Thumb Fest 2023: Music that unites

By Jim Bloch

Rhythm is perhaps the foundation of all music and provides the deep link uniting all listeners.

The blues artist Robert Jones is fond of reminding his audiences that the first music all people hear is heart beat of their moms.

The universal language of music connects and rarely divides people, according to folk musician Matt Watroba, Jones’ frequent collaborator.

The chord is the ideal metaphor for the unifying power of song, Watroba says, because a chord consists of more than a single note combined in harmony.

Jones and Watroba played individual sets at Thumb Fest 2023, held each year on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend in the Village of Lexington, located on the coast of Michigan’s Thumb.

The pair played together on the Harbor Stage in the middle of the afternoon, unspooling their history of popular music, which teases out the sources of racial and class harmony in the development of the American songbook.

Using five notes and three chords, the pair traced the history of American music from work songs and gospel through jazz, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and rap, essentially delivering a vision of folk music that’s vibrant, broad and inclusive.

“I feel that folk is defined as music of the people,” said Mike Mercatante, a member of the Still Running band and the publicity director of the festival.

The one-day free festival featured 53 acts spread across seven stages.

The Hot Rod Cherries played mellow, but hardly smooth jazz, twisting old chestnuts such as “Just a Gigolo” and “Sweet Home, Chicago” into swaying afternoon delights.

Guitarists Jim Bizer and Jan Krist added conga player Alan Finkbeiner and played a swarm of catchy original folk tunes, including “How Do I Look To You,” which contained echoes of Dan Hicks with Jan playing the role of the Hot Licks.

Voxana, the Detroit based quartet featuring Billy Brandt, played a captivating set of what might be called bass-heavy urban folk. Their name, a play on the Latin for music of the soul, captured the inner essence of Thumb Fest.

Djangophonique, the band dedicated to exploring guitarist Django Reinhardt’s so-called gypsy jazz or jazz manouche of the 1930s, added magnetic lead singer Katie Smith and played a slew of sultry classics such as “I Want to be Loved by You,” made famous by Marilyn Monroe in the movie “Some Like It Hot;” “Whatever Lola Wants” famously sung by Sarah Vaughn; Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’;” and “What a Wonderful World,” one of Louis Armstrong’s signature songs.

With a name that nodded to cultural crossovers, the quartet known as Wilson Thicket didn’t play the soul of Wilson Pickett, but a set of spirited bluegrass with Jason Dennie and Aaron Markowitz switching back and forth on guitar and mandolin.

“We’re a new band, so we don’t have records or CDs or any of that stuff,” said Markowitz.

Dextrous Dan the Juggling Man juggled a bowling ball, an apple, bowling pins, machetes and fire, which he then ate.

The hard rocking Gasoline Gypsies, from the Port Huron area, headlined the main stage with a set that focused on their acoustic roots.

In honor of David Crosby, who died in January, the Gypsies, framed by Lexington Harbor and Lake Huron, played “Wooden Ships.”

The band had unexpected success with the song on streaming services.

“If you smile at me, I will understand,” sang the Gypsies, echoing the theme of universal music that defined the festival. “‘Cause that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language.”

Then it was time to pull up stakes.

“And it’s a fair wind/Blowin’ warm out of the south over my shoulder,” the band sang. “Guess I’ll set a course and go.”

Jim Bloch is a freelance writer based in St. Clair, Michigan. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.