By Paul Robicheau

The Newport Folk Festival always pulls off unique, unexpected collaborations, while it embraces a head-spinning lineup of diverse genres that reflects its spirit of community.

Allison Russell at Newport Folk. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Surprise performances remain the norm at the Newport Folk Festival, where rumors fly over who might appear in addition to the announced lineup at Fort Adams State Park. The fest may never again see a seismic convergence like 2022, the year in which both Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon showed up to join tributes in their honor. Yet Newport Folk always pulls off unique, unexpected collaborations, while it embraces a head-spinning lineup of diverse genres that reflects its spirit of community.

This year’s best bet was that former late-night TV host Conan O’Brien and his “Real Musicians” (anchored by his longtime bandleader Jimmy Vivino and Newport faves Dawes) would deliver a star-wattage guest to top off Sunday’s finale. Some fans hoped for Noah Kahan (a late cancellation the year before). Of course, Bruce Springsteen or Taylor Swift — each on tour in Europe –- were out of the question. But after cameos by Nick Lowe, Brittany Howard, Nathaniel Rateliff, and Mavis Staples, the Brookline-bred comedian called on 2014 Newport alumnus Jack White, who appeared on O’Brien’s last TV show in 2009 for an acoustic White Stripes reunion. White played the same playful ditty, “We’re Going to Be Friends,” with O’Brien, who nearly held his own with modest co-vocals and guitar. Then they switched to electric guitars alongside Vivino and Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith to stoke Eddie Cochran’s rock ‘n’ roll nugget “Twenty Flight Rock,” which featured a searing White solo.

Sierra Ferrell at Newport Folk. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Friday set the weekend’s bar for surprises, including a TBA set in the mid-size Quad tent that turned out to be Beck, who headlined Newport in 2013 and 2021. Breaking from an orchestra tour that included Tanglewood, Beck arrived late via police escort through traffic and offered a short tribute to folk music of the ’50s and ’60s. He began on a promising note, chugging through Bob Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm.” But as Beck wove a personal travelogue through standards like “Stagger Lee” (how he learned fingerpicking via Mississippi John Hurt), Fred Neil’s “The Other Side of This Life,” and Jimmie Rodgers’ “Waiting for a Train” (to which Beck lent yodeling), it became clear the frizzy-haired singer was correct when he noted that the set was under-rehearsed. Luckily, his band (which featured guitarist Smokey Hormel and drummer Joey Waronker) was the same one that recorded 2003’s Sea Change and neatly slipped into that album’s beautifully desolate originals “The Golden Age” and “Lost Cause,” which magically summoned a swarm of dragonflies before Beck unleashed his ubiquitous hit “Loser” for the crowd to chime along.

Orville Peck at Newport Folk. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Beck siphoned Guster’s midday draw at the main stage, though the Tufts-born group charmed with indie-pop gems “Satellite” and “Fa Fa,” for which members of the UMass marching band joined in. Still, there was something to be said for stripped-down outings. Married duo Shovels & Rope returned to Newport, closing the small Harbor stage with robust, close-knit songs at a single mic, plus guitar and piano, but not their drum kit. Adrianne Lenker headlined the Quad with a stunning acoustic solo set of austere, precisely wound songcraft, debuting songs written for a new lineup of her group Big Thief, including “Incomprehensible,” about growing older with grace. She invited out fellow Big Thief guitarist/singer Buck Meek (who earlier played with his solo band in a more straightforward, slightly countrified vein) for a couple of songs, starting with a more loosely spun “Sadness is a Gift.”

In contrast, the big-voiced Hozier — the fest’s most popular marquee act in the wake of his No. 1 hit “Too Sweet” — and his cello and violin-augmented octet capped Friday’s headlining slot with multiple collaborators. First, tour mate Allison Russell — who spread joy and resilience with her swooping voice and prominent clarinet during an early main-stage set– dueted on “Work Song.” Gospel-soul legend Staples steered a cover of “The Weight” with a supporting cast that included Russell, Rateliff, and Newport icon Joan Baez, retired from touring at 83 but billed for a poetry reading that expanded into cameo spots. She took the vocal lead on the closing civil-rights hymn “We Shall Overcome.”

