PALOMINO CLUB : SINGING FOR THE LOVE OF IT AT FOLK MINI-FESTIVAL

OK, I’m convinced.

I’m going to try to get down to Kerrville, Tex., in May for the city’s 16th annual folk festival.

A Kerrville “sampler” Friday night at the Palomino Club in North Hollywood was a winning reminder of the values of music that, in the words of festival founder Rod Kennedy, is “original music, not copy music.”

In a pop world that seems increasingly depersonalized, the mini-festival was an endearing example of musicians playing and singing for the love of it.

In its best moments, the program--featuring more than a dozen folk and country singer-songwriters, including Butch Hancock and Carolyn Hester--was a warm, inviting experience reminiscent of the sense of community of a Los Lobos show.

The good news is that you may get another chance to sample Kerrville without even going to Texas. At the end of the 3 1/2-hour show, Kennedy told the enthusiastic crowd he hopes to return here next year.

That may seem a bit optimistic considering he failed Friday to fill the Palomino’s main, 250-seat room in his first trip west. But Kennedy is used to modest beginnings.

When the former promoter-businessman started the festival in the hill country west of San Antonio in 1972, the affair consisted of only about a dozen musicians and a total attendance of 2,800.

But it has grown so dramatically that it will run for 18 days this year (beginning May 21) and Kennedy’s expecting more than 120 performers and some 40,000 fans.

“The strange thing is that what we’re doing is strictly uncommercial, but it has tapped a nerve in a way that has made it commercial,” Kennedy said.

At times Friday, the laid-back atmosphere recalled the folk festivals of the ‘60s that contributed so much to pop and rock culture: songwriters, limited to three songs each, moving on and off the stage, sharing backing musicians. The link was underscored when Hester, a star of the ‘60s folk scene, sang a Tom Paxton song of wanderlust only moments after David Halley, a younger Texan, sang his own song on the same subject.

Others on the bill ranged from Christine Albert, an Austin songwriter with a trace of the rural purity of Dolly Parton, to Jimmie Gilmore, who deals in an aggressive, highly personalized rockabilly style. Also featured: Steve Gillette and Shake Russell, both of whom have songs on the latest Waylon Jennings album.

But it was Hancock, supported vocally by Marce Lacouture, who made the strongest impression. The Texan, who has several albums on his own label, writes lyrics with much the ease and insight of Bob Dylan and John Prine, and his new “Already Gone” was the most striking tune on the program. The song’s not likely to be a Top 40 hit; it’s too long and the theme, about lost ideals, is too complex. But it’s music that stirs and provokes.

A pop industry scout might not have been impressed by much of what he heard Friday. Some of the singers lacked polish and some of the songs were too eccentric to compete with conventional radio fare, but you felt you were listening to real people sing about real matters. How sad that those qualities seem novel in today’s music business.