renbourn and Michael Hedges.
Tyler: “It was nice to come at it from my approach, which is like weird tunings, capos, things like that, like trying to find a sonic space that wasn't being satisfied. And I feel the same way about Carl, like he's able to cover so much. The guitar parts that we do together, just kind of dance around each other in such a cool way that every time we play these songs, it just feels like something really special, the way that our guitars are talking to each other.”
Carl: “We did a couple tours where we brought a bunch of equipment, and it was kind of like simulating a rock show, and we've done that. And we were kind of like, okay, that was fun, but what if we stripped it back even more and just really focused on playing guitar and singing, within those limitations? It's starting to develop into something for me that's really interesting.”
Music cue: “Jewel of the Blue Ridge” from Carolina Mountains
Multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Sparrow Smith got attached to folk music growing up in Colorado but she’s been in western NC since she was 18, now in the lovely and artsy mountain town of Marshall, which is currently recovering from Hurricane Helene of late 2024. She’s been prolific for a dozen years as half of the Resonant Rogues with her husband Keith. I wish we’d had more time to get deep into her story, because she’s been a hitchhiker who joined the circus and a punk folkie. But we did get to talk about her joy in pursuing a range of genres, and about the centrality of dance to her musical soul.
“I am fundamentally a dancer almost as much as I am a musician. The function of a lot of different kinds of old time music was to get people to dance - whether that's Cajun music, honky tonk, old-time music, square dance clogging kind of stuff, whether that is like Eastern European folk dance music, whether that's like Arabic belly dance music or whatever. I play cumbia as well, South American dance music. And so sometimes when things get modern in a way that it loses that function of the dance drive, then for me, it gets less in my body and more in my head, which I do enjoy in a different way.”
Music Cue: “My Youth Is All For You”
There’s a first time for everything, and songwriter Maisy Owen was making her first Folk Alliance visit as an unofficial showcase artist. She’s 23 years old and pursuing a slightly gothic folk rooted in her willowy voice, impressionistic lyrics and delicate but intricate fingerstyle guitar. Her musical upbringing was very Music City, as she’s the daughter of outstanding Americana songwriter Gwil Owen and goddaughter of the late great David Olney. I heard Maisy perform her phantasmic songs at a trade show annex before we sat down to talk about launching a career. Her debut album is set to come out on Tompkins Square Records this year.
“I feel like being confident to do music without (a) band is a big thing. A lot of people feel more comfortable having the band behind them, and I feel like it's a really cool thing to be able to play solo in front of people and have the song stand for itself. When it comes to folk music, the actual art of songwriting is the most important thing, since it's so stripped back. That's going to be what's front and foremost. So I think that's really cool.”
RACHEL SUMNER AND TRAVELING LIGHT
Music Cue: “Thank God You Had A Daughter"
In 2011, California native Rachel Sumner moved to Boston to attend the Berklee College of Music as a flute player. But like so many others, she was seduced by the string band, bluegrass and folk scene that was exploding at the time. She founded the band Twisted Pine and then moved on to a solo songwriting posture, and that led to her current trio Traveling Light, with fiddler Kat Wallace and bass player Mike Siegel. And that band, with broad acoustic influences and some classical chops, has done well, winning the Telluride Bluegrass Festival band contest last summer. We talk about her balance of “feminine rage and tenderness in equal measure,” including the song that helped put her on the map. “Radium Girls” is a tour de force of lyric writing about women who were methodically poisoned with radioactive paint while working assembly lines for glow-in-the-dark watches in the early 20th century.
“I never expected a six-minute song that is very dense with language about a historical happening or tragedy to be my ‘breakout.’ I think it's amazing that people have the attention span. Joanna Newsom is my favorite songwriter, and she writes 16-minute songs that sprawl and you get something new from each new listen. And I really aspire to create songs that feel like they've got levels and levels to unpack, so that you'll get something from repeated listens.”
I also include a brief Zoom interview with Folk Alliance Executive Director Jennifer Roe, where she talks about returning to New Orleans, about losing significant attendance from Canada due to the Trump Administration’s hostility to the country, and about taking extra measures when anticipating a surge of immigration enforcement in the city.
The next Folk Alliance conference will be held Jan. 27-31 in Chicago.
