Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music
(AAFFM)
Fiddler’s Green May 18, 2024
MARK DVORAK and BLACKFOOT DAISY
MARK DVORAK
When Mark Dvorak began his career in music he knew right away he’d be in it for the long haul. 35 years later he is still writing, recording & on the road performing. “At this stage of the game,” said the singer from his home in Chicago, “I feel like I’m doing my best work.” The Chicago Tribune called him “masterful,” & the Fox Valley Folk Festival describes him as “a living archive of song and style.” In 2012 WFMT Midnight Special host Rich Warren named him Chicago’s “official troubadour.”
Mark has given concerts in almost all of the United States & has made visits to Finland, Canada & Ireland. He has released twenty albums including 2020s acclaimed Let Love Go On and 2024s Live & Alone. He has won awards for children’s music, journalism & was honored in 2013 with the FARM Lantern Bearer Award. In 2008 he received the Woodstock Folk Festival Lifetime Achievement Award.
BLACKFOOT DAISY
Atlanta songwriters Wendy DuMond and Don Sechelski met online in 2008 on a songwriter forum. When they discovered they lived within 5 miles of each other, they got together to jam and a spark was lit. The band size and configuration has changed over the years but the core has always been the songwriting. The current band includes Don Sechelski on vocals, guitar and bass, Wendy DuMond on vocals, percussion, ukelele and guitar and Jim Kirkland on fiddle, flute, and mandolin.
In 2014, the band released their first EP, “Jubilee.” This 3 song effort was followed by a full-length release in 2020, “Blackfoot Daisy.” Blackfoot daisies are wildflowers that grow on the prairies of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. The band plays original, Americana style music. We are a little haunted by the prairie, the wind, the shifting of tall grasses, the sound of crickets, and a lonesome train whistle drifting through the night.
Welcome! This site lists information about folk music and related activities in the greater Atlanta area and the Southeastern U.S. It contains:
- General and recurring information in an expanded directory format
- Links to other folk resources
- See the EVENTS Tab for Fiddler's Green and other AAFFM- sponsored concerts, workshops, and pickin' parties, as well as other events of interest in and around Atlanta.
In email blasts, you'll find details about current events and information on member-only activities like our famous "get-togethers". If you'd like to host a pick-'n-grin, let us know! See the EVENTS tab for upcoming concerts and pickin' parties.
Contact us at membership@aaffm.org to host a pickin' party, join our organization, find out about an upcoming concert, party or workshop, or to submit listings to the website.
See the 'History' tab for the history of the organization.
AAFFM sponsors a local monthly coffeehouse, Fiddler's Green, that features concerts that included traditional music, singer-songwriters, poetry and storytelling. As of August, 2016, it is held at First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta. AAFFM Membership benefits include the email blasts (our mailing list will always remain private) and discounts on AAFFM sponsored concerts. Annual membership dues are $15 for individuals and $20 for families, $35 sustaining members. E-mail membership@aaffm.org for membership information or click HERE for our Membership Application.
AAFFM Needs YOU
Chris Moser, President
AAFFM
John McCutcheon
Smoke Rise, GA
April 7, 2019
Dear Friends,
I got a call, early on in my years of performing, from Betty Smith, a friend I’d met at the Folk Festival of the Smokies, inviting me to come do a show in Atlanta. A follow up call from Don and Laeta Smith sealed the deal and, sometime in the 1970’s I appeared in Atlanta for the first of many times. My host was a freshly-formed group, The Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music. What I found was a devoted clutch of folk music lovers who not only presented concerts, but sponsored all sorts of events that encouraged people to play music themselves, to share the love of this music that is the root of all the world’s music. To get involved with the music, with one another, with the world.
Having this lovely relationship with Atlanta played a part in my decision to move here in 2006. And I thank you for that.
Over forty years later, AAFFM is still sponsoring events that are meeting places for Atlantans of all stripes and a watering hole for that wandering herd of performers still plying the boards out there. I get to see some of my far-flung fellow performing pals as a result of these. And I thank you for that.
But groups such as AAFFM do not magically sustain themselves. Communities must commit to survive. And in this age of hyper-tribalism it’s more important than ever to reach out, to stand up, to say, “This is the kind of community, the kind of world, I want to be a part of.” You’ll never see the musicians AAFFM brings into our intimate gatherings at the Fox or on Netflix. No, you have to go out, sit shoulder-to-shoulder with others and have that experience live and in person. You can learn how to play, how to sing, how to harmonize in jam sessions not sponsored by YouTube. And, in the process, help build a community that improves the lives of individuals and the collective community life of Atlanta.
Pete Seeger would have been 100 years old this year. He taught us what we could feel like, what we could do if we risked adding our voice to the others in his audience, if we dared to harmonize with a roomful of strangers. But we had to make the move.
So, my fellow Atlantans, make the move, risk, dare, and join me in continuing to support the Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music. And for that I thank you, as well.
Take it easy, but take it!
Become an AAFFM Member!
What's Happening?
Special Event, February 2024
Four Shillings Short — Celtic, Folk, and World MusicFour Shillings Short is the husband/wife duo of Aodh Og O'Tuama from Cork, Ireland and Christy Martin from California. They play traditional music from the Celtic lands, Europe, Asia, and the Americas on a fantastic...