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the Folk Opera

An original folk-musical suite of remembering, forgetting, loving & losing with operatic hyperbole.

About the piece

The Folk Opera is a musical suite composed on the ukulele that carries the listener through a day in the life of a few small town folks as the forces of love and loss (of memory, people and places) rewrite their plans. Haunting folk melodies and harmonies meet operatic hyperbole, creating an indelible, visceral, musical experience. It is performed as a sort of structural improvisation, with only vocal parts and chord charts scored. This fact, coupled with the energy from ever-changing audiences, means that every single performance of The Folk Opera is unique. It becomes a momentary-embodiment of the collective grief and joy of its players and audience.

The piece was composed in 2008 and debuted at an Oakland, CA coffee shop with Annie singing and playing every part (except the Old Man, sung graciously by Quinn Deveaux) to a packed room of friends, each with index cards and pens to give feedback. The recording you'll find below captures an early incarnation and a particularly moving moment in its existence. The recording was made with the generosity of 145 Kickstarter backers, and released December 2, 2010 to a sold-out Swedish American Music Hall in San Francisco. In 2013 the piece was adapted as a verse puppet play by for the Puppets and Poets Festival at the Bushwick Starr in Brooklyn. Most recently the piece has made an annual pilgrimage to Beacon, New York where it's been graced with an intergenerational Townsfolk Choir made up in part by the Beacon Rising women's choir.

The Original Cast Recording:

Elizabeth Greenblatt (Elizabeth)

Savannah Jo Lack (violin, Aunt Sara)

Joel Dean (Old Man / Mechanic)

Annie Bacon (ukulele, Rita)

Joe Lewis (upright bass)

Dave Scott (trumpets)

Townsfolk Choir:

Karl-Mauks Koepke (Jocko/Townsfolk #1)

Megan Keeley (Garrison/Townsfolk #2)

Geoff Bouvier (Richard/ Townsfolk #3)

Lady Sunrise (Alicia Grace/Townsfolk #4)

Kate Cockrill

Howie Cockrill

Caitlin Fahey

Benjamin Thorne

Benny Lee

Production:

Engineered, Mixed, Mastered by David Luke

Engineering assistance from Cristian Hernandez

Produced by Annie Bacon

Recorded live at The Tower Studios,

San Francisco July 12-13, 2010

Mixed and Mastered at Ninth Street Opus Studios, Berkeley

Explosion crafted by Joseph Van Geffen

Album art by Geninne D. Zlatkis www.geninnesart.com

Album design & additional artwork by Christopher Ross

FEATURED: A full-length performance of The Folk Opera

Recorded aboard the musical yacht Barkissimo in Emeryville, California on July 2, 2011. This piece features Elizabeth Greenblatt as "Elizabeth," Savannah Jo Lack as "Aunt Sara" and on fiddle, Joe Lewis on upright bass, Joel Dean as "The Old Man," Annie Bacon as "Rita" and on the ukulele, Matthew Souther & Anthony Ant on trumpets, and as the Townsfolk Choir: Geoff Bouvier, Caitlin Bobe, Kate Cockrill, Margot Geever, and Matthew Souther.

A full review

by American poet Geoff Bouvier:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA [2011] - Written and composed on the ukulele during a 6-week trip on two distant continents, recorded live at The Tower Studios in SF’s Mission District, and self-released digitally and on vinyl in December 2010, Annie Bacon’s The Folk Opera is a haunting and triumphant extended musical suite written for ukulele, upright bass, fiddle, trumpet, and multiple voices.

Described by various delighted listeners as a diverse and eclectic cross between A Prairie Home Companion, Neko Case, John Darnielle, Patty Griffin, Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” traditional American folk musicals such as “Oklahoma,” and Bob Dylan’s “Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid” soundtrack, The Folk Opera is, in fact, a musical world unto itself, with few, if any, antecedents in musical history.

In just over a year and fewer than 20 performances, The Folk Opera has achieved a grassroots following so dedicated that the live recording sessions were fully funded by donations from avid fans, including among them myself. Mixed and mastered by ex-Fantasy Records staff engineer David Luke (who worked with Jefferson Starship, Mike Marshall, and The Grateful Dead, among others) The Folk Opera translates equally well to recorded media as it has to the live stage.

Featuring some of the Bay Area music scene’s most up-and-coming stars, the recording and live show highlight Joe Lewis (Os Beaches, Honeycomb) on the upright bass, Elizabeth Greenblatt (the OSHEN) singing the lead character, Joel Dean vocalizing the Old Man and the Mechanic, Savannah Jo Lack (Ruth Gerson), giving voice to Aunt Sara and playing fiddle, and Annie Bacon herself, playing the ukulele and singing Rita, the waitress. A chorus of 10 voices fills out the Townsfolk Choir, including among them myself.

The haunting and simple melodies, beautiful soaring harmonies and captivating folk and bluegrass rhythms are memorable after only one hearing, the characters are so indelibly drawn, you’ll feel like you know them, and the story – tracing the events of a single afternoon that expand into life-changing moments for a few different people in a small town – is as timeless as classic literature. Described by reviewers as “transfixing” and “almost indescribably poignant and beautiful,” The Folk Opera is a comedy, a tragedy, and a love story. It will make you smile, and it will likely make you cry. And in the meantime, you’ll want to sing along and maybe get up and dance.