Evanston Folk Festival 2026 @ Dawes Park

Evanston Folk Festival 2026 @ Dawes Park

Dawes Park, 1700 Sheridan Rd, 60201 Evanston Kort

lau. 12.09.2026 12:00

Evanston Folk Festival 2026 at Dawes Park at 2026-09-12T12:00:00-0500

Flytjendur

  • Indigo Girls
    Indigo Girls

    The Indigo Girls are Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. They met on the playground in grammar school in Decatur, Georgia, and have been playing together since high school. They were signed to Epic Records in 1989 and won the grammy for best contemporary folk album later that year (for their self titled release) Some of their hit songs include "Galileo," "Closer to Fine," and "Shame on You." Aside from being musicians, Ray and Saliers are activists, constantly supporting causes like gun control, women's rights, Native American rights, environmental protection, lesbian/gay/trans rights, and abortion rights. They constantly devote their time and money to such causes, often playing benefit concerts. Ray and Saliers both have side projects. Ray owns and founded Daemon Records, an independent label based in Decatur. She also has a career as a solo artist, and has released two albums thus far. Saliers is the part owner of Watershed, a restaurant and wine bar in Decatur. Together, the Indigo Girls are constantly touring. Their new album, Despite Our Differences, was released 19 September 2006.

  • Josh Ritter
    Josh Ritter

    New album ‘I Believe in You, My Honeydew’ out now. Tour dates on sale now! https://joshritter.ffm.to/honeydew

  • Kathleen Edwards
    Kathleen Edwards
    If you ask Kathleen Edwards, the best thing she ever did was quit. By 2014, the singer-songwriter had released four studio albums and amassed widespread critical acclaim. She had been touring since the release of her 2012 album Voyageur, and the prospect of returning home--only to start writing another album, felt impossibly daunting. She put her guitar away and opened a coffee shop aptly named "Quitters" in Stittsville, Ontario. “I had no desire to write, no desire to play. Quitters gave me such a clean break, I worked my ass off building a shop, I didn't have to be 'just a singer' anymore.” But in 2018, Maren Morris invited her to Nashville for a songwriting session. Their collaboration, “Good Woman,” wound up on Morris’ album, GIRL. “It reminded me that writing and creating music is entirely my wheelhouse,” she says. “Funny enough, the third writer in the room was Ian Fitchuk, and [we] ended up starting the process of producing a record.” Edwards made her long-anticipated return with Total Freedom, her fifth studio album out August 14 via Dualtone Records. Recorded in Canada and Nashville with longtime collaborator Jim Bryson and Grammy-winning producer Fitchuk, Total Free
  • Mdou Moctar
    Mdou Moctar

    Tuareg rock band from Agadez, Niger

  • James McMurtry
    James McMurtry
    Growing up, Jonathon Linaberry was obsessed with the radio.

    “Music was my whole world,” he recalls, “and the radio was pivotal in that. There was
    something so romantic about it. You never knew what you’d hear, what you’d discover and fall
    in love with. I wanted to find a way to recapture that.”

    Radio Waves, Linaberry’s sixth studio album as The Bones Of J.R. Jones, is indeed steeped in
    the past, but there’s more than just nostalgia at play here. Recorded in Toronto with producer
    Robbie Lackritz (Feist, Bahamas), the collection is moody and hypnotic, drawing on the sonic
    landscape of Linaberry’s youth as it reckons with all the doubt and uncertainty of adulthood.
    The arrangements are utterly entrancing, built on the tension between acoustic instruments
    and retro synthesizers, and Linaberry’s performances are raw and visceral, at times aching in
    their unflinching vulnerability. Put it all together and you’ve got a poignant exploration of
    memory and longing delivered by a relentless searcher, a revelatory work of personal
    reflection rooted in the endless beauty, pain, and chaos that comes with finding your place in
    this world.

    “I’ve never really resonated with the idea of ‘the good old days,’” Linaberry reflects. “Your
    understanding of the past and your relationship with it change as you get older, and I’ve
    always been more interested in the evolution of those feelings than in looking at them with
    any kind of rose-colored glasses.”

    Born and raised in central New York, Linaberry got his start playing in hardcore and punk
    bands before becoming enamored with the field recordings of Alan Lomax, who documented
    rural American blues, folk, and gospel musicians throughout the 1930s and ’40s. Inspired by
    the unvarnished honesty of those vintage performances, Linaberry launched The Bones of J.R.
    Jones in 2012 and, operating as a fully independent artist, began releasing a series of
    critically acclaimed albums and EPs that would land his songs in a slew of films and television
    shows (including True Detective, Suits, Daredevil, Longmire, and Graceland) and lead to
    countless tours across the US and Europe (including stops everywhere from Telluride Blues to
    Hardly Strictly Bluegrass). Along the way, Linaberry also shared bills with the likes of The
    Wallflowers, G. Love, and The Devil Makes Three, soundtracked an Amazon commercial
    helmed by Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi, and earned praise from Billboard, American
    Songwriter, Under the Radar, and more.

    “After a dozen years of touring and recording, I found myself getting burnt out by the
    constant barrage of new music that’s out there,” Linaberry reflects. “In some ways, it’s great
    to have that kind of access, but it can also be numbing, and I found myself missing what it
    felt like to have an album change your life, to listen to your cassette of Born In The USA so
    many times you have to wind the tape back up with a pencil.”

