NEWPORT — Well, wasn’t that special.

Actually, no. Jimmy Buffett’s concert to close the Newport Folk Festival was perfectly good as far as Buffett concerts go (though by the necessity of the festival context it was shorter than average), but it was far from the acoustic performance that had been billed.

True, there’s always been more than a bit of the singer-songwriter in Buffett’s oeuvre, anyway. And last night’s show included such examples as “A Pirate Looks at 40” and a mostly acoustic “Come Monday,” and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings (who had played earlier on the main stage) joined him for Welch’s traditional-based “Elvis Blues.” He also pulled out a skillful, straightforward acoustic encore of Dylan’s “Blowin’ In the Wind.”

While Buffett reminded the Boston Globe this spring that he came up as a folk singer, said he might bring only one other musician and that “it won’t be a Parrothead show,” it did a pretty good approximation of one, with favorites such as “Margaritaville,” “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” “Brown-Eyed Girl,” “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” “Fins” — you know the drill.

Festival associate producer Jay Sweet said that there had been a miscommunication of some kind with Buffett’s management — “it was a surprise that he brought the heat” — but maintained that “he put together a set list and a band that was appropriate for the Newport Folk Festival. … Was it a folk show? No. Was it a stripped-down version of a Jimmy Buffett show? Yes.” The band was somewhat smaller — Buffett left the horn section at home — but the electric guitars and drums still pounded away. And the audience (announced at 7,500) didn’t seem to mind.

Anyway, it was a strong day of music overall at Fort Adams. Welch and Rhode Island native Rawlings were as usual enchanting, with mostly original songs that sound like they’re a hundred years old and are delivered with the same kind of old-time authority, with the duo plunking away just enough to hold the song together and their voices mixing to variously heartwarming (“Soul Journey”) and chilling (“My First Lover”) effect. And a fast-paced cover of “Jackson” capped it off.

Levon Helm, the former drummer with The Band, preceded Buffett by mixing American traditions, mostly from New Orleans and Memphis, with a large, tight band including a big horn section (complete with Howard Johnson on tuba), guests including Little Sammy Davis and Helm’s daughter, Amy, and Helm’s own loosely tight drumming propelling classics including “Fannie Mae,” a plaintive “Anna Lee” (with just a fiddle and the voices of Helm and two women) and Band hits “Ophelia,” “Rag Mama Rag” and “The Shape I’m In.”

Also on the main stage, Calexico was bilingual musically as well as lyrically, mixing Mexican elements such as twin trumpets and rolling rhythms with indie rock guitars and noise. Brandi Carlilehad a strong voice and memorable material, such as the opening “What Can I Say,” backed by a small rock band and a cello for spice and doing justice to both Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.” Willy Mason, seemingly everywhere this weekend, mixed ’70s singer-songwriter lyricism with occasional traditional elements.

On the second stage, The Avett Brothers played rock with an old-time acoustic attitude, or old-time acoustic music with a rock attitude. It was hard to tell which was which, but just when the four-piece group’s energy and sarcasm on songs such as “Shame” and “Attraction #74” felt like the work of a mere bunch of wiseacres, the two brothers played by themselves and came out with hushed, elegant winners such as “Murder in the City” and “Tear Down the House,” from their latest record, The Second Gleam.

Other highlights of the second stage included Son Volt’s usual winning mix of gloomy melodicism with a sturdy rock and occasional twang that evoked Bob Dylan and Neil Young; Kaki King, known at Newport as a whiz-bang acoustic guitarist and songwriter, brought perhaps the noisiest rock band of the weekend; and Over the Rhine, led by singer Karin Bergquist, had moments of rollick along with singer-songwriter ballads.

The sensation of the third stage was young ukulele master Jake Shimabukuro, whose virtuosity on the overlooked instrument spanned reinventions of Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California,” Schubert’s Ave Maria and The Beatles’ “In My Life” and Shimabukuro’s YouTube-fueled breakout hit, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Kate Taylor continued her momentum from her Friday-night concert of beautifully sung folk-rock with a grooving band, and Providence singer-songwriter Ryan Fitzsimmons opened the stage by virtue of having won an Internet contest a month ago. He wasn’t allowed to tell anyone for about a week after the contest that he was playing Newport, and “I’ve been freaking out for about a month” about the show, he panted fresh from getting off the stage. But he went over well and said he “had a blast” playing the legendary festival.

rmassimo@projo.com