In a similarly powerful moment on Saturday, Baez sang “I Shall Not Be Moved” with Rhiannon Giddens and Taj Mahal — members of the crowd at the Fort main stage lending affirmation to the chorus. It was quite the turnaround from the outset of Giddens’ set when sound issues forced a string-band start as well as her striking, impromptu a cappella version of Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz.” Also, the sight of Baez dancing barefoot alongside Giddens was priceless.

David Rawlings and Gillian Welch at Newport Folk. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Sit-ins were more limited on Saturday, down to main-stage headliners Gillian Welch & David Rawlings. The Appalachia-steeped acoustic duo included a half dozen songs from its upcoming album Woodland in a guest-free set apart from visits by Punch Brothers bassist Paul Kowert. And they brought an extra snap to Welch’s “Revelator” in Rawlings’ fiercely picked solo. Many of Saturday’s acts also worked as duos, especially on the Harbor stage. Among them were humorous chums John Craigie and Langhorne Slim, the hushed folk couple Ocie Elliott (who sang with eyes closed and fluttering), the cosmopolitan country pairing of Zella Day and Jesse Woods as the spry Chaparelle, and painterly Latin guitar instrumentalists Hermanos Gutierrez.

What may get overlooked in the festival’s “Be present. Be kind…” credo is its third pillar, “Be open,” an acceptance of diversity in the Newport experience that bends the definition of folk. Beyond the blend of musical styles, one could add this year’s gender bend of Bertha, a Grateful Dead cover band in drag that sparked colorful renditions of “Truckin’” and “Touch of Grey” (tweaking its lyric to “a touch of gay”) and hoisted signs that proclaimed “Drag is not a crime” in response to conservative legislation affecting their Nashville base.

Bertha at Newport Folk. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Country fueled Orville Peck (the gay, Lone Ranger-masked cowboy who showed a streak of Elvis Presley in his voice and moves) and fringe-sporting Elle King, who went hard country with a ripping yet seamless band that blended an old hit, “Ex’s and Oh’s.” Ethnic diversity extended to robed Saharan desert-blues pioneers Tinariwen’s hypnotic weave, the dreamy Reyna Tropical’s Latin-psych percolations, and the instrumental trio LA LOM’s nostalgic blend of soul ballads, Mexican boleros and cumbia sonidera. And the main stage opened Friday with the return of Medicine Singers, a circle of Native American chanters striking a communal drum while flanked by the experimental lashings of guitarists Yonatan Gat and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo.

String bands made a strong showing in reverent trad-bluegrass supergroup Mighty Poplar (including Punch Brothers’ Noah Pikelny and Chris Eldridge), inspired upstarts in the music’s Black tradition New Dangerfield (joined by “auntie” Giddens on second fiddle for “Rolling River”), and Molly Tuttle and her band Golden Highway. They gave bluegrass an ebullient, contemporary sheen in their smart originals (including the winking “Down Home Dispensary”) and a pre-Beck romp through “Maggie’s Farm.” The band drew rousing cheers after Tuttle explained her alopecia and doffed her hairpiece to go bald for the band’s finale.  And in a cross-over from bluegrass, mandolin ace Sierra Hull appeared as one of guitar personality Cory Wong’s friends (among them Flecktones bass guitar virtuoso Victor Wooten), bridging folk and jazz, as Wong also plays this Friday’s Newport Jazz Festival.

Molly Tuttle at Newport Folk. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Hip-hop made its own assertive presence at the 65^th edition of Newport Folk. Killer Mike took the Quad tent to church on Saturday, his topical raps backed by his Mighty Midnight Revival of five gospel singers (likewise dressed in white) and his Run the Jewels DJ Trackstar, foreshadowing a new album. The next day, a reunion of ’80s group De La Soul found fast-roving rapper Posdnuos and DJ Maseo (third member Trugoy the Dove died last year) animating the same stage with jams like “Potholes in My Lawn.” But one thing was different: the seats to the Quad tent were removed for the next set by Celtic-punk rockers the Dropkick Murphys, giving De La Soul fans more freedom to let loose too.

