Anjimile and more celebrate black voices in folk music at Club Passim on Sunday, 11 February 2024.

A bill taller than a baby’s arm with Kemp Harris, Naomi Westwater, Gabriella Simpkins, Grace Givertz, and Chris Walton.

Cliff Notez plays host, historian, and bandleader all night long.

A festival spanning two non-consecutive nights at Club Passim? A week between?

What is this, Coachella?

There are no rules in event planning. The organizers of the inaugural We Black Folk Fest spied a pair of dates in February that they liked, and went for it.

There are advantages to the stratagem. Consider how tall each bill is on each night, and then reflect on how hard it might be to coordinate the schedules of all those artists within the same 48-hour period. With a week between dates, there’s a little more wiggle room. If an artist is busy the first week, maybe they’re free the second, or vice versa.

The second Sunday of the festival was another love letter to the guitar. Usually acoustic. But we also saw a few outliers: Grace Givertz rocking the banjo and Kemp Harris tapping the keys.

Givertz is a regular presence on folk stages around town with a full-bodied voice that shades into country twang. With a set of percussive bells strapped to her right foot, she trotted out a rollicking set of originals, including songs off her LP Year of the Horse.

In a well-calculated programming change each artist played a single set rather than two shorter sets in round robin fashion that we saw last Sunday. The longer single set allowed each artist more time to warm up, stretch out, and make a connection with the room.

Closer Anjimile might have been the star that shined brightest, fresh off the major indie record release of The King, playing the headliner role. Their performance of the title track “The King,” which hits you with heavy synth samples in the studio version, found its own fresh footing on stage at Club Passim as a solo acoustic version.

But the night was about the first person plural: we. The artists on the bill took the stage together at the start of the show, the end of the show, and – if you peeked into the green room – at all points in between. Good vibes reigned.

Good enough for a repeat edition in 2025? Wait and see.

Prediction: the festival will return next February, but it will no longer be pay-what-you-can.

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