Family Folk Machine

Year in Review! Designed by Aprille Clarke.

Thanks to the readers of Little Village Magazine for voting the FFM the Best Community Music or Theater Group! You can check out all the winners in the 2021 Best of the CRANDIC here.

The Family Folk Machine seeks donations through our Annual Appeal to support our programming. Please consider making a donation today, by sending a check to

Family Folk Machine

P.O. Box 1421

Iowa City, IA 52244

or securely online. We appreciate your support!

You can view a video of the Fall 2021 Family Folk Machine concert on our YouTube Channel!

 

Join us Sunday, October 10, at 3:00 p.m. on the Riverside Festival Stage for “Never So Far,” the Fall 2021 concert from the Family Folk Machine! For our first in-person concert since November 2019, we’ll share a fantastic set of songs that meet our present moment, and we hope you’ll be there to sing along. Please wear a mask—we will be! The concert is free (donations will be gratefully accepted). Here’s our set list:

Call It Dreaming (Iron and Wine)

Road to Nowhere (Talking Heads)

When the Train Comes Along (trad. Black spiritual)

Hope (Ysaÿe Barnwell)

You Are Not Alone (Jeff Tweedy/Mavis Staples)

Nothing More (Alternate Routes)

Ain’t No Hole in the Washtub (Paul Williams)

I Wake in Joy (Deb Talan)

It Don’t Come Easy (Ringo Starr)

Never So Far (Greg Brown)

Cover Me in Sunshine (Pink)

Our fall Family Folk Machine session has supported by a grant from the Iowa Arts Council. Rehearsing and performing outdoors this fall has required some new gear and other expenses for us, and we’re so grateful to the IAC for their support of our efforts to keep everyone safe and healthy even while singing together.

It’s going to be a beautiful day for an outdoor festival! Singers from the Family Folk Machine will present a set of songs drawn from our upcoming concert at 3:00 p.m. (Saturday, Sept. 25) in the backyard of 504 Oakland in Iowa City as part of the Longfellow Neighborhood’s Front Porch Music Festival. Check out the afternoon’s schedule here.

We are so excited to get the Family Folk Machine safely back together in person for the Fall 2021 session, “Never So Far.” Rehearsals begin August 22 at 3:00 at the Festival Stage Shelter at City Park. Send an email to jean@familyfolkmachine.org for more info!
Concert on the Festival Stage October 10!

Several FFM members created a song video with new verses to the traditional Black spiritual Come and Go With Me To That Land, envisioning our hopes for a post-pandemic world. You can watch it here:

Here is the YouTube link that you can use to watch our third online mini-concert:

The concert premieres at 3:00 p.m. (CDT) on Sunday, March 21. If you are planning to watch the concert at the time of the premiere and you’d like to chat with FFM members before or afterward on Zoom, send an email to jean@familyfolkmachine.org to get the link.