The American Spirit (Is Trapped in the Ice)

The story The American Spirit is a Lake Erie ore boat that had one more trip in January 2026 before docking for the winter. As it made it's voyage west to Toledo, the lake began to freeze with 40 knot gales spraying lake water that would soon freeze to the side of the boat causing instability.Meanwhile a little further north in…

By admin February 13, 2026New MixFARM, Folk Alliance International, folk alliance region midwest, folk music, great lakes, human rights, Ice, ore boat, protest, roots of american musiic, Ships, songwriting, topical musicNo Comments

trad.

This Little Light of Mine

This song is a gospel hymn from the early 2oth century. It is attributed to Harry Dixon Loes. Written as a children's song. I like to play it for the students I work with. Young or old they all smile and sing along. This song has a magical ability to bring us all back to our childhood and smile. I had…

By admin January 10, 2026trad.Folk Aliiance international, folk alliance region midwest, roots of american musiic, trad.No Comments

New Mix trad.

The Water Is Wide

The Water Is Wide is a traditional British folk song also known as Waly Waly.I developed my version from Avin Baird. I always loved when she performed it and eventually developed my own with her help. As my finger picking became more intentional, this song became a staple in my sets. Today it appears from time to time in my live…

By admin December 1, 2025New Mix, trad.british folk song, carla bonoff, FARM, Folk Alliance International, folk alliance region midwest, folk music, james taylor, roots of american musiic, stop the hateNo Comments

New Mix trad.

I Bid You Goodnight

I bid You Goodnight is a Bahamian spiritual by Joseph Spence. It's origins go further back than that, but his take on the song was picked up by a string of others. Mine mostly resembles the Grateful Dead or Aaron Neville versions because that is what I was listening to when I first heard it. The song quickly became my automatic…

By admin November 24, 2025New Mix, trad.aaron neville, American Folk Life, coventry Arabica, FARM, Folk Alliance International, folk alliance region midwest, folk music, goodnight, grateful dead, joseph spence, open mic, roots of american musiic, trad., traditional spirituals, We bid you goodnightNo Comments

News

FARM Lantern Bearer Award

Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s. This past weekend I went to Lisle Il for the Folk Alliance Region Midwest conference. I was presented their Lantern Bearer award,…

By admin October 28, 2025NewsAward, FARM, Folk Aliiance international, Folk alliance, folk alliance region midwestNo Comments

New Mix

New look website

Recently at the request of the Folknet board, I dove into wordpress for website creation to try to make that organizations online presence stronger. I had for years worked with Kompozer to develop my sites. It worked for me and I understood the navigation. I can use html, so it all was fairly effective for me. The problem came with the…

By admin January 20, 2025New Mixfolk alliance region midwest, folknet, forms, kompozer, MLK, wordpressNo Comments