    Linaberry set out to tap back into that magic on Radio Waves, writing songs steeped in the
    sounds and stories of his own coming of age. He tuned out the modern world in favor of stark,
    lo-fi demos built around fingerpicked guitars and old school electronics, and when it came
    time to record the album, he leaned into working with an outside producer for the first time,
    traveling to Canada for two ten-day sessions at Lackritz’s studio.

    “A lot of these songs started on a drum machine, which was very intentional,” Linaberry
    explains. “I wanted to focus on simplicity, on stripping tracks back to their most essential
    elements so that the melody and the vocals could shine.”
    The result is an almost primal sound, familiar yet uneasy, like a memory hanging perpetually
    just out of reach.

    “These songs live in the night—the endless kind, where you get in your car just to drive and
    listen to music, to feel like you’re going somewhere even if you’re not,” Linaberry says. “It’s
    the sound of a kitchen heavy with the leftover heat of an August day and a table crowded
    with drinks, of arguments and first loves and first heartbreaks, of not living up to your
    potential, of breaking promises, of being human.”

    Take a listen to album opener “Car Crash” and you’ll understand exactly what he means.
    Tender and hazy, the track offers up a bittersweet embrace of life’s imperfections, finding
    meaning and connection in our shared flaws and shortcomings. “I want your whole heart,”
    Linaberry professes, “even the broken parts.” Like much of the record, it’s insistent yet
    understated, as much a celebration as it is a confession. The sensuous “Savages” revels in the
    reckless abandon of young adulthood, while the spare “Heart Attack” stares disappointment
    directly in the face, and the piercing “Shameless” works its way through a lifetime of what
    ifs.

    “Our lives are an endless series of revolving doors,” Linaberry reflects. “Even the smallest
    decisions can change our entire trajectory. What kind of arrogant fool doesn’t look back and
    wonder?”
    That sense of lostness, of uncertainty as to who we are and where we belong turns up
    throughout the record. The blistering “Drive” devours itself from the inside out in the tedious
    solitude of the road; “The Devil” grapples with identity, intimacy, and dependence; and the
    breezy “Catching You” wonders what we were ever trying to prove with all the debaucherous
    nights and bad decisions of youth.

    “I think so many of us live in the past because it’s easier to face than the future,” Linaberry
    explains. “But I’m not interested in going back. I’m interested in understanding the feelings
    and experiences that made us who we are: the passion and the hunger, the faults and the
    failures, the hopes and the fears.

    Truth be told, those feelings never really go away. They’re all still out there, floating in the
    ether, drifting through eternity on an endless sea of radio waves. All you have to do is tune in.
  • Margaret Glaspy
    Margaret Glaspy
    The third full-length from Margaret Glaspy, Echo The Diamond emerged from a deliberate stripping-away of artifice to reveal life for all its harsh truths and ineffable beauty. “This record came from trying to meet life on life’s terms, instead of looking for a happy ending in everything,” says the New York-based musician. “The whole experience of creating it felt like effortless catharsis.”

    Produced by Glaspy with co-production from her partner, Julian Lage, Echo The Diamond expands on the frenetic vitality of her 2016 release Emotions and Math. She was joined in the studio by drummer/percussionist David King (The Bad Plus) and bassist Chris Morrissey. Anchored in the raw yet mesmerizing vocal presence and impressionistic guitar work she’s brought to the stage in touring with the likes of Spoon and Wilco, Echo The Diamond holds entirely true to the spirit of its lyrical explorations, presenting a selection of songs both unvarnished and revelatory.
  • Tift Merritt
    Tift Merritt

    Handmade songs.

    Stream "Everyday Singing" Out Now!

    https://ffm.to/everydaysinging

    Pre-Order 'Sugar', out June 26th!

    https://stores.portmerch.com/tiftmerritt/

    Pre-Save 'Sugar' out June 26th!

    https://ffm.to/tmsugar

  • Sierra Hull
    Sierra Hull

    Welcome to the Official Sierra Hull page!

    Website: https://linktr.ee/sierrahullmusic

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/

  • Folk Bitch Trio
    Folk Bitch Trio

    www.folkbitchtrio.com

    www.instagram.com/fbtband

  • Dean Johnson
    Dean Johnson
    For all your Dean Johnson needs Booking: susie@groundcontroltouring.com Management: tony@findtheriver.org
  • Henhouse Prowlers
    Henhouse Prowlers

    Boundary-defying bluegrass/Americana

    ☆ ☆ Chicago, IL ☆ ☆

    34 countries & counting 🌍 probably pickin’ near you 🫵🏼

    ⚡️bio.site/henhouseprowlers

  • Wild Horses
    Wild Horses

    We’re a band from Northern Minnesota. https://linktr.ee/WildHorsesMN

    Booking: Wild River Talent Agency

    ted@wildrivertalent.com

    Management: Thirty Tigers

    christian@thirtytigers.com

  • Esther Rose
    Esther Rose
    Everything clicks on Safe to Run, the fourth album from singer, songwriter and perpetual searcher Esther Rose. It’s the quiet culmination of years spent fully immersed in a developing artistry, and presents Rose’s always vividly detailed emotional scenes with new levels of clarity and control. As with previous work, her songwriting transfigures the chaos and uncertainty of a life in progress, but here she sharpens the pop elements and attaches unshakably catchy hooks to even the darkest stretches of the journey.