String slinging

Gibson brings guitars to Newport

by Ted Drozdowski

Bo Diddley

These days there's a glut of everything entertainment: movies, books, albums . . . and music festivals. There are folk festivals, jazz festivals, rock festivals, blues festivals -- even conceptual festivals like Lilith Fair and H.O.R.D.E. Each targets a very specific segment of the live-music audience in hope of squiring its ticket dollars. But the brand new "Gibson Guitar Festival -- Newport," which will take place in that Rhode Island city July 24, 25, and 26, is playing a new kind of poker. It's a game that has dealt such diverse artists as rock granddaddy Bo Diddley, country princess Kelly Willis, Puerto Rican folker Yomo Toro, jazz dude Olu Dara, New Orleans's Funky Meters, and Zaire's Diblo Dibala into an effort to appeal to a wider range of fans -- perhaps united by the love of music that comes from wood, strings, and steel.

Promoter George Wein of Festival Productions, who founded the historic jazz and folk fests at Newport, admits the event's a risky opening bet. But with a little luck, plus that staggering array of talent, he thinks this attempt to pool listeners with a wide spectrum of tastes could draw a winning hand. "The principal problem with staging festivals today is that there is so much entertainment available in the summer," he explains from his New York City home. "When we started the Newport Jazz Festival, in 1954, we were the only thing happening. Now you've got to compete for the attention of the press for getting excitement generated, and hope that people aren't spending all their ticket money on other things.

"Certainly in the old days you had problems with artists' managers and public-relations people -- everybody wants top billing, or whatever. But that's always been minor. In those days there were no artists bigger than festivals. And no all-encompassing style of music like rock and roll. The Beatles changed the world. Now every time a major rock artist goes out, it's a festival. We're hoping that the eclectic nature of this festival will get people's interest."

And ticket money. The Gibson festival is, in essence, a stand-in for the Rhythm & Blues fest that Wein's international promotion organization, Festival Productions, along with the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, staged at Newport for the past three summers. Last year's disappointing attendance led the Rockport Company to withdraw its sponsorship. In the course of searching for another sponsor, Wein sent a letter to Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz. It was, it turned out, too late to save the R&B concerts, but Juszkiewicz was adamant about having a festival bear the 103-year-old guitar manufacturer's name. Trouble is, it was already mid May.

Working against the odds, Festival Productions was able to assemble a solid line-up of blues, rock, jazz, folk, funk, country, pop, and experimental artists in a mere two weeks. Usually booking a festival of such proportions takes months. "We were amazed," says Wein, who -- despite the eclectic roster -- believes an accent on guitar gives the event a backbone. "It shows that guitar music is such a major source of music at the moment. Now, almost every band has guitars. That was not always the case."

Some of the instrument's most innovative players are included. There's Diddley, who perfected an Afro-Cuban-derived beat that for a time defined early rock. The modernist Marc Ribot has developed an improvisatory style from jazz, blues, and pure sonics and applied it to everything from pop albums by Elvis Costello to his noise-noir outfit Shrek and his current critically heralded Latin-inspired, melody-driven outfit Los Cubanos Postizos. Derek Trucks is a young firebrand who mixes the textures of Indian ragas and modal jazz with blues rock. Yomo Toro is a master of an acoustic relative to the guitar, the cuatro. And there's eight-string jazzman Charlie Hunter. They'll top that off with George Thorogood, Steve Morse, Chris Whitley, James Cotton, Waldemar Bastos, John Mooney, Figdish, Rickie Lee Jones, and plenty of others. To offer so many performances, this festival will bring two stages to the grounds of Newport's Fort Adams State Park for the first time.

"To be even slightly successful, the music at the festival has to gel. That's the first thing," says Wein. "Then we need to get 3000 to 4000 people a day."

Although the festival-promotion business has gotten more complex, Wein says he's not wistful for the days of the smaller, simpler festivals at Newport in the '50s and '60s. "But I'm nostalgic for the loss of that generation. When you work with Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, you're working with the great figures of the 20th century -- not just entertainers. When you uncover Bob Dylan or Joan Baez, and Peter Seeger is involved in producing your program, and there's a tie-in with the civil-rights movement . . . that's historic.

"Then we were at the heart of what was happening in the country."

Tickets for the opening-night party of the Gibson Guitar Festival -- Newport are $18; two-day festival tickets are $28 in advance or $32 at the gate. Call 331-2211.