Event Review & Photo Gallery: Great River Folk Festival 2025 in La Crosse, Wisconsin
The low-key Midwest mainstay dazzled attendees with its impressive lineup and quietly but solidly progressive ethos.
The Foxgloves performing at Great River Folk Festival, 2025. Photo credit: Rosei Skipper.
I get a feeling of quiet anticipation entering the Great River Folk Festival at Riverside Park in La Crosse Wisconsin. This long-running festival (2025 marked its 49th year!) always has a mellow atmosphere, partly due to its relatively small size, and also maybe because it’s a little under the radar despite being a less than 3-hour drive from the Twin Cities. Its small size, low-key vibe and unique format make it an intimate venue built for active listeners–so it’s basically my paradise. You experience artists in a whole new way, and they seem present in a way that’s not always possible in larger festivals or loud venues.
They always curate an impressive mix of touring and regional acts, this year especially. (I was pleased to see some acts I knew were queer and trans on the lineup, a testament to Great River’s understated but rock-solid progressive ethos.)
But the first day started late Friday afternoon with a cozy homespun flavor. A circle of local musicians gathered under one of two tents that would see a lot of magical moments over the weekend. The relaxed group played a loose improv-heavy set of old time music featuring the widest variety of instruments I’ve ever seen at a jam, including a few of them I couldn’t name.
Shortly thereafter, the first act on the main stage began. Humbird has spent enough time in Minnesota and Wisconsin to call both states home, and both would be happy to claim her. As she mentioned, her originally gentle acoustic folk sound has “gotten louder,” aka expanded to include electric instruments, live looping, distortion and other rock and experimental elements. But her lyrics and messages remain true to her folky beginnings, including themes like social justice, opposition to genocide, and a deep connection with nature. When her trio launched into a magical reinterpretation of “Bury Me Not” in the setting sun by the Mississippi River, cicadas joined in, their swelling chorus filling in the quiet moments.
Humbird. Photo credit: Rosei Skipper.
The other Friday night act on the main stage was the great Duluth folk/country blues icon Charlie Parr. His seated solo acoustic set absolutely dominated the big stage and the entire park. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen this Minnesota — records kept since 2019 say it’s at least 40 — so when I say he’s maybe never sounded better than he did that night, well, that’s saying something. He did all his songs that make me laugh the loudest and cry the hardest, at a dizzying tempo that drew dozens of dancers to the front. Parr closed with a song he hasn’t done in a couple years (that I’ve seen): his dig-deep, awe inspiring a cappella rendition of “Ain’t No Grave.” The festival had already carved indelible memories into my mind, and it was only day 1!
Charlie Parr. Photo credit: Rosei Skipper.
My second day started before noon with a song swap between Jason Ziebell of Texas Toast, Humbird, and Carriage House. Song swaps are really the special sauce of this festival, where you get to hear new songs, stripped-down renditions (when someone appears who normally plays in a band), and artists letting themes and images from the previous performer guide their song choice. They feel light and informal but also invite deeper listening to the words and storytelling in each song.
Carriage House. Photo credit: Rosei Skipper.
The next song swap I saw was themed “Raising Women’s Voices” and the featured artists—Cass Magpie, Willow Waters, and Maura Dunst of The Foxgloves—spun it out in a number of ways, from personal reflections to stories about real and fictional women. The powerful and fascinating set brought home the breadth and complexity of experiences and perspectives women can have.
(l to r) Maura Dunst, Willow Waters and Cass Magpie. Photo credit: Rosei Skipper.
The next swap on travel songs, featuring Resonant Rogues, Jack Klatt and David Nash, was a joy—you know songwriters have no shortage of those tunes, and there’s no one better to speak with authority about traveling than musicians. Especially when two of the artists shared that they’d spent some of their youth riding the rails!
After that I experienced one of the most unique and delightful highlights of the festival: watching Willi Carlisle, who would play the main stage later, call a square dance.
Soon the main stage revved up for the night. Kicking off a phenomenal run of main stage shows was The Foxgloves! Maybe because I first discovered them at a festival years ago, I found it hard to believe this was the Twin Cities sextet’s first Great River Folk Festival. Their spunky, rowdy energy and colorful story songs made them a perfect fit.
Members of The Foxgloves. Photo credit: Rosei Skipper.
Following the Foxgloves were The Resonant Rogues. This dreamy North Carolina group, led by spouses Sparrow and Keith Josiah Smith, makes it out to the Midwest more often than a lot of Southeastern acts, and for that I’m grateful, because I’ll never tire of seeing them.
