Organizer of new folk music festival wants to build lasting event with top-flight talent

QuickTake:

Turning Tides Music Festival organizer Mike Meyer talks about how he booked two of the world’s best folk musicians for the Saturday’s festival — and his belief that Eugene will deliver an enthusiastic audience.

Nestled in the trees next to the Willamette River, a small Springfield stage in a scenic park will welcome two of the world’s best folk musicians this Saturday.

This weekend marks the first-ever Turning Tides Music Festival, an all-day folk music festival in Springfield’s Island Park. Organizer Mike Meyer spoke about putting on this year’s festival and his hopes for a legacy event that Lane County’s folk music lovers — and touring acts looking for a good crowd — can count on every year.

“Artists across the board will say Eugene is the most enthusiastic town they will come to,” Meyer said. “Not always the biggest crowds, but they’re definitely the heartiest responses.”

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Lookout Eugene-Springfield: How did all of this come to be?

Mike Meyer: Well, about 45 years ago, I was in California and started producing music through folk and bluegrass societies, while DJing at the same time. I continued both production and DJing for 45 years, continuous. Along the way, I’ve loved exploring different types of venues and settings. I’m also a social worker and counselor, so bringing people together in a community setting has a lot of value.

Acoustic music in particular brings people together in ways where people can chat with each other and even chat with musicians because it’s never too big. I’ve produced some big shows in the past, but ultimately, I like these medium-sized artists that are the best in their field or their genre, touring through and playing somewhat intimate shows.

I was in New Orleans in January when Carsie Blanton won International Folk Performer of the Year, and her agent contacted me and said, “Could she do a show on a Saturday?” It’s been a lifelong dream to do a folk festival. So I got the previous year’s winner, Crys Matthews, also on board.

Piecing this together coincided with starting a board of directors. After 45 years, we are finally a registered nonprofit called Turning Tides Music, with seven board members and a lot of enthusiasm behind it.

How do the concerts you’ve produced and this new festival fit into the Eugene music ecosystem?

Eugene has an ecosystem that is very open to acoustic music. It doesn’t have the direct folk music history some cities have. But this town has always loved ’60s counterculture, and folk music’s always been a part of that. I think it’s a very receptive audience, and is also somewhat cut off from the national scene in a lot of ways.

I feel like part of my role is to do some of that education, and to get the word out about what’s going on to the rest of the country and the rest of the world.

Artists across the board will say Eugene is the most enthusiastic town they will come to. Not always the biggest crowds, but they’re definitely the heartiest responses.

Multicultural music is a focus of Turning Tides. Can you point to some of the particular artists or parts of this year’s festival that were intentionally chosen?

Seffarine is a Moroccan ensemble — they now live in Portland — and really carry Moroccan and Persian traditions deeply in their music. Crys Matthews is a key part of the LGBTQ+ community and a very counterculture sort of expressive person.

We have Alice Di Micele, a Sicilian singer who is playing with Andy Casad, and she’s more local and regional. We play a lot of multicultural music in our ecstatic dance, too, that’s always a showcase.

A view of the Willamette River from Island Park in Springfield, where the Turning Tides Music Festival will take place on Saturday, Sept. 19. Credit: Annie Aguiar / Lookout Eugene-Springfield

From your perspective as a social worker and counselor, what do people get out of listening to folk music in community?

It’s hard to even put it into words. It’s an embodied experience of connection, of really the direct line to the heart, like a lot of these singer-songwriters and people doing expressive original music are taking very vulnerable stances into their own personal lives, and I think that catches on.

I think people get a good role model in these artists to be able to be vulnerable with their friends, to be able to have a love of nature and a love of melodic and rhythmic experiences together.

Why did this feel like the right year to build out Turning Tides into a full festival at Island Park?

There used to be the Willamette Valley Folk Festival a number of years ago, and with the loss of that and the Eugene Celebration, there’s been a real void.

The Sisters Folk Festival has drawn a lot of Eugene folks, but other than the Oregon Country Fair, we’ve been needing some sort of showcase for high quality original music and touring music. That being said, I’m really cognizant of local music too, and I try to have a mix of local and national music so that some of our local artists get a chance to be heard on a big stage.

That’s been one of my hopes, where somebody like Alice Di Micele or Laura Kemp will be heard on a big stage and by the headliners, and hopefully can get integrated into the national scene that way.

What are your larger, long-term hopes for Turning Tides?

My hope is that we can have a two- or three- day festival with wall-to-wall activities that have indoor/outdoor settings, and the ability to be at a full-on folk festival that’s thriving. We’re trying to create a legacy event where people can just count on it year to year.