“Esoteric” one dictionary defines as things “intended for, or intelligible only to, the initiated or those with special knowledge.”  Does this imply the music at the Festival will go over listeners’ heads? Not at all, Finnan assures, people are still going to be toe-tapping and head-bobbing. To settle the quiz, he runs us through the mix.

Annie Gallup, a native of North Carolina, has been performing on the U.S. Folk scene for decades. In voice a bit like Joni Mitchell, in performance “she's a stream-of-consciousness beat poet,” Finnan says. They met one year at a swimming hole near the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas. She and a friend were floating by on an air mattress, Finnan started up a conversation and they drifted along together. As songwriters, they hit it off, and this year she took him up on an invitation to come north.

Alberta-based troubadour Bill Bourne is cut from the same quilted cloth: “All over the map, or not on the map at all,” Finnan says. He and Bourne met at the Edmonton Folk Festival, where Finnan one year was working as a stage hand. Bourne was performing as a duo with Alan MacLeod, hot off their Juno-winning album, Dance and Celebrate. Bourne is a solo act now and Finnan calls him the “blissed-out” element on the roster.

Catherine MacLellan is a comparative youngster, though she’s older than her years, Finnan says. The daughter of Gene MacLellan, a tragic Canadian music legend of the 1960s from P.E.I., she pens haunting, melancholic songs that mesh with a decidedly meek stage presence. There's no disputing her talent, Finnan says, and True North, Canada's largest roots label, has just signed her latest release “Church Bell Blues”. Shelter Valley Folk Festival receives hundreds of musical entries each year. Not even knowing whose CD he had grabbed from a box of submissions, Finnan picked out MacLellan’s one night as he was driving along in his van. He says he pulled over then and there and called her to confirm the booking.

David Francey (above right) is a big name on the Canadian folk scene. He comes from a working-class background in Scotland, worked as a carpenter, roofer and truck driver on coming to Canada. He penned tunes while swinging a hammer and crisscrossing the border, developing a strong following with songs such as “Redwing Blackbird.” Francey brings humility and intimacy to his skills as a songwriter, singer and musician, Finnan says of his contemporary.

Indio Saravanja is a native of Venezuela. True to the nature of folk musician itineraries, he and Finnan crossed paths in Whitehorse. A “hip troubadour,” a younger Bill Bourne with Dylan influences, Finnan identifies closely with Saravanja's style and attitude: “A songwriter who deserves to make it, and carries on despite the futility of the business.”

The business appears a snap for the likes of James Hill, Ottawa-based virtuoso of the ukelele. He has played with ukelele orchestras — yes, orchestras — in Japan and Hawaii, riding the diminutive stringed instrument’s “renaissance” in recent years. Yet, Hill comes to this international stature with a genuine amateur enthusiasm, Finnan says.

Speaking of virtuoso, guitar phenom? Jimmy Bowskill, now pushing 17, the youngest Juno nominee in Canadian recording history, is coming to the Festival.. “He has grown into himself,” says Finnan, who met Bowskill four years ago, when he had the power to shock audiences coupling raw talent, extreme youth and gritty blues lyrics.  Bowskill has since opened for the likes of ZZ Top and the Sam Roberts Band and toured internationally. These days, “as well as the blues, he’s getting into old-time country and folk. There is a refreshing genuineness to his personality and style,” Finnan reports.

Michael Johnston, a fellow Peterborough-area native, is a pop-style performer with a head full of muses, Finnan says, equal parts showman and musician. “There's no telling what instrument he will bring on stage. I've seen bagpipers enter his songs — in key.” They met a couple of years ago when Finnan was preparing his Gordon Lightfoot tribute events.

Another treat in the new-sounds category is the Winnipeg-based group Twilight Hotel. Finnan sees in them a 2000s “hip, urban version of Ian and Sylvia. Funky backwoods country mixed with subtle downtown diner lyrics.”

Mushfiq Ensemble connects this year's festival to the world-music beat through the folk songs and rhythmic dance music of Afghanistan and India. Ensemble leader Ustad Mushfiq Hashimi, a tabla player and native of Afghanistan, assembled the four-piece group at his arts school in Ottawa. Education is central to the Mushfiq Ensemble experience, Finnan says. Its members participate in Ottawa-area schools and outreach programs of the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals. At the Festival, when not on stage or at workshops, look for them in the children’s village, leading chants and dances.

Quartette has the longest CV of any of the groups at this year’s festival. Sylvia Tyson, the best-known member, was a star of the folk scene in the 1960s and ’70s with Ian Tyson. Fellow members — Cindy Church, Gwen Swick and Caitlin Hanford — come from strong individual performing careers. Quartette appeared alongside Finnan on “Beautiful”, his first ever Canadian tribute album to Lightfoot. He broached the idea of the group headlining at this year’s festival after a “heart-to-heart” with Tyson following his performance at the exclusive Ian & Sylvia reunion concert at Hugh’s Room in Toronto. In booking festival headliners, Finnan says, he’s on the lookout for musicians with a demonstrated ability to “converse” with the audience. Quartette not only will be connecting from the stage at the Henkel farm on Friday night, they’re planning to stay around for the workshops the next day.

