This one fits my image a bit more. Reminds me just a bit of Neil Young?
His solo stuff tends very much to be in this vein, although there are songs he does that you probably wouldn’t call “folk.” He’s also one of the guitarists for the semi-famous indie group Band of Horses, and once upon a time he was in the not-at-all folky local groups DrugMoney, Jr. James & The Late Guitar and Wayne Robbins & The Hellsayers. He’s really an outstanding musician, and an enormously nice guy.
Hey, thanks for sharing Steve but next time I’m doing a pole about your favorite CLASSICAL composer.
Does John Cage count? John Williams? Danny Elfman?
This one fits my image a bit more. Reminds me just a bit of Neil Young?
His solo stuff tends very much to be in this vein, although there are song he does that you probably wouldn’t call “folk.” He’s also one of the guitarists for the indie group Band of Horses, and once upon a time he was in the not-at-all folky local groups DrugMoney, Jr. James & The Late Guitar and Wayne Robbins & The Hellsayers. He’s really an outstanding musician, and an enormously nice guy.
Hey, thanks for sharing Steve but next time I’m doing a pole about your favorite CLASSICAL composer.
Does John Cage count? John Williams? Danny Elfman?
I fear not. Maybe Cage. The true classical era begins with Mozart and ends with Beethoven roughly speaking. That would be 1750 to 1825 but for you I would extend it to include a few who lived into the twentieth century, Shostakovitch, Mahler, Rachmaninoff. There’s a lot of beautiful music written for films, not disallowing that. Shostakovitch wrote film scores: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Dmitri_Shostakovich#Film_scores
Did you know that you can buy hi fi versions of Rachmaninoff himself playing solo piano? No fooling. His playing was recording on rollers that work on player pianos and have been recorded.
“Folk” is a pretty loose word. hard to get three people to all agree who is and isnt. prine, holt, watson, earl, those are cool folks. What about Ani D, Brett Dennen, Freedom, josh phillips?
sufjan stevens is awsome. how about daniel johnston?
if you search “contemporary folk” in youtube, this swananoa warren wilson related video comes up on the first page.
It’s been my profound observation that there are simply way too many great performers around for one individual to even sample let alone become fans of any more than a small portion of. My list was garnered from my moderately large CD collection and cross referenced with a few I’ve personally enjoyed live performances of or that I relate to for cultural reasons. I have enjoyed sampling some of the new names (for me) but it seems unlikely any of them will add weight to my shelves.
Truthfully, not sure why I selected that category. As a separate grouping they represent a small part of my total collection which spans the alphabet from Ryan Adams to Warren Zevon on one shelf system and from Bach to Wieniawski on another and that leaves out so called New Age stuff and odds and ends like the Rock opera Tommy, West Side Story, and a whole lot of bluegrass ranging in style from Bill Monroe to Sam Bush. Hidden in the mix you’ll find classic country like Willie, Waylon, Johnny, Merle (Haggard), a smattering of blues…classic rock….as my wife says, “you have so much music here you can never listen to it all before you die.”
It’s not the best example if you’re looking for her folk stuff. But we’re really talking about a very broad category here. John Prine is basically folk rock or Americana, not folk, for instance. I don’t consider Doc Watson to be folk music—he’s more old-time country than anything else—but I can certainly see why he was included in the list. I’d argue that the entire list I posted has at least as much claim to “folk” as several of the artists in the list we’re voting on.
Ok Steve..we need a category called ” folks that vibrate the air with guitars and voice”
A real honest to goodness great artist..makes ya cry, laