Tag: folk

617. Dave Van Ronk

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(November 2024) Episode 617 is DAVE VAN RONK. There’s a frustratingly large gap between his music and influence and the public awareness of him, which included me until recently. Nicknamed the “Mayor of MacDougal Street” for his presence on the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 50s and 60s, where he mentored and befriended some who achieved greater fame, like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. He was a force of nature with his loud, gruff voice, but he could also make it soft and tender, giving an emotional depth to his songs. His style included blues, ragtime, trad jazz, standards and children’s music. But it’s the spare folk songs, especially with his excellent finger-picking style, where Van Ronk excels. While his focus was on interpreting traditional and others’ songs, he was a talented writer of tune and lyric, as shown on Going Back to Brooklyn, his only album of all original compositions.

Favorite album: Inside Dave Van Ronk

Favorite song: Another Time and Place

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: Dave Van Ronk, Folksinger; Just Dave Van Ronk; Inside Dave Van Ronk and Going Back to Brookyln showcase his solo guitar folk songs. Dave Van Ronk and the Ragtime Jug Stompers and Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Stompers are good ensemble albums.

599. Arlo Guthrie

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(September 2024) Episode 599 is ARLO GUTHRIE. I read one review that characterized him as a three-time one-hit wonder (“Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” “Coming into Los Angeles,” “City of New Orleans”), which is both apt and unfair. It’s always a challenge for an artist with a famous last name, and with a voice not unlike Dylan, Arlo Guthrie can never avoid comparisons to the greats. He deserves renown for his own long recording and performing career. But taken as a whole, his songs are Berkshires-based roots music, the basic fare of countless PBS specials, but not so distinctive. I think he would be more enjoyable in concert than on record. He does carry on his father’s social/political themes.

Favorite album: Hobo’s Lullaby

Favorite song: City of New Orleans

Favorite song (original composition): Alice’s Restaurant Massacree

Best late-period album: Mystic Journey

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: a best-of is enough

594. William Ackerman

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(August 2024) Episode 594 is WILLIAM ACKERMAN. As the founder of the Windham Hill label, Ackerman played a big role in popularizing New Age music (the pastoral side of it). As I mentioned in the George Winston episode, I had a Windham Hill phase in the 1980s, which included Ackerman’s guitar offerings, but hadn’t visited the stuff in decades. Ackerman’s work embodies the duality of New Age music: it can be beautiful and relax and transport you, but it can also be cloying and vapid. As an example of the former, his song “Visiting” takes me to a happy place as it reminds me of the High Sierra backcountry hikes I did as a youth. Ackerman’s earlier recordings are more spare, showing his guitar skills. The later works add lushness and layers of instrumentation more typical of what you’d expect from a New Age playlist.

Favorite album: Childhood and Memory

Favorite song: Visiting

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: As an acoustic guitar guy, I enjoyed returning to his work more than to Winston. I recommend the first 5 or so albums, for the reason mentioned above.

581. Stefan Grossman

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(June 2024) Episode 581 is STEFAN GROSSMAN. He is an amazing figure. A Jewish kid from Brooklyn who sought out and took lessons from some of the aging masters of guitar fingerpicking blues, including Rev. Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt and Son House. He studied and collected recordings of others, connecting him with Marylanders John Fahey and the legendary 78s collector Joe Bussard. He pioneered guitar instructional records, later videos – a ton of them are available on YouTube. You can learn fingerstyle from him too! He recorded a bunch of his own albums, mostly blues in fickerpicking and slide, but some other styles too. This is my favorite kind of blues music so I eat this stuff up.

Favorite album: Yazoo Basin Boogie

Favorite song: Memphis Travelling Blues Show

Favorite song (with slide): Bottleneck Serenade

Recommendation: Highly recommend. Albums to seek out are Yazoo Basin Boogie, Bottleneck Serenade, Hot Dogs, and Love, Devils and Blues. But check out the guitar tutorial videos, especially if you are a player.

