The Whispering Beard Folk Festival in Friendship, IN grows a little more with each year.  With that growth, I am always worried it might lose some of it’s open and laid back personality – somehow it doesn’t.  Like the name of the city that welcomes the throngs of beardos every summer, it’s the friendliest festival I have ever encountered.  Where else can you get a few thousand people together in the summer sweltering heat and not even hear an agitated voice?

This year’s festival was graced by the likes of legends The Fairfield Four, award winning Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, Willy Tea Taylor, perennial favorites The Tillers, J.D. Wilkes & The Dirt Daubers, Chicago Farmer, New Orleans’ own Drunken Catfish Ramblers and some of the best Folk/Americana music to be found.  After two days of blasting the humid sunshine, mother nature let us all know who was boss on Saturday night with a deluge of rain and lighting.  What could have been a disaster for a camping festival carried on without a hitch, the festival organizers had a make shift stage and seating ready to go in a neighboring barn, usually utilized by the annual Friendship Flea.  Hats off to you boys!