Check Out the Powerhouse Showcase Lineup for Folk Alliance International’s 36th Annual Conference
The official showcases alone feature more than 130 artists from 36 countries of origin for the massive conference taking place in Kansas City, MO, Feb. 21-25, 2024.
Flamy Grant. Photo provided by FAI.
In just six weeks, the Westin Crown Center Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, is going to be buzzing with music talent from all over the world, as Folk Alliance International (FAI) hosts its 36th Annual Conference.
If you’ve never been to one, drop everything and do it. We attended this event in 2022, and it was so epic we had to spread our coverage over four articles! Although a large part of its purpose is providing networking opportunities for artists, labels and press, it’s also a music fan’s dream to wander the hotel from morning til early the next morning every day, soaking in unforgettable experiences and loads of live music in an unusually intimate atmosphere.
But it’s not just fun and games: As the world’s largest membership organization for the folk music industry and community, FAI takes its mission of serving and strengthening the global folk community seriously. This year the official showcases alone feature more than 130 artists from 36 countries of origin—and that’s not taking into account many artists who’ll appear exclusively in the private showcases! (For the uninitiated, those take place from around 10pm to 3am every night in little hotel rooms spread over several floors of a wing, and they are magical.)
FAI also clearly understands the social significance and potential impact of music, especially folk music, not only in preserving and defining cultures but in affecting real change around the world. To that end, many of their conference themes, workshops, panels and showcases tackle global issues such as climate change, racism and inequity of all kinds.
The ambitious theme of this year’s conference is Alchemy: A Transformative Force. As explained in their press release, the conference will explore “how changes in culture alter the ways we make and share music, which, in turn, transforms lives and changes the world.”
Crys Matthews. Photo provided by FAI.
True to that theme, the official showcase lineup features a widely diverse group of artists, many of whom have created names for themselves as being outspoken, radical, boundary-busting and genre-exploding—makers of “good trouble” as well as great music, basically. The lineup includes:
Badass trio from California Rainbow Girls
JUNO Award nominee and multiple Maple Blues Award winner Matt Andersen
Arkansas’ Willi Carlisle, who performed at Newport Folk Fest and who “speaks his truth…reminiscent of folk singers like Woody Guthrie” (NPR Music)
Jolie Holland, whose upcoming album has been previewed in Stereogum and Pitchfork and about whom NPR Music said, “immediately arresting voice… that lands halfway between dusty rural Americana and grimy New York art-rock”
Powerhouse vocalist, intrepid songwriter, and drag queen Flamy Grant, winner of 2023 Kerrville New Folk Competition
Canadian-Grenadian “star in the making” (Folk Alley) and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings artist Kaia Kater
Olive Klug, who found success on TikTok and whose songs reflect their experience with queer identity and the struggle to establish adulthood in unprecedented times
Tony Award winner John Gallagher Jr., star of Broadway’s American Idiot, Spring Awakening, and the upcoming Avett Brothers musical Swept Away
2022 International Folk Music Award Song of the Year winner Crys Matthews
Memphis’ Amy LaVere, whom NPR said “specializes in lyrics that are more barbed than her sweet soprano prepares you for”
The Steel Wheels, of whom NPR said, “Smearing the boundaries separating blues, bluegrass and gospel music, The Steel Wheels’ sound has earned the band multiple awards and a near-permanent place atop independent music and Americana charts”
The “magic” (New York Times) Livingston Taylor, writer of four Billboard Top Forty hits and subject of a 2019 PBS special
IBMA Momentum Vocalist Award winner AJ Lee and Blue Summit
Hit songwriter Bruce Sudano, who wrote the GRAMMY-nominated track “Tell Me I’m Not Dreamin’ (Too Good to Be True)” as well as songs for Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, and his late wife, the GRAMMY Award-winning singer Donna Summer
Three-time JUNO Award Winner Connie Kaldor
Austin’s Gina Chavez, about whom NPR said “if you don’t know her already, I dare you to walk away and not become a fan”
New Orleans’ Handmade Moments, who incorporate alto sax, bass clarinet, sousaphone, mandolin, guitar and beatboxing and were subjects of the documentary Busking, which screened at dozens of film festivals around the world
Frequent Robert Plant collaborator Justin Adams and Mauro Durante
English singer John Smith, International Folk Music Award-nominee with over 100 million Spotify streams of his music
Jorge Glem, Venezuelan virtuoso cuatro player, and Sam Reider presenting Brooklyn-Cumaná
Memphissippi Sounds, a blend of North Mississippi hill country blues, Memphis blues and soul, rock, and hip-hop featuring Cameron Kimbrough, grandson of blues legend Junior Kimbrough
Three-time Scottish Traditional Music Awards Live Act of the Year winners Skerryvore
IBMA Momentum Band award winners Still House Junkies
Willi Carlisle. Photo provided by FAI.
The lineup is still growing and not final, but you can find an even bigger list of the artists confirmed so far on the FAI website.
The Folk Alliance International Conference, presented by Folk Alliance International, is the world’s largest gathering of the folk music industry and community (crossing a diverse array of genres including Appalachian, Americana, blues, bluegrass, Celtic, Cajun, global roots, hip-hop, old-time, singer-songwriter, spoken word, traditional, zydeco, and various fusions). The conference takes place February 21-25, 2024, at the Westin Crown Center Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.
Carol Roth. Photo credit: Dan Lee.
Carol Roth is the primary writer, social media manager, podcast producer and event-calendar updater for Adventures in Americana. By day she’s a marketing writer/brand strategist. In addition to playing guitar and songwriting, she writes self-proclaimed “trashy” novels under the pseudonym T.A. Berkeley.
