Names added to Mariposa Folk Festival lineup

What better way to conjure up warmth and summer as the mercury drops than to look forward to 2018’s version of the Mariposa Folk Festival?

Organizers of the annual “happening” at Orillia’s Tudhope Park – set for early July — are urging folks to get on the stick and buy tickets now, before they get dearer in the New Year.

Kitchener-Waterloo-based singer-songwriter Danny Michel has been announced as one of the festival’s entertainers. A musician whose style encompasses influences the world over, Danny’s 2011 album with the Belizean band Garifuna Collective was nominated for three Juno Awards.

Fred Eaglesmith winds his way into Mariposa from the Niagara region, an alternative-country singer-songwriter who can’t be reduced to labels. “His songs are stories drawn from the grit of hardscrabble lives and the vistas of endless country roads. Yet his songs also offer humour and hope,” declares the festival’s publicity material. Fred will be on the bill with other half Tif Ginn.

If you just like hearing a wonderful guitar sound, Molly Tuttle is the one you want to hear.

The San Francisco-born Tuttle has appeared on the cover of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, won first place in a songwriting competition at Merlefest, received a prestigious award from the International Bluegrass Music Association, and now this virtuoso multi-instrumentalist and distinctive voice has garnered a huge following on YouTube, with more than two million views.

Finally, if you like a wide scope of music mixed with a bit of spooky history, check out Rebecca and Megan Lovell, Atlanta-spawned sisters who together make up Larkin Poe. And in case you're wondering, yes, they are direct descendants of the tortured poet and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe.

Featuring strong southern harmonies, heavy electric guitar riffs, and slide guitar, they are often touted as "the little sisters of the Allman Brothers".

Elvis Costello has jumped on the Larkin Poe bandwagon, saying the sisters  “have a head start on the rest of us with the unique power and beauty of sibling harmony”.

Hear Larkin Poe and forget them… nevermore!

Performers such as Bill & Joel Plaskett are already committed to the festival; likewise, singer-songwriter Angelique Francis, a male duo known as the Port Cities, and a female trio called the Good Lovelies.

The Mariposa Folk Festival runs July 6, 7, 8, 2018, at Tudhope Park in Orillia. Tickets bought early would make great Christmas gifts. For more on how to get them, click here.