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Hobofest turns 10, returns Sunday

Hobofest, an annual musical festival, highlighting folk, blues, jazz and gypsy music turns 10 this Sunday. (Enterprise photo — Mike Lynch)

SARANAC LAKE — Hobofest, a music festival that highlights folky, bluesy, jazzy and gypsy sounds, will celebrate its 10-year anniversary Sunday.

“Well, of course, it’s a milestone, and it’s a measure of time for all of us,” said Peter Seward, one of the founders of Hobofest. “You know, sometimes we have a five or 10-year plan in life, and we see it as an accomplishment. So we wanted to come full circle and bring back some of the acts who actually have been playing on and off throughout our history.”

Hobofest, the brainchild of Seward of Todd Smith, was originally held at the Saranac Lake Union Depot train station. The setting went along with the theme of hobos and a cultural and music exchange through transportation. Later, the festival moved to Riverside Park.

Seward said there was a trade-off moving from the train station to Riverside Park. While he likes the park because it’s a more visible location with a permanent band shell, Seward thought the train tracks embodied more of the Hobofest feel.

“The tracks felt like things were more on a whim, and you can do something riskier with the programming. I think this year’s program is very solid, but nobody’s going to be scared away by anything too eccentric.”

An open jam starts the festival off at noon, and then the lineup includes Crackin’ Foxy, Resonant Rogues, Baby Gramps, Frankenpine, Dom Flemons and Mamie Minch, Bucket Ruckus, Biscuit Rollers and the Blind Owl Band.

Most of the artists playing this year have performed at Hobofest in the past.

Frankenpine actually formed in Seward’s living room during an open jam session.

“They’ve been dormant for the last couple of years, raising kids and doing other creative efforts,” he said. “In our living room, they found traction as a band, and they were with us for the first couple of Hobofests.”

Crackin’ Foxy and Biscuit Rollers played their first shows at Hobofest.

“I’d like to think those bands were made for Hobofest,” Seward said. “Certainly in Crackin’ Foxy’s case, they’ve gone through so many personnel changes yet retaining band leader Mark Hofschneider’s original narrow parameters of what he wanted to do.”

Sparrow Smith from Resonant Rogues said Seward and Hobofest gave her band plenty of exposure when she and her husband Keith were first starting out. Sparrow is not her real name. She said she picked it up while hitchhiking through Utah years ago.

“We were playing in the street or something in Seattle, and someone who knew [Seward] picked up a demo CD of ours and brought it back to him in New York,” Sparrow said. “He believed in us from the get-go. It takes a long time for a band to build up an internet presence. You know, we didn’t have a super shiny website and our promotions weren’t the best, but in our first year as a band, [Seward] booked us for his festival.

“We’re so excited to come back,” she said. “Hobofest has been one of the more fun things that we’ve gotten to do, and we’re happy to be a part of Pete’s project.”

The Blind Owl Band feels similar about Hobofest.

“We had played for about three months together in college, and then we did our own things when Paul Smith’s let out for summer break,” said mandolin player Eric Munley. “Then right as school was about to start up again we did Hobofest, so it’s pretty special to us, and in a way, we consider it, like, our first professional gig.”

Munley said the festival helped expose his band outside of shows at Paul Smith’s College and the Waterhole, which he now owns.

“By the time we played our second Hobofest,” he said, “we had played 50 plus shows in the area, so we had a lot of people from Paul Smith’s and Plattsburgh come out because in that time we really cemented ourselves as a serious band.”

Seward said there’s sometimes confusion of how Hobofest came to be.

“One time someone said to me, ‘Hobofest? Is that the festival that the Blind Owl Band started?'” he said. “It’s is interesting to see their fan base grow all of the sudden.”

Munley thought it was funny and that it adds to the Blind Owl Band folklore.

“There are all these little pieces of history about the band that sometimes creates confusion,” he said. “We call our music ‘Adirondack Freight Train’ music, and now a lot of people think that we actually met on trains. It’s awesome myths like that, and I don’t like correcting them. Sometimes people don’t know that I’m actually in the band, and they tell me this little myth, so I just let it build.”

Munley said he and the band never had to rely on a train to get to a show like a textbook hobo, but they did do a lot of busking.

“Early on we busked in Lake Placid [at Mid’s Park], and we made a ton of money,” he said. “That was our career plan for that moment. Then the second and last time we did it the next day, we got shut down. That place is a goldmine for a busker if they would ever allow it.”

Dom Flemons is a Grammy-award winning folk-blues artist and previously a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. This will be his first time playing Hobofest.

After attending the Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, North Carolina, Flemons discovered the deeper history to the instrument and its place in African-American music. He sold everything he owned, left his home state of Arizona and moved to North Carolina. Since then, every year he puts about 10,000 miles on his car’s odometer, traveling back and forth across the country.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve jumped on the freight trains,” Flemons said, “but I am a traveling man. I’ve driven all over this country three or four times over. I’m not a straight-up hobo, but I move around a lot.”

While he is an entertainer, Flemons is also a music historian. His shows tend to go back and forth between songs and history lessons.

“The hobo culture is a very interesting one,” he said. “It comes out of a time where a lot of hobos were hoboing for different reasons, especially in the Depression era. A lot of folks had good situations originally, but unfortunate circumstance had them follow the work. Woody Guthrie didn’t set out to be a hobo. He just had to follow the work.”

This manner of living isn’t limited to just the Dust Bowl, Flemons said.

“That freight train life does exist to this day,” he said. “I have a friend who sticks to the forefront of my mind who hops trains. He was originally just going east and west, but he soon learned about all the connecting stops, so he’s made his way to New Orleans and New York City and all over. I’ve never known the guy to have a car. In this post-digital revolution, you have hobos with cell phones, who can move without a car. Gas is a big expenditure.”

With 10 years comes the end of an era for Seward and many of the founding members.

“Word is on the street that this is the last Hobofest for its founders, Todd and I and for most of the committee,” Seward said. “There is a committee member that is going to continue. We found a committee of known people in this community — we’re going to introduce them on the event day — and they’re interested in carrying on this event. They have an orientation towards presenting music already, and we’re so happy to have them.”

“Accomplishing 10 years is the fulfillment of a lot of dreams for me,” he said, and I sort of want to quit while I’m ahead. Sometimes I coyly say, ‘I’m not out to make everyone happy.’ The program tries to be an overlap of my interests and the general audience’s interest.

Seward said even though this may be the end of Hobofest for him, it’s not the end of his music programming. He and his wife Karen Davidson also have their own music venue — Lake Flower Landing. Seward’s described it more like an intimate house show setting that can comfortably fit about 50 people.

“That’s where going to continue this creative outlet because truthfully I’m a compulsive programmer,” he said. “I want to bend people’s ears.”

If you go…

What: Hobofest

When: Sunday, Sept. 2 at noon

Where: Riverside Park, Saranac Lake

How much: Free

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