Talent

As usual at the Newport Folk and Jazz Fests of the '80s and '90s, tradition and popularity, substance and style all rub elbows in concerts at Rhode Island's Fort Adams State Park and across the harbor in downtown Newport's Viking Hotel and Newport Casino.

The Folk Festival line-up: Friday at 8 p.m. in the Hotel Viking, the popular folk trio Cry Cry Cry (with Dar Williams, Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky) headline with openers Nerissa & Katryna Nields. The outdoor concerts begin Saturday morning at 11:30. The smaller Harbor Stage will offer Boston's Melissa Ferrick, Brazil's Tico DaCosta, Respond (a trio of local heroines Merrie Amsterburg, Lori McKenna, and Pamela Means), bluegrassers Northern Lights, and Dana and Karen Kletters. The main stage features two more rising stars from Boston -- Martin Sexton and Catie Curtis -- plus Beth Orton, Wilco, Cliff Eberhardt, Robert Earl Keen, Mary Black, and Joan Armatrading. That night, at 9 p.m. at the Viking, Bill Morrissey, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and Paul Geremia play a blues-tradition package dubbed "Keepers of the Flame." The next day Whirligig, Stacey Earle, Liz Queler with Seth Farber, David Olney, and Jennifer Kimball take the small stage at Fort Adams. The omnipresent Indigo Girls, country radical Steve Earle, Boston blueser Susan Tedeschi, Patty Griffin, Suzanne Vega, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Ellis Paul hit the main stage.

Tickets for the Fort Adams events are $40 in advance, $43 at the gate. The Friday-night show is $28. Saturday's "Keepers of the Flame" tickets are $20. All tickets are available through TicketMaster at 931-200.

The Jazz Festival line-up: vocal swingers Manhattan Transfer and openers Royal Crown Revue play next Friday, August 13, at 8:15 p.m. at the Newport Casino. At Fort Adams, beginning at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, there's New Orleans's Harry Connick Jr. and His Big Band, the great pianists McCoy Tyner and Hank Jones, and groups led by Harry Connick bandmembers (trumpeter) Leroy Jones and (saxophonist) Ned Goold. That night, the Mighty Blue Kings and Vinyl play a dance-oriented "Groove Night" at the Hotel Viking. On Sunday, singer Diana Krall, saxists Branford Marsalis and Joshua Redmond, jazz-funkers Will Downing and Gerald Albright, Kevin Mahogany, and Keiko Matsui play at Fort Adams. Both days begin at 11:30 a.m.

Tickets for the Fort Adams events are $40 in advance, $43 at the gate. Tickets for Friday night are $25, $37.50 and $55. For "Groove Night," they're $20 in advance or $23 at the door. Festival parking is $6. All tickets are available from TicketMaster at 331-2211.

-- T.D.

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