The final name on this year’s roster is another figure from the 1970s Canadian music scene, Richard Knectel. The Wiarton native is a children’s performer and a superb general songwriter as well, says Finnan, who has sung, chatted and enjoyed Knectel’s friendship throughout years on the folk circuit. One thing is certain, he says: Richard will be among the last to pack up his case at the late-night campfire sing-alongs on the hill. He has to: “The man exudes music.”

And of course renowned emcee Holmes Hooke will be bringing his wry humour, wit and storytelling to the evening stages, which will also be host to the appearance of all three local songwriters who recently won the opportunity to perform at the festival based on their audition at the Local Songwriter’s Showcase held in downtown Cobourg.

The 4th annual Festival, featuring Canadian luminaries including Sylvia Tyson and Juno Award winner David Francey, is a family weekend of Music, Juried Art, Wellness, Sustainable Living and Harvest Food held on the Henkel Farm just east of Grafton, August 31- September 2, 2007. Tickets for the Festival are available at 48 King St West, Cobourg, select outlets in Northumberland, by phone (905-377-9556) or online www.sheltervalley.com. New volunteers and financial donors are always welcome. The Shelter Valley Folk Festival is a registered Federal Charity.

Many people have held a six-string guitar. Most have played one. A few have mastered the instrument. Then there are those who have built one, the craftsmen known as luthiers. They are rare, but even rarer, in fact unique among their creations, is the guitar known as the Six String Nation. A funny name for a guitar, and the story behind it is even stranger.

Those who attend this year’s Shelter Valley Folk Festival on Labour Day weekend (Aug. 31 to Sept. 2) will see it, have a chance to hold it, be photographed with it, play it even, and meet the man responsible for its creation, Jowi Taylor, who doesn’t even play the instrument.

Sixty elements in all went into the construction, each of which connects to a piece of Canadian history —  human or natural. The two elements that started it all off, Taylor said in an interview, were a chance meeting with Justin Trudeau, which led to in the donation of one of his father’s canoe paddles, and George Rizsany wrangling a piece of the Bluenose II, the legendary Lunenburg racing schooner.

“The guitar is abstract and real simultaneously,” Taylor says. It embodies the way Canadians experience their country: all have a regional perspective —  where you live — but all have a sense of shared community, from British Columbia to Newfoundland and points north.

Six String Nation had its unveiling on Parliament Hill on Canada Day last year and was brought back for that celebration again this July. Taylor has carried it to schools, conferences and festivals across the country, where to date about 4,500  people have posed with it as part of a separate photo achieve project. Many celebrated musicians have played it — Bruce Cockburn, Don Ross and Ron Sexsmith among them —  and Taylor, a music enthusiast and former host of CBC radio’s Global Village, has had the chance to listen in.

Shelter Valley Folk Festival artistic director Aengus Finnan himself first played the guitar at Guelph’s Hillside festival, playing alongside Sarah Harmer and Fiest.

“There’s the grassroots story, and then the audience connection,” he says. The experience for those who encounter the symbolic element is “quite profound.”

“Jowi is a committed artist in a very different way, bringing ” Finnan says.

What gave Taylor the inspiration for such an unusual project? It came to him, he says, in 1995, the year when Canadians from all parts of the country rallied in the streets of Montreal and a Quebec referendum came within a fraction of a per cent of partitioning Canada.

“I’m frustrated by the fact that, whether it’s Quebec or Alberta, some people are always trying to get us to define ourselves in very narrow terms,” Taylor says. The Six Sting Nation was his response —  his “unity statement.”

The project was time-consuming —  about 11 years — and expensive —  hundred of thousands of dollars. It involved heartbreak, too —  agonizing fundraising, research and acquisitions that set back any of Taylor’s retirement plans quite a few years.

The rewards, however, are uniquely his. He criss-crosses the country with the Six String Nation, encountering Canadians who find in it a kind of totem, like a First Nations “talking stick.”

“This guitar tells stories all on its own,” Taylor says, and stories are added every time it goes on tour.

The guitar appears at the 4th annual Shelter Valley Folk Festival a family weekend of Music, Juried Art, Wellness, Sustainable Living and Harvest Food, August 31- September 2, 2007. The Festival features such luminaries as Sylvia Tyson with Quartette, David Francey, Ember Swift, the Creaking Tree String Quartet, and Catherine MacLellan. Tickets for the Festival are available by phone (905-377-9556) or online at www.sheltervalley.com.