Tonight kicks off the 2026 Brooklyn Folk Festival, which will bring together 40+ acts performing live at St. Ann’s Church in Downtown Brooklyn. The festival is presented by the Jalopy Theatre & School of Music, a magical and eccentric haven for music and all arts, cozily located in beautiful Red Hook, and currently celebrating its 20th year.
I’ve been fascinated by the many goings-on of Jalopy from the moment I stepped through the theatre doors a few years ago to perform there myself - which felt like a trip back in time, to a world whose soundtrack was carried by banjos and fiddles rather than computers and iPhones.
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down to chat with one of the founders of Brooklyn Folk Festival, the multitalented and deeply thoughtful Eli Smith.
"I've worked at the Jalopy Theatre for almost 20 years, and this is our 18th annual Brooklyn Folk Festival. And I run our record label, Jalopy Records. We got a lot going on!" Smith told me proudly.
"The Jalopy Theatre is the main folk club in New York City, and we're, in a way, the inheritors of a tradition of wonderful cultural workers that go back into the 1950s, 40s, even earlier..." Smith explained.
"I started working at Jalopy as a banjo teacher in 2007, and in 2008 I started the Brooklyn Folk Festival. The festival started at the Jalopy Theatre, and you know, it was an idea whose time had come! Because as soon as we started the festival, it was sold out the first year - lines around the block, and we've been moving into successively larger spaces after that. Now it's held at St. Ann's Church in Downtown Brooklyn - great acoustics, great place to see and hear music."
One of the key takeaways of our conversation was the distinction Smith very intentionally draws between "music as a human behavior" vs. "music as a commodity," a concept that may seem obvious on paper - but perhaps does call for some careful reconsideration, amidst our increasingly hyper-commercialized world.
"What I wanted to do with the Brooklyn Folk Festival was create a 'real' folk festival - because folk music means different things to different people. There's a category within the music industry called 'folk' that's mostly singer-songwriters, and is often wonderful music, within that commercial category of 'folk' music..." Smith told me.
"And then there's folk music that people study as part of anthropology. And that's the sort of music that historically has been documented by academic folklorists and ethnomusicologists. And we do both at the Jalopy Theatre and at the Brooklyn Folk Festival. So you'll see traditional music from people who may not be professional musicians, and you'll see people that have a manager and an agent and so on... and there's all gradations between. So that's what I'm really passionate about - music as a human behavior, instead of music as a commodity."
Eli shared how vital Jalopy has been to New York City musicians and music lovers alike, now for two decades.
"I grew up in Greenwich Village, the old capital of the folk song revival back in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. But when I was growing up there in the 90s, there wasn't much going on in terms of folk music... but I was looking for anybody that might still be around and wanting to have a way to continue in that tradition. And Jalopy offered me that opportunity - that gave us a real place to work out of. And I feel grateful to have the Jalopy Theatre to work on things like the Brooklyn Folk Festival."
"The festival's been going on so long now that I know people that met at the Brooklyn Folk Festival that are now married and have kids. And that's wonderful. And participation in a shared musical tradition creates community, and that is fundamentally what we're trying to do here at the Jalopy Theatre."
Brooklyn Folk Festival will run through Sunday November 8th at St. Ann’s Church in Downtown Brooklyn - with headliners including Louis Cato, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Lonnie Holley, and more - presented by the Jalopy Theatre & School of Music.
Tickets available at www.brooklynfolkfest.com