Ken Casey of Dropkick Murphys at Newport Folk. Photo by Paul Robicheau

Dropkicks frontman Ken Casey said the Quincy-born group asked the festival producers if they wanted the band to perform acoustically and were told “No, we want the real shit!” So, there was Casey running across the stage and onto the barricade to rally fans as the Dropkicks roared into “The Boys Are Back.” Complete with banjo and accordion, the set ranged from “The Irish Rover” to “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” and included songs they made with lyrics by Woody Guthrie. In turn, the Dropkicks brought aboard English kindred political spirit Billy Bragg for “Worker’s Song.”  A solo Bragg jumpstarted Saturday’s main stage with his own Guthrie-lyric favorites, notably “All You Fascists Bound to Lose,” as he warned the crowd of extreme dangers faced in the U.S. election and sang songs in favor of unions.

Rock on the Newport bill also ranged from the grungy gears of North Carolina indie-rockers Wednesday (whose Karly Hartzman lamented genocide in Gaza before embodying anguish with sandblasting screams in closer “Bull Believer”) and punchy Chicago trio Friko, who was clearly inspired by early Radiohead and Nirvana. And the War on Drugs took their sculptural guitar rock for a Saturday ride and invited out The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn to sing John Hiatt’s “Walk On.”

Sunday proved particularly great, not only because of the collaborations, but due to the Fort’s main-stage home stretch in general. Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham served what Bird called their “radical retake” of 1973’s Buckingham Nicks (a precursor to Fleetwood Mac fame that’s yet to be re-released) in its entirety, his violin and whistling neatly replacing Lindsey Buckingham’s guitar. Yet Cunningham/Bird also thankfully tacked on a few of their own songs, her voice blending beautifully with his violin in her standout “Broken Harvest.”

Cunningham Bird at Newport Folk. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Sierra Ferrell made her return to the Fort main stage a true coming-out party that had Jack White watching from the wings. She alternated between fiddle and guitar as she led her bluegrass-tinged band, augmenting the pop of her floral mic stand in a flouncy hoop dress like a Southern belle. “Don’t give up on love — that’s all we got,” Ferrell cried after tossing a rose toward the crowd to end the mariachi-flavored “Far Away Across the Sea.” She was joined by actor John C. Reilly, who nailed the honky-tonk vocal of “Heartache by the Number,” and Gillian Welch for “Handsome Molly,” their voices backed by fiddle, mandolin, and acoustic guitar around a single mic. And Ferrell deftly tackled “Me and Bobby McGee,” prompting a sea of fans’ swaying hands.

Posdnuos of De La Soul at Newport Folk. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Brittany Howard was her usual force of nature in a set that unfortunately overlapped with Mighty Popular, De La Soul, and Dropkick Murphys. Raising the arms of her flowing outfit like wings, Howard began with the tour-de-force “Earth Sign” and aired out songs from her arty solo albums, from the flirty “Stay High” to the testimonial “13^th Century Metal,” her band anchored by former Alabama Shakes bandmate Zac Cockrell on bass and jazz dynamo Nate Smith on drums. Howard also returns to Friday’s Newport Jazz Festival, which can surely fit her genre-breaking sweep.

Howard reemerged to heartily tackle Redbone’s ’70s hit “Come and Get Your Love” with O’Brien. His variety-show parade of guests also included Newport Folk darling Langhorne Slim for his “Found My Heart” and surprise Nick Lowe (who O’Brien said flew in from London) for “So It Goes” and “Cruel to Be Kind.”O’Brien’s bit with Triumph the Comic Insult Dog fizzled along with the puppet character’s mic connection, but the closing set hit a pre-White peak with Rateliff’s perfect covers. He sang “Everybody’s Talkin,’” another Fred Neil tune popularized by Harry Nilsson that fit the setting with its lyrics about sailing summer breezes and pouring rain – as a shower developed for the first time all weekend. And he strutted through “Let it Bleed” with Jagger-like swagger.

Then the 85-year-old Staples took over with her husky exhortations, stretching “I’ll Take You There” with a reminder to the crowd that she’d been singing that song about as long as the fest’s been around and “I’m not tired yet!” The same went for fans of Newport Folk.

Paul Robicheau served more than 20 years as contributing editor for music at the Improper Bostonian in addition to writing and photography for the Boston Globe, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He was also the founding arts editor of Boston Metro.