No Lotus Festival: Can Woody Guthrie Unite Echo Park?

The event will feature hip-hop, blues, jazz, psychedelia and bluegrass by Guthrie-inspired musicians.

The celebration takes place from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at . Here is the complete event schedule.

Leadership at El Centro has talked for a time now about hosting an event that would attract hipsters to the social service organization's courtyard and outdoor stage, which serves many low-income families and youth.

This could be the one.

Singer-song writer and Guthrie scholar, Darryl Holter, will be on hand to talk about the evolution of the troubadour's music and political views while he was living in L.A.

Holter will also sing a few tunes that Guthrie penned while living here.  

From his Echo Park (Red Hill) home on Preston Street, Guthrie got to know Ed Robbin, Theodore Dreiser, Will Geer, John Steinbeck, and other intellectuals, activists and artists.

Blues musician S.S. Jones, founder of The Skid Row Musician's Network, will perform Woody's song, "Hard Travelin'' and the Lead Belly tune, "Pick A Bale of Cotton."

Got kids?  Drop them off at the Children's Concert and story-telling session 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. in the arts activities area.

Meantime, the Lotus Festival Inc., the lead organizer of the Lotus Festival, told a Council District 13 rep in an email that it does plan on "being back in full force for next year"--when it, presumably, won't have to hold the festival in a parking lot.

Read Echo Park Now's take on the story here.