Lowell Folk Festival 2008

This year's festival marks the 22nd year of free folk music in downtown Lowell, if you count the three years that Lowell hosted the touring National Folk Festival, and organizers claim that Lowell's is the largest free folk festival in the country.

Even more slippery than the word "free" is the word "folk," and the organizers of the festival have interpreted it as broadly as possible.

The event features music from New England's many ethnic groups, playing continuously on six separate stages.

Highlights include

• Jamaican ska (the Skatalites),
• Louisiana Zydeco (Jeffery Broussard & the Creole Cowboys),
• mariachi and norteño (Boston's Mariachi Estampa de America),
• Malian balafon (Medford's Balla Kouyaté)

And vendors will offer food from those New England ethnic traditions known for their deliciousness.