By Will McGuirk
Lennon Stella, JP Saxe at Mariposa Folk Festival Friday July 8 2022. Tickets here.
Mariposa may be the Elder Folk Fest but it didn’t get there by looking backwards. At first glance pop stars JP Saxe and Lennon Stella who close out the Friday of the three day fest, may not be what one imagines to be on a stage which has hosted Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Cockburn et al, however a second listen to JP and Lennon and you will hear the folk roots at their song core, the storytelling, the melody. You will also hear craft and that is what is at the core of Mariposa Folk Festival, song craft, and it may be said too that at the core of Mariposa is the craft of festival making, and after 60+ years one can say deliberately also the art of festival making.