Folk - Folklounge (Daniel Kelly Music)

Summary: A largely self-centred complaint about how if the work I have been doing in the folk genre over the past ten years does not warrant a spot on the Australian National Folk Festival Program, then I suggest that the festival has lost its way.

2026 marks ten years of me applying to perform at the Australian National Folk Festival and ten years of form-letter rejections. The fee I request each year is below the cost of my fuel, insurance and food over the weekend.

I have been performing professionally in the folk genre since 2015 and being on the program at several fantastic folk festivals and folk clubs over that time. The folk community in Australia is alive and well, with diverse and strong communities that I have seen at Folk by the Sea (sadly no longer), Bundanoon and our local festival here in Yass (in both the Turning Wave and Yass Irish incarnations).

My first exposure to the National festival was in 2003, when I helped run a promotion stall for a local Chinese Qi Gong group. I noticed that the program was full and diverse and alongside the famous Australian and International folk acts, there were many lesser-known Australian songwriters and performers. The festival was also highly participatory, rather than one with clear lines drawn between the ‘punters’ and ‘money makers’.

Over the past ten years I have published three albums of local history songs in the folk ballad style. To me, this is work that is at the heart of the folk tradition. Some of these songs I have had the pleasure to sing at important related social events, like the Irish Famine Memorial in Sydney and the Irish Embassy in Canberra or songs sung on the occasion of the final Sister of Mercy nuns departing Yass after over 100 years. I have also published collections of Sea Shanties, Old Ballads, Social Justice songs, and in 2025 an album of Henry Lawson poems set to new music. Through these songs I have meet, online and in person, so many people who appreciate and value the place that song holds in storing our collective history.

With over one million listens to these songs on YouTube, Spotify and Bandcamp, I am comfortable that they are reaching my audience; that isn’t what my complaint here is about.

The work I did in 2019 researching folk singer Colin Dryden, and the related album and presentation at the Australian Folklore Network conference, led me to spend several hours in the National Archives listening to audio from the National Folk Festivals that Colin attended in the 1970s. Back then, the festival was a place for keepers of the tradition to come together and share their work, share music, dance and poetry. It wasn’t a commercial venture with a ‘curated for profit’ Program. The festivals I attended in the early 2000s seemed much closer to this ideal than the last two years.

In the 2025 movie Sinners, the Blues standard ‘Pick Poor Robin Clean’, is used as a device to talk about cultural appropriation. The earliest recording of this song, from 1927, is definitely not the origin, and the real subtextual meaning of the words doesn’t seem to be clear (possibly about fleecing a ‘mark’ in gambling). When I hear the words, it feels like a good analogy for how I see the folk tradition in Australia and its relationship to the National Festival. ‘Picked Clean’ for profit is how it feels.

Thanks to the brilliant songwriter Enda Kenny, I felt a lot better about my rejection letter this year. His Facebook post on 23 September 2025:

“I know I’m worth my place and I have worn all the previous rejections because that’s my job. I’ll go on playing full houses in Canberra but I won’t apply again.”

If songwriters of Enda’s calibre are not getting a gig, then I think I’ll follow his lead and just stop applying.

Isa, at the Bohemia blackboard concert (when she should have been playing Budawang or Flute & Fiddle) – 2 March 2026

Let me be clear, I know the cost of insurance has gone up, I know the sponsorship from ACT Government has dropped. However, my requested fee is less than a single weekend ticket, and the Program was far from full across venues. It would cost close to nothing for the committee to offer ‘expenses only’ spots to middle-tier performers.

Maybe with new staff in the committee, the Festival might find a way to steer back to its roots, while remaining affordable (not profitable). In the interim, I will be performing my album of Henry Lawson poems at the fabulous Merry Muse Folk Club in Canberra on Sunday afternoon, 12th April (Canberra Irish Club).

There is no shortage of male singer/songwriters in the folk scene in Australia, so I was very honoured to be invited to play at Folk by the Sea in beautiful Kiama this year. The festival last ran in 2019, so just like our Irish and Celtic festival here in Yass, it had been three years since musicians have had the chance to get together and share honest, meaningful music with each other and a live audience.

I shared the stages with some true giants of the folk scene, people such as Judy Small, who I unfortunately did not get to see in concert due to scheduling, but did get to hear her parody song at Russell Hannah’s parody concert, and Enda Kenny, whose song-writing and delivery are superb. He was introduced as the ‘finest Irish songwriter living outside Ireland’, which I think is a little unfair, ‘finest living Irish songwriter’ would be more accurate. Russell forgot Enda at the parody concert, but Enda did do a marvellous parody in his main concert based on ‘My Way’, but about the Evergiven.

The reason I was invited to perform at the festival was Rod Cork, who passed in February this year. I did not know Rod personally at all, but he listened to a set that I played in Yass at the Turning Wave Festival in 2017. Rod came up to me afterwards and gave me his card and suggested that I apply to perform at Folk by the Sea.

I did apply in 2018, and again in 2019 but was not invited to perform both times. Rod explained the competitive nature of artistic selection boards for festivals and suggested I continue to apply. I don’t have visibility of the inner-workings of the festival artistic board, but do wonder if my selection was a parting consideration for Rod. In any case, I’m very grateful for the opportunity to perform in 2022, and very thankful to people like Rod who encourage people starting out on their folk journey.

It was fabulous to get the chance to perform my album of Cicely Fox Smith poems in the Anglican Church by the sea (built in 1843). After joining the shanty session run by the Redfern Shanty Club earlier in the day, it was wonderful to take these fine poems out for a run again in an appropriate setting. The acoustics of the church meant that amplification was entirely un-necessary, and the beautiful wooden ceiling is built like an inverted boat.

The Dixie Chooks were on immediately after me in the church, so I got to hear this fine duo for the second time in a week (as they also opened the Yass Irish and Celtic Festival last weekend). Sometimes as a fellow performer there is an inclination to stay around out of politeness to listen to other performers, but in the case of Wendy and Moira it is an absolute pleasure to hear to their harmonies and mastery of several stringed things.

Tag: Folk

Poor Robin, Picked Clean

Folk by the Sea