Sparrow Smith of The Resonant Rogues. Photo credit: Rosei Skipper.
Next up was a new-to-me act: Willy Porter & Carmen Nickerson! This duo had the sweetest spot on the lineup, when the sunset turns pink and orange over the Mississippi, and their music, featuring intricate guitar, hypnotic vocals and a smooth meditative sound, was a perfect match for the time of day. Emcee for the night Claudia Schmidt jumped in with impromptu harmonies at one point, adding to the magic.
(l to r) Carmen Nickerson, Willy Porter & Claudia Schmidt. Photo credit: Rosei Skipper.
The last set for me before I hit musical overload and hit the hay was one I was most excited to see: Willi Carlisle. Another touring act that I’ve been lucky to see several times in the Midwest, there’s always an irresistible charm to his fast-talking, foot-stomping, funny and tragic, radically loving and hopeful sets. He led the crowd in a call and response, as he often does, for his song “Big Tent,” and the lyrics have been rattling around my brain ever since, reminding me to keep on loving as generously as I can in a world that’s got a lot of poisonous hate in it right now:
The heart’s a big tent
You gotta let everybody in
Doesn't matter who they are
If they do right or where they’ve been
Everybody gets in
Willi Carlisle. Photo credit: Rosei Skipper.
The first set of the final day at Great River Folk Festival in La Crosse Wisconsin was a song swap between Sarah King, Helen Forsythe of Too Old Cat, and the Resonant Rogues. This one’s theme was political/social, and as the artists pointed out, there were no shortage of topics that qualify these days, when being a woman is political, being poor is political, and trying to be a good neighbor is political. The trio of acts expertly balanced outrage and optimism in a way that resonated with the like-minded Great River crowd.
I headed to another song swap featuring the legendary Claudia Schmidt, who’d put on an incredible emcee performance the night before, writing and singing a special ditty for each mainstage act she introduced. She played the festival near its beginning in the late 70s. She was joined by the enchanting northern Minnesota songbird Kelley Smith, and Carmen Nickerson and Willy Porter (the delightful duo who’d graced the main stage the night before). This set’s theme was peace, and everyone delivered with songs that were calming, loving and focused on spirituality and nature. Their healing energy flowed through the crowd, putting everyone in a better frame of mind. As Willy put it, “After listening to those two songs, I feel like I can find my car keys!”
One of my most anticipated sets was next: a solo performance by Sarah King. One of my favorite voices, artists and human beings, this Vermont musician has been to hell and back and back around again since she won the Great River Folk Festival songwriting contest in 2023: battling throat cancer (so far successfully), going through some big life changes, and just recently losing her father. Her music was raw and defiant and gutsy and dark even before all that happened, so older songs feel prescient, and listening to her current self interpreting them on stage was quite haunting and moving. Whatever path she takes now, I hope music is still somehow a part of it!
The next set I caught was another song swap, this one focused on story songs. I was thrilled to see local artist Wyatt B Thomson again after seeing him last year, joined by Kelley Smith (showing a very different facet of her songwriting from the previous set), and Esther B Saw, who I mainly know as one of Great River Folk Festival’s organizers but is also an arresting singer and songwriter in her own right, as she demonstrated by holding her own next to two extremely talented artists. The stories they took turns telling were often dark and sad but entrancing and compelling as well.
That last song swap was my last set even though the Great River Folk Fest continued—I’m a very all-in listener so when my music tank is full, I have to stop. And it was nearly overflowing by then! So I was very glad that the trio chose to end their set with a group performance and audience singalong of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” I can think of no more fitting way to wrap up my time at this wonderland of community and connection to each other, the past and the future.
Show Gallery: Great River Folk Festival 2025, La Crosse, WI
All photos courtesy of Rosei Skipper
ABOUT THE AUTHOR & PHOTOGRAPHER
Carol Roth. Photo credit: Dan Lee.
Adventures in Americana co-founder Carol Roth is a novelist who publishes both under her name and the pseudonym T.A. Berkeley in a range of genres, from horror to thriller to YA. She loves to play guitar, sing and occasionally write songs. Her wide-ranging passions also include vegan cooking, personal finance, watching queer romance TV/movies and learning to speak Thai. By day she’s a marketing writer/brand strategist.
Rosei Skipper is a photographer, arts lover, wayward psychiatrist, fairly good gardener and excellent cat parent based in Rochester, Minnesota. She grew up in Oregon but fell in love with the Midwest in 2010. She loves live music, snail mail, going on walks and making stickers. She can also be found working for Rochester Public Music and sharing all things art with The Rochester Posse.
