On final day, festival-goers enjoy 'Richmond at its best'

Folklife stole the show at the Richmond Folk Festival.

From gospel music to a parade of women in church hats, the CenterStage Virginia Folklife Stage was the place to be during the third and final day of the music, arts and crafts festival. The venue was the smallest of the five main performance areas on the downtown grounds, but a scarcity of seats couldn't keep away the crowd. People packed the tent inside and ringed the outside four and five deep for most of the seven shows.

Festival organizers said yesterday was the best Sunday ever as far as attendance in the festival's five years, three as the National Folk Festival and the past two as the Richmond Folk Festival. Organizers estimated the three-day attendance at 160,000, down from last year's 185,000.

"This weekend has convinced us this is an event that's going to be here for years and years," said Lisa Sims, director of events for Venture Richmond, which produces the free festival. "It's Richmond at its best."

Larnell Starkey took in the festival from a pretty good spot -- the center of the Folklife Stage -- and agreed.

"This is a beautiful sight," he said after leaving the stage, where he performed with his gospel band, the Spiritual Seven. "It's great seeing people respond to our ministry this way."

He said the group hadn't played Richmond "since I can't remember when" but were definitely glad they made the trip from Rocky Mount in Franklin County.

People were dancing in the aisles, in front of the stage and wherever else they could while the family band -- multiple generations of Starkeys have been playing the rhythm-and-blues-inspired gospel since the 1960s -- ran through its list of crowd-pleasers.

"Man, this just makes my day," Starkey said.

About an hour later, the show "Crowns of Richmond: African-American church hat fashion" took over the tent, with about a dozen women, and one girl, showing off a couple of dozen exquisitely crafted hats.

"These are the kind of hats that make people say, 'Who does she think she is?'" the announcer said, drawing a hearty round of laughs and a few amens from the overflow crowd.

"We're showing people what fashion is really about," model Cheryl Chandler, sporting one of the 25 to 30 hats from her collection, said backstage as she awaited her cue to saunter through.

Cora Thornton-Moore, the proud owner of about 500 hats, said it was all about "hatitude."

"I wear a hat everywhere I go," she said from beneath a beautiful, bright deep-pink hat that twisted and turned its way skyward. "If I go to the grocery, I'm wearing a hat. I won't wear something unless I have a hat to match."

Just outside the tent, Isaac Revis Jr. was sporting quite the hat of his own, a mustard-yellow felt fedora, a fine touch with his yellow, black and gold sharkskin jacket.

"Man, I just like hats," he said, gazing in for a closer look as the women kept strolling by. "It's just something."

. . .

Not all of the highlights were planned.

Lyle Werner booked himself to play, showing off his self-styled hillbilly speedcore banjo skills during an impromptu performance not far from the bottom steps of the footbridge onto Brown's Island.

"This is such a friendly town," he said, the banjo case at his feet filling with dollar bills.

He stopped for a moment to look around and just smiled at his good fortune.

"The aesthetics here are great," he said. "And there's such an appreciation for music. This is the best town I've lived in."

. . .

August Moon, best known as a community activist, took the stage and talked about his life in music as part of a conversational gathering headlined "Virginia's Musical Icons."

In the 1960s, Moon was a dancer and singer known as Mr. Wiggles. He frequently found the spotlight in later years as a business leader and political gadfly, but he has been slowed since a stroke in 1998.

Music showed him the world, he told the audience at the MWV Family Stage.

"I've been to every state in the country," Moon said. "Some states I wouldn't go back to, but I've been to all of them."

Asked afterwards how he came to be known as Mr. Wiggles, Moon, 72, said it was a nickname he gave himself. It was all about the moves, he said. Nobody could outdance him.

"I was a Class A dancer," he said with a smile, "but a Class B singer."

. . .

In the Genworth Financial Family Area, Kirsten Perkinson and her daughters Bella, 8, and Lily, 5, examined a table full of gourds as the popular Richmond Indigenous Gourd Orchestra prepared to take the stage.

"We love gourds," Perkinson said, "They're so cool. We grow them in our backyard."

Gourds, once dried, can be used as canteens, birdhouses and, as the good-humored band frequently proves at public events around town, musical instruments.

"We love these guys," Perkinson said of the band. She described them with a laugh as a true "Richmond anomaly."

Then again, what would you call a group that wears gourds on their heads?

"We put the 'cult' back in 'culture,'" band member Barry Bless told the crowd, "and the 'culture' back in 'agriculture.'"

. . .

On Brown's Island, Brian and Regina Brown of Hanover County were enjoying lunch, sitting on the steps leading to the footbridge over the canal. Their 6-year-old daughter, Brianna, and her friend, 9-year-old Cassidy Jones, were nearby, sipping cold lemonade and wearing fancy brown-paper hats they made at the festival.

"We've done some art, attended some shows, ate some good food, and met some old friends," said Regina Brown. "A perfect October Sunday."

The Browns had to stand in lines for their plates of food from Croaker's Spot and Chef MaMusu's Africanne on Main, two of the vendors along the island's crowded food midway. No problem, they said.

"It's 75 and sunny, and you're surrounded by friends," Regina Brown said. "Long lines don't matter."

Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649or blohmann@timesdispatch.com.

Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or zreid@timesdispatch.com.