CD Review

Various
Coming Home: A Winfield Celebration
(ILY Records, 1999)

Not a new release, but one which will not be available after September 2000. This compilation album features 17 tracks by perennial favorites at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. The festival, though it embraces all genres of folk, is known for its stringed-instrument players competitions, old timey music and bluegrass. Some of the tracks may be familiar to a lot of fans of this kind of music: Bryan Bowers plays "Farther Along," Tom Chapin does "Music Made By Hand," John McCutcheon sings "Welcome the Traveler Home." Fans of Crow Johnson will find her "Sweet Misery" and Aileen and Elkin Thomas have a cut. There are also stand out performances by Steve Kaufman - who does a virtuosic version of "Greensleeves," and Stephen Bennett, who performs a beautiful piece on his grandfather's rare harp guitar. Considering the CDs title and the ethos of the festival, I was surprised that there is only one live track - Spontaneous Combustion doing a high-energy version of Fats Waller's "Honeysuckle Rose."

The CD was made to benefit an educational foundation for the children of one of the festival's long-time organizers, Brian Redford, and the various artists have donated tracks from their respective albums for this fundraising project. The album has good coherence for a compilation and, if the live, community feeling of the popular festival isn't captured on these mostly studio tracks, well, at least they sound great. It's not a substitute for going to the festival, but fans won't be disappointed. Get it while you can. (try the Walnut Valley Festival Website: http://www.wvfest.com/)
-HB