Sam Bush, the headliner for the 2024 Moab Folk Festival, stood at home plate, surveying a crowd of a thousand music lovers scattered across the ball field. He carried a mandolin, not a bat, and looked at us thoughtfully before quipping, “That last pitch was a little low and outside.”

On that November afternoon, it was the only pitch that missed.

I’d joined the folkies in the mountain-biking capital of the universe, but not to cruise slickrock. Since 2003, the Moab Folk Festival has sent the people’s music echoing off the red-rock escarpments, with a dusting of snow often visible high on the La Sal Mountains. The gathering features everything from bluegrass to cowboy ballads, indie to Americana. Folk music is hard to pin down. That’s what makes it great.

This became clear when a giant sousaphone trundled onto the stage, carried by Anna Moss and Joel Ludford. They oompahed their way through the funny, gruesome story of how drag racers once smashed into their hippie van, driving Ludford’s femur through his pelvis. “It’s not as sexy as it sounds,” he told us, and we all laughed and winced together.

In Moab, the music can shift from solo guitar to a bevy of bluegrass pickers to the odd tuba, but it all turns on storytelling, singing and plucking. Over the years, Judy Collins, Richard Thompson and Suzy Bogguss have all stood at home plate and knocked it out of the park.

This Nov. 7-9, more eclectic folkies will fill downtown venues. A one-day pass on the ball field costs $76.64; two days, $145.90. More intimate performances at Star Hall are $60.40 – further proof Moab folkies never round up to the nearest dollar.

Cassie Paup has run the festival for the past five years. She got her start in 2014 when founder Melissa Schmaedick spotted her crossing a parking lot and asked what she was up to. “Looking for a job,” Paup replied – and soon she was learning the ropes.

Schmaedick, a remote-working USDA economist had launched the festival as a way to unite Moab’s music scene and bring visitors to town as winter set in.

Eric Jones was also there at the beginning and remembered the seat-of-the-pants feeling. “Melissa’s vision was for a singer-songwriter folk fest,” he said. “That kind of music was available in an urban environment, but not here.”

Here is Moab – a small town squeezed between national parks and geological marvels, where mud-splattered mountain bikers with scraped-up knees fill the cafés and campgrounds. Add music, and you make magic.

Schmaedick handed over the reins after running a virtual festival in 2020. She returned to Washington, and Paup stepped up, along with her assistant, Emily Sudduth. Together, they marshal 150 volunteers to fill the outfield with fans and set musicians up at home plate.

Organizers have also expanded the experience with the Moab Folk Camp, a weeklong gathering before the festival where musicians and enthusiasts hone their craft. Singer-songwriter Cosy Sheridan runs the camp, offering classes such as “Cooking with Fresh Ingredients” (the chords beyond C, D, G and E minor) and “Singing with Heart, Soul and Body.”

“There’s a large subculture of music camps,” Sheridan said. “We treat it as an avocation and a way to tap into creativity. It’s about getting past self-censorship and finding something in yourself that needs to get out.”

In other words, she sees the camp as a place where musicians can treat playing as a joyful hobby, loosen up and create without worrying about being judged. The idea is to stop overthinking and simply let the music come out.

Just imagine the campfire songs – leagues beyond the usual old singalongs.

This year’s festival lineup features Elephant Revival, who will bring a washboard and assorted strings on Saturday, and Yonder Mountain String Band, doing their propulsive bluegrass on Sunday. Another half-dozen acts will round out the weekend.

“We generally try to have more singer-songwriters on Saturday,” Paup said, “and bigger band sounds on Sunday.” She noted the lineup has evolved. “Billy Strings has changed things with the jamgrass movement, and young people like it. People want to dance and hear upbeat music. So we’re broadening the mandate with more energetic bands – without alienating geezers like me.”

Just in time, before folk music fades to gray.

Sheridan praised the festival as “unusually friendly and well run, and of a size where you can interact with the artists.”

One of my favorite under-the-radar discoveries is Humbird, a folk-rock group from the Twin Cities. I was thrilled to see them lead off last year. There they were, 25 yards away at home plate as I sat in right field.

After their set, I wandered to the merch tents and found Siri Undlin, the band’s lead singer and songwriter. I launched into a story about how, the last time I’d seen them in Denver, parking issues caused me to miss my favorite Humbird song, “Pharmakon.” In Moab, I’d finally heard it live, straight from the folkie’s mouth.

Undlin smiled and said, “Well, I guess you’ll just have to show up early next time.”

And that’s part of the charm here: whether you’re early, late or somewhere in between, there’s always another tune waiting on deck.