photo of Bob McWilliams by the Crystal Image
A folk epiphany 50 years ago hooked the longtime jazz fan, who went on to found West Side Folk in Lawrence and is familiar to many as the veteran dj of “Trailmix”
Bob McWilliams, the veteran DJ for Kansas Public Radio, doesn’t really see himself as part of the Kansas City folk scene.
True, he regularly attends the annual conference hosted by Folk Alliance International, which has its headquarters in Kansas City. And he’s been a familiar presence at the Kansas City Irish Festival, often introducing bands. And many of the listeners who tune in via the airwaves or online for his weekly “Trail Mix” shows each Friday and Saturday are in Kansas City. But still, he sees the Lawrence music scene as distinct.
But let’s back up. In the beginning, McWilliams was a jazz fan. Indeed, he still hosts jazz broadcasts on KPR during the week. But he had never paid much attention to folk music — until he did.
“Let me go way back in time,” McWilliams said. In the 1960s, folk music was dominated by the commercial groups getting radio play — Peter, Paul and Mary, the Kingston Trio, et al. “It was folk light, but they were great performers,” he said.
But then, almost by happenstance, McWilliams discovered a different kind of folk music that made a profound impression on him. And it happened at one of Kansas City’s legendary music venues.
“In the fall of 1972, when I was a senior in high school, I was a volunteer for the (George) McGovern campaign,” he said. “We were told that Phil Ochs was going to perform for us on the last night at the Cowtown Ballroom. A guy walks out on stage with a guitar. My experience at that time had been with bands. Now a guy with an acoustic guitar comes out and starts to play. And he was phenomenal. He just blew me away.”
Phil Ochs was a poetic songwriter and protest singer during the Vietnam War, highly respected for his talent but never a commercial success. The next day, McWilliams went to Capers Corners, the record store in Kansas City, Kansas, that became a sort of cultural touchstone, and bought two Ochs records.
“I started going to shows at the Cowtown Ballroom,” he said. “I really loved Brewer and Shipley, and I found myself really loving groups like the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, who were kind of country/folk.”
While attending law school in Boston in the ’70s, McWilliams said, he became a total, immersive jazz freak. Back home, his musical world shifted again when somebody asked: “Are you going to Winfield?”
West Side Folk, the not-for-profit presenting organization…introduced a range of singer-songwriters to Lawrence audiences.
Winfield, Kansas, is the home of the Walnut Valley Music Festival, founded in 1972 as a camping-and-picking gathering that began as a two-day affair and grew to five. Most attendees and performers alike pitch a tent on the festival grounds. Included in the expansive acoustic music festival are the National Flat-Picking Championships and the International Finger Style Championships for guitarists. Other contests are devoted to the autoharp, mandolin, mountain dulcimer, hammered dulcimer, banjo and fiddle.
Out of curiosity, McWilliams attended the festival for one day. Once again, he was blown away.
That was the beginning of McWilliams’ dual love affair with jazz and folk (or, if you prefer, Americana).
For 20 years, West Side Folk in Lawrence sponsored a who’s who of singers, songwriters and guitarists, as seen in this selection of posters promoting their performances. (posters courtesy of Bob McWilliams)
The Birth of West Side Folk
Eventually, McWilliams and a group of volunteers began promoting live music. That, as you might expect, had humble beginnings. McWilliams was at a music event in the mid-1990s when a man approached him and handed him a CD of new young female singer from Boston. Listen to it, see what you think, the man said. So McWilliams did. As it just happened, McWilliams and his family had moved into a house in Lawrence with a big basement rec room — an acceptable venue for house concerts. And he liked what he heard from the young singer from Boston. Her name was Dar Williams, who in a year or two would become a prominent artist on the singer-songwriter circuit.
“So in about three weeks we had Dar Williams,” McWilliams recalled. “We had laughable, crude, mimeographed posters. And I would play one song from her album each night on the radio. There was almost no publicity. But we got 40 people.” (Full disclosure: This writer was in the audience.)
“That was really the start,” McWilliams said. He began booking other artists: Ellis Paul, Susan Werner,
The Kennedys. That was the beginning of West Side Folk, the not-for-profit presenting organization that introduced a range of singer-songwriters to Lawrence audiences.
“We formed a board, wrote articles of incorporation,” he said. The initial venue was the Westside Presbyterian Church. For 20 years, the group sponsored a who’s who of singers, songwriters and guitarists — Greg Brown, Richard Shindell, Antje Dukevot, Peter Mulvey, Lucy Wainwright Roche, Chris Smither (a Kansas native making a rare regional appearance), Lucy Kaplansky and Martin Sexton. And many others.
Folk music fans from Kansas City would make the trek to Lawrence because no Kansas City presenter was doing exactly what West Side Folk did. If you wanted to hear a Chris Smither or a Greg Brown or a Lucy Kaplansky, you had to get on the highway to Lawrence.
A series that brought exceptionally gifted musicians to audiences for two decades finally came to an end in 2016.
“Nobody took a dime,” McWilliams said. “We were proud of the fact that we were able to treat artists fairly and stay in a good financial position the whole time.”
As a DJ, McWilliams continues to wear two hats. Between 1 and 4 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday, he hosts “Trail Mix,” a potpourri of Americana, singer-songwriters, bluegrass, alternative country, traditional folk and Celtic music. And Tuesday through Thursday, he hosts “Jazz in the Night” between 9 p.m. and midnight.
“I get paid to listen to music,” McWilliams said. “So there’s a never-ending stream, which is great. And I love discovering new people.”
To learn more, visit kansaspublicradio.org.
The Folk Alliance International conference, originally scheduled in February, was moved to May 18-22 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more at www.folk.org.
