Folk Festival serves the sizzle in the drizzle

When a cattle rancher from Montana is feeling the funk from a band of 18 go-go music experts from Washington, it's apparent that the Richmond Folk Festival has done its job.

That was the scene late afternoon yesterday when Wylie Gustafson stuck around the Ukrop's/First Market Bank Stage after his set of western music with his band, The Wild West. As Trouble Funk, the airtight groove masters specializing in molasses-thick beats interacted with a crowd of several thousand, Gustafson, in his cowboy hat and boots, bobbed his head and waved his arms to "Pump Me Up," a T.F. standard.

Day two of the three-day Richmond Folk Festival didn't attract the massive swarm that turned out for last year's picture-perfect Saturday, but thousands of music fans popped on ponchos or raised umbrellas to combat the gloomy weather, which turned cool and pleasant by sundown.

"When you consider the weather report, we're pleased with the crowd [size]," said Lisa Sims, director of events for Venture Richmond, which produces the free festival. "It's nothing like the crush of people from last year, but it's a nice, mellow day."

Organizers did not have an official attendance estimate last night."We're finally settling into the level of audience that we haven't accessed before," said Tim Timberlake, a member of the programming committee, which chooses the acts for the event. "The non-mainstream audience is realizing it's not a 'folk' fest, per se, in the traditional sense."

Indeed, many of the tented stages overflowed with festivalgoers hoping to hear a few bars of "Down by the Riverside" by Bob French's Original Tuxedo Jazz Band from New Orleans, or listen to Indian slide guitarist Debashish Bhattacharya and his drummer brother Subhasis perform the music of their homeland with jaw-dropping dexterity.

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While one appeal of the folk festival is its eclecticism, this year, a well-known name among bluegrass aficionados joined the lineup.

Jerry Douglas is recognized as one of the world's premier dobro players, and he demonstrated why during two sets yesterday.

After his ace fiddler, Luke Bulla, crooned a lilting ballad, Douglas joked, "Now we go from the beautiful to the ridiculous," as he and the band ripped through the hand-clapping instrumental, "Emphysema Two Step."

Though Douglas could almost be a one-man band with the rich sound he extracted from his dobro, his four backing musicians provided a necessary backdrop.

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The families of Gary Gerloff and Francesca Parch accepted plaques in their honor before the No BS! Brass Band memorialized the two in rollicking song.

Gerloff and Parch, both staunch festival supporters and volunteers, died this year, but the memory of both will live on the check-in volunteer booth is now permanently named for Parch, while Gerloff's favorite cut-through is christened "The Gary Gerloff Shortcut."

Timberlake, a friend of both, said a few words onstage before a parade in their honor, calling Parch the "den mother" of the 1,000-plus people who volunteer to work at the festival every year and Gerloff, "one of those people who is just larger than life."

Thousands of people then followed the No BS! Brass Band as it snaked from the Dominion Stage behind Tredegar Iron Works to the Altria Stage on Brown's Island, many of them bobbing open umbrellas as they walked.

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The act yesterday that likely drew the most curiosity seekers was Khogzhumchu, the quartet of Tuvan throat singers from Russia.

Dressed in patterned traditional robes, their hair braided in a single ponytail, the group played stringed instruments including the "igil," which featured a carved horse head on the neck, and the "bizachi."

A standing room-only crowd spilled outside the MeadWestvaco Family Stage as the performers interspersed singing with guttural throat sounds of deep humming.

At the front of the stage, a row of children sat transfixed, a combination of awe and puzzlement on their faces as they listened.

"In Tuvan, this is the traditional style of singing," said Elena Ryabova of cecartslink, a New York-based organization specializing in arts partnerships that is responsible for bringing the group to the U.S., where they arrived last week to perform in Baltimore and Washington.

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In the Genworth Financial Family Area, Jordyn Travis, 5, rolled a corn cob and the flat side of an apple cut in half through an ink pad and stamped the fruit onto a sheet of fabric.

Her father, John Travis, did the same.

Of the two, the elder Travis seemed to be having more fun in the area, where hundreds of children were making paper hats, visiting animals in the petting zoo and trying out old-time toys.

Travis, who lives in Richmond's Church Hill, said he brings his family to the Folk Festival every year.

"I must admit, Daddy comes for the food," he said, and as if on key, Jordyn asked for her second funnel cake of the day.

The highlight of the day for many children was the chance to earn a buck.

After they made paper-plate animals or gourd necklaces, they earned a "dollar," which they could take to the farmer's market and buy prizes.

Emma El-Khouri, 3, made enough cash for several prizes.

When asked about her favorite things -- besides elephants and boats -- she proudly showed off her gourd necklace.

Frank Becker and his daughter, Katherine, were busy playing games like buzz saw, in which string is pulled through a wooden sphere and, when wound up and then pulled taut, sounds like a saw.

Becker said his children "have never seen anything like this."

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Dennis Stephens worked the pedals of a traditional church organ during his reed-organ workshop on the Virginia Folklife Stage.

As the soft-spoken Stephens, a pipe organ builder from Calleo, performed, the smell of incense wafted over from the neighboring display of a mammoth Guatemalan sawdust rug.

The team of artists began working at 8 a.m., using dyed sawdust, rice, dried beans and other vegetable materials to create a kaleidoscopic rendering of "The Last Supper."

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In the crafts marketplace at the Tredegar parking lot, people ran into the most unlikely of friends.

Bill Grossman operates Swift Creek Lures in Chesterfield County, where he makes custom, hand-painted hardwood fishing lures. To him, they're not just art, but functioning fishing tools.

"I make them to catch fish," he said. "But most people will not use them."

But a conversation about what defines art with Midlothian Middle School art teacher John Birkeland -- who happened to stop at Grossman's booth -- soon revealed that two of Grossman's children were former students in Birkeland's class.

Grossman spent 32 years as an art teacher in the Bronx. This is his fifth year living in Virginia.

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Ravae Duhaney and Jasmine McCrae broke out into freestyle dancing yesterday afternoon among the craft vendors.

Duhaney, a student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, said she enjoyed the Virginia Gospel Traditions group.

McCrae, a Virginia Commonwealth University student, who said the food is one of her favorite parts of the Richmond Folk Festival, rattled off a list of items she'd already consumed over two days -- including Italian sausage, funnel cakes, frozen cheesecake and butterfly-style French fries.

For her, it's also about the music and the collective fellowship that the festival represents.

"It's good to see a lot of different types of people enjoying the same things," she said.

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"This is definitely tavern music, so you might want to think about getting another glass of wine," said the festival volunteer who introduced the Sophia Bilides Trio at the open-air Dominion Stage.

"Or ouzo," Bilides joked, promoting her native liqueur.

As she played the santouri -- a hammered dulcimer -- and sang songs popular to Asia Minor Greek refugees in the 1930s and'40s, Bilides was joined by her husband, Tom Babbin, on guitar and Mike Gregian on the doumbeleki, or drum.

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Before Virginia native Swamp Dogg took the Ukrop's/First Market Bank Stage, he had a special opening act -- his mother, Vera Lee.

The petite, well-coifed Lee blazed through two songs, including the aptly named "Playing with the Boys," which she said her son wrote for her.

Once Mr. Dogg began his set, strolling the stage in a lilac suit and matching shoes, a headset microphone allowing extra mobility, his daughter, Jeri Williams, stood at the side of the stage, snapping pictures of her father as he extracted the pain from "I Was Born Blue."

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Contact Melissa Ruggieri at (804) 649-6120 or .

Contact Holly Prestidge at (804) 649-6945 or .