Andrew Bird “Skin Is My”

Five behind-the-scenes scenes at Newport Folk.


One of the cool things about this year’s festival, was the crossovers.

From Calexico joining Andrew Bird during his set, to Levon Helm doing “The Weight” with Glen Hansard and Richie Havens, to half the performers from the weekend getting up with Ben Sollee and Daniel Moore, there were lots of on-stage crossovers.

And there was some DJ crossover, too.

For the last few years, NPR Music and WFUV have covered the festival, and we have had a helpful exchange of resources with them.

Because we’re “the locals” and are familiar with the in and outs of both Newport and the Fort, we’re on the scene early, getting the place wired up for the internet. Joe, our station owner, builds out a network for the weekend, that mvyradio uses to broadcast on our station, and NPR Music and WFUV use to carry the content they want to carry.

Meanwhile, the NPR Music and WFUV folks bring enough staff to set up recording stations at each of the three stages, and share those final recordings with us, which is what you hear if you check out our website today.

Mutually beneficial.

The NPR Music and WFUV live coverage is a little different than the mvyradio coverage, in that they have 2 hosts live on the scene at all times. And they have other staff member act as reporters, who will come in and introduce record segments.

In the spirit of collaboration, they have invited mvyradio personalities to make reporter contributions, a couple of times throughout the weekend. A gesture of generous spirit.

I had it in my mind that Barbara was going to be that reporter. She’s really the voice of our station, our best emissary.

But on Saturday morning, she looked at her schedule and realized that at the time she was supposed to be on with NPR Music and WFUV, she was also supposed to be on stage introducing John Prine.

So the task became mine.

No matter what line of work you are in, if you suddenly have to do your job with a group of professionals that you are not familiar with and aren’t familiar with you, the pressure is on to . . . well . . . not suck.

So I made sure I watched the band I was supposed to be speaking about, O’ Death, for a good chunk of their set. And believe me, it’s not as easy as it sounds when you’re working with the mvyradio crew. The four songs I watch live, was the longest I was in one place for the entire weekend.

I showed up appropriately early at the NPR Music/WFUV tent, with some notes in hand, and was seated across from Bob Boilen, host of All Songs Considered, and Claudia Marshall, morning host on WFUV. Veterans and pros, for sure.

Again, I’ve been on the air for thousands of hours over the course of my nearly 20 year broadcasting career, but now I had 90 seconds to show to my industry cohorts, that all those hours weren’t by accident.

And I feel like I rocked it.

For 90 seconds I was in the groove, delivering the salient points about the band and the set, in a casual manner, interacting with Claudia and Bob (who had also seen the set) and winding my 90 second spiel in such a way that Bob was able to lead naturally right into the recorded audio.

When we were clear and were pulling off the headphones, Claudia said, “That was . . . perfect,” giving me a big smile. It doesn’t get better than that.

And unfortunately, sometimes it gets worse.

The next day, Barbara had her time on with Bob, once in the early part of the day, and was scheduled to join him again late in the day. But then Glen Hansard’s manager showed up to offer an interview at exactly the same time.

So I was on again. But this time, I was not so prepared. The band I was supposed to be talking about, Horsefeathers, had already played, so I couldn’t catch them live. And the record bit that I had to listen to, didn’t tell me much. Giving it a quick listen before running over to do my break, gave me only a sliver of insight. I made a couple of spare notes, and hoped for the best.

This time, I was on with Bob, and with Rita Houston, music director for WFUV, another very respected talent in this business.

I won’t be so hyper-critical of myself and say that I completely sucked, but like a car not fueled up before a long trip, I sputtered out pretty damn quickly. With nowhere to go but for Bob to awkwardly transition from my trailing off voice, he said, “Well, let’s listen to Horsefeathers . . .”

I still got a generous smile and a “good job” from Rita, but I knew that I hadn’t killed it.

Is that what it’s like, when Levon asks you to sing on “I Shall Be Released” but you miss a lyric? Is this how you feel when you jump up on stage with Preservation Hall, and you hit a bum note during your solo?