Okies bring talent to 2025 Folk Alliance International

DOUG HILL

LOCAL COLUMNIST

Folk Alliance International (FAI) gets an Oklahoma infusion of culture and energy every year at its annual conference. The 2025 event marked its 37th iteration last month at a downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada hotel. FAI is an arts non-profit based in the USA whose mission is to keep the tradition of folk music thriving through preservation, presentation, and promotion.

It’s evident from the enthusiasm of those in attendance from around the world that’s a popular undertaking. For these nearly 1,800 folks at the conference, their careers and personal passions involve this music in a variety of ways. Many of them are based in Oklahoma and they served as four-day ambassadors to the world for our many styles of folk music past, present and future.

Two of those Okies present were Alissa Branch and Tim Grimm from Norman. Branch is a University of Oklahoma School of Drama professor of acting. Grimm is a singer/ songwriter who also operates Scotland Folk Tours from here. Together the pair co-curate a live music series called the Red Dirt Folk Salon at their residential cottage near downtown. They were at FAI where Grimm was featured in a few private showcase performances along with promoting their music-centric group journeys to the United Kingdom.

“FAI is a place to find community around music,” Branch said. “It’s a place to hear artists I’ve loved for years, meet new ones and be exposed to new sounds and artistic ideas. I love the joy people are finding all around us right now because music pops up in every room in the building twenty hours a day. We’re finding artists we may want to bring to Red Dirt Salon and play for our community in Norman.”

Jew of Oklahoma is the moniker of New Orleansbased Mark Rubin’s solo singer/songwriter project. He’s of that faith and grew up in Norman and Stillwater. Back in the day his pop Bob Rubin was the executive director of the University of Oklahoma’s Hillel chapter. At 2025 FAI, Jew of Oklahoma led an hour long meeting called “Affinity Group: Jewish Folks.” It was Friday and later at dusk many from this group and others Jews including Norman’s Barbara Hill attended an irregular Shabbat observance in the crowded hotel lobby. The occurrence undoubtedly made FAI history. Rubin recounted the heartwarming event later.

“Right in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel Montreal in the middle of the chaos of the conference, a group of Jews of every stripe made a Shabbes,” Rubin wrote. “We said the prayers, sang in our fullest voices and danced for everyone to see. No leader, just the natural flow of events. Meaningful, intentional and surrounded by strangers who are now a community. Unabashed Jewishness, simply beautiful and so required.”

There were other unanticipated moments of joy in Montreal. For the majority of USA citizens there, it was our first visit since 47 suggested Canada become America’s 51st state. Some Canadians retorted that the States should be their 11th province. Our friends and allies north of the border could not have been more warm, kind and sympathetic. They reminded that Canada and Europe have their own right wing extremists. Canada’s 3-2 overtime win against the USA in the 4 Nations Face Off ice hockey tournament was during the FAI conference. It made for jubilant emotions among our hosts that were far beyond winning a more ordinary sports match.

Tulsa’s Deana Stafford McCloud is a luminary in the folk music world. She’s a past executive director of the Woody Guthrie Center. At FAI McCloud hosted a documentary film screening of “Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame Inaugural Induction Ceremony.” McCloud accompanied one of the celebrated inductees appearing in the flick named Betsy Siggins at the conference. With a chuckle the latter referred to herself as an “Old Folky.” Siggins was Joan Baez’ Boston University roommate circa 1958. She comforted Bob Dylan after he horrified some in an audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival by fronting an electrically amplified band. That was an abomination to many who insisted on folk music being by acoustic instrumentation only.

“I was Bob Dylan’s friend in the very early days,” Siggins said. “Mimi Fariña and I heard the booing and we both started to cry. We went back stage and I sat in the only chair. Dylan came off stage and just sat in my lap. He didn’t say a single word which was fine.”

Elexa Dawson hails from Potawatomi and Cherokee lands in Oklahoma. She performed in FAI’s “Archive Challenge” sponsored by the U.S. Library of Congress. Artists picked compositions from archived field recordings and rearranged them as they wished. Dawson sang “The Riddle Song” (“I gave my love a cherry…”) that originated in 15th century England and has shown up in soundtracks as irreverent as The Simpsons and Animal House. She’d heard the song since she was a child and thought her grandmother had written it. Wearing cherry red boots and dress Dawson made the old British chestnut her own.

Montreal, Quebec is home to one of the finest regional music scenes in the world. Many of these artists performed at FAI. The following are among the best. Mélisande who amalgamate traditional Quebecois folk with high energy dance music. Originally from Haiti, Wesli brings island heartbeat to his new home in a modern vibrant city. Le Diable á Cinq are five devilishly good gents who sing, stomp and play stringed instruments with entrancing and fiery enthusiasm. Geneviève Racette’s vocals are aural honey. She conveys genuine sensitivity with steely determination in a miraculous way that makes her irresistibly attractive.

Oklahoma folk music luminary Deana Stafford McCloud (l) and Betsy Siggins who was Joan Baez’ college roommate and famously comforted Bob Dylan during a fraught early career moment.

Doug Hill | For The Transcript