580. George Winston

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(June 2024) Episode 580 is GEORGE WINSTON. Back in the 1980s I had a phase with the Windham Hill label, particularly guitarists William Ackerman and Michael Hedges and pianist George Winston. As a student, it was good music to study and relax by. You could let the music transport your mind and mood to a different place, which is what the label was aiming for. This music was later categorized as New Age, although of the more earthy variety. I had Winston’s Autumn and December (both solo piano) in regular rotation, which were effective in evoking a pastoral aura of those seasons. But I hadn’t put on a Windham Hill album in decades. Returning to Winston, I did re-experience the mood but in a rote manner. But with time it comes off as rather vapid. His recordings were more than the “rural folk piano” style he was famous for; Winston liked to do New Orleans-style R&B and also played guitar and harmonica.

Favorite album: Autumn

Favorite song: Colors/Dance

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: This can still serve as pleasant relaxing piano music, but it is not going to offer anything more than that.

532. Phil Ochs

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(November 2023) Episode 532 is PHIL OCHS, the best folk musician of the 1960s you’ve probably never heard of. He got his start and made his initial recordings with protest songs in the mode of Seeger and Guthrie – direct, unambiguous, political. Songs like “I Ain’t Marching Any More,” “Here’s to the State of Mississippi” and “Draft Dodger Rag” brought him attention and scorn. In later recordings, Ochs widened his style into folk rock and even some country before personal demons ended his career and then his life. Fair or not, he is unavoidably compared to Dylan. Ochs sang with more clarity and a better voice, but by comparison he lacks Dylan’s poetic abstractions and lyrical magic.

Favorite album: Live at Newport

Favorite song: Remember Me

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: The protest songs do come off as period pieces, but sadly many seem relevant today (see: Remember Me). He is worth checking out for his melodicism.

500. Gordon Lightfoot

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(June 2023) Episode 500 is GORDON LIGHTFOOT. Begun after his passing, I entered this episode without knowing his work other than the five songs* that were staples on soft rock stations. He’s a national hero of Canada, and his long recording history affirms why.  While the famous songs were all from his more pop-oriented singer/songwriter period in the 1970s, I prefer the more conventional folk approach of his 1960s albums. Strong voice, gentle guitar, good themes. One hidden gem is “Solo,” his aptly-named spare last album (2020).

Favorite album: The Way I Feel

Favorite song: Long Thin Dawn

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: I realize I should have paid more attention to his catalogue, so I recommend you do too

* “If You Could Red My Mind,” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway,” “Rainy Day People,” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald“

464. Buffy Sainte-Marie

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(January 2023 ) Episode 464 is BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE. An archetype of the activist folk-singer. As an (the only?) indigenous woman in the business, many of her songs address the struggles of native peoples, but she also sings of war, poverty, etc. Her dominating vibrato voice is not my cup of tea for the folk style, but it is distinctive and well-suited to deliver her worthy messages.  Her 60s recordings are typical for the folk revival but I prefer her more inventive direction in the early 70s.

Favorite album: Illuminations

Favorite song: Cod’ine

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: you should have some familiarity with Buffy

425. Donovan

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(July 2022) Episode 425 is DONOVAN. The Prince of Hippy Folk Rock. I had only known him through a greatest hits disc, but discovered there is a lot more to enjoy. His first two albums were Dylan clones, but he found his own original voice and style in a series of late 1960s albums, full of flower power, psychedelia, whimsy, and cosmic musings. Even the children’s music has charm.  The quality dropped in the 70s and 80s, but a couple of his 21st century albums were strong and creative.

Favourite album: A Gift from a Flower to a Garden 

Favourite song: Hurdy Gurdy Man

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: the greatest hits will suffice but you’ll probably enjoy a deeper dive into the 60s albums.

376. Townes Van Zandt

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(January 2022) Episode 376 is TOWNES VAN ZANDT. Amidst the flowering of new musical styles in the 60s came Van Zandt’s folk-tinged country (or is it country-tinged folk?) with its melancholy tone delivered in his earnest voice. Whatever you call it, it is stellar songwriting. His personal life struggles add a tragic veneer to the music.

Favorite album: Townes Van Zandt

Favorite song: I’ll Be Here In The Morning

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: yes, for a taste of authentically American music