New Folk

What does it mean to win a Kerrville New Folk award at the Kerrville Folk Festival?

Well, for one thing, it puts you in the shoes of other performers who've gone on to much broader recognition: Steve Earl, Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, David Wilcox, to name a few, have all appeared as finalists in the competition.

For another thing, it marks you as having really stood out in the crowd. A massive amount of entries come in, and each year the Festival only allows the first 800 entrants they receive to compete.

And what has that got to do with Worship Café?

Andrew Smith was a Kerrville New Folk award winner in 2006. It's a fitting accolade for someone who's written songs from the depth of his being for years. One of the songs Andrew played in the competition was "Rite of Passage", a song about his son's coming-of-age and heading off to university. Years earlier, that same son was the underlying current in Andrew's worship CD entitled Through My Emotions, which explored the darker side of faith: is it okay to question God when someone you love is deathly ill and no prayer seems to make a difference?

When I've heard Andrew's songs over the years, it seems to me that he's been on a real journey. I guess all of us are, but few are as candid about it as Andrew is. His songs serve as markers along the way, almost a roadmap for the pilgrimage.

His last few albums (the guy's got four or five solo recordings plus at least two other collaboration CDs) are logged as Folk, and some of his earlier ones would be considered Worship CDs. Yet no matter the genre, in each album you'll find honest writing that explores the human condition, wrestles with belief in the context of real life, and thoroughly celebrates being a man, a husband, and a father.

At Worship Café on May 9th it was sublime to hear Andrew doing songs from across that spectrum. The simplicity of some of his classic worship songs like I Come Undone were the perfect counterpoint for newer and more intricate numbers like Turning to Stone. Fans of Andrew know he's discovered the beauty of traditional songs, too, as evidenced by his version of Stephen Foster's Hard Times Come Again No More. Yeah, he's discovered the beauty, and he brings us along for the view.

I found it very refreshing.

If you missed the live worship time with Andrew, you can find the full session in our archives at worshipcafe.net - and, by the way, it makes great sonic wallpaper to have on while you're working away at your computer...

Wow! Person!

When something good happens from out of the blue, you can just enjoy it. When it happens twice you can start thinking there’s a pattern forming.

Nico and Ari were at Worship Cafe on May 2, and I’m starting to see a pattern. This was their second appearance, having been with us back on February 21, and once again the response to their worship session was very favourable.

I realize part of the buzz was simply the energy of friends reconnecting. The Cafe was full of what appeared to be friends of either Nico’s or Ari’s – or both – who apparently hadn’t seen each other in ages; a number of people were catching up with each other over coffee before the session started, comparing notes as to what they’d been up to over the last while and so on. I was in and out of the Cafe several times doing the tech setup for the webcast, and it seemed like every second person through the door of the coffee shop was met with a greeting like, “Wow! Dorothy! I haven’t seen you in like forever! How are you? Where are you living now?”.

(No, every second person wasn’t named “Dorothy”, but I had to personalize that phrase somehow. It just wouldn’t have sounded good if I’d written, “Wow! Person! I haven’t seen you in like forever...”)

There was also a significant international component to the in-house crowd, too, due to a large group of primarily European students who are in the area attending a local ministry school. They weren’t old friends with anyone, of course, but they seemed to really enjoy the vibe of the coffee shop setting for the worship time.

But the main component of the worship time, Nico and Ari, were very refreshing to listen to. Even without the buzz of reconnection happening in the Cafe, the session would have been enjoyable and meaningful because of these two.

Ari led out on a few songs with Nico on the drums, and then Nico strapped his guitar on to join Ari out front for the next few songs while Eric took over on the kit. Richard joined the others with his cello and lent his support by adding bass lines, classic cello textures and rhythmic counterpoints I didn’t know you could even get from a cello!

Nico and Ari mentioned that they weren’t totally comfortable in the “worship” environment. Ari does a lot of playing, but it’s usually as a folk artist. Their lack of comfort, however, was misplaced: the content of their original songs, and their words spoken between songs, spoke volumes about how much they each process on a spiritual level. Nico’s vulnerability near the end of the session, in particular, caused a lot of people to sit up and take notice; despite the fact that a number of the writers in the book of Psalms lay bare their souls about hard stuff as well as praise-worthy stuff, we’re not that familiar with worship leaders doing that here in the 21st Century. And everyone I spoke with afterward said they found it very impacting. We could all use a good dose of honesty every once in a while.

As always, the worship session with Nico and Ari will be playing on the website all this week (www.worshipcafe.net), and their appearance back in February is available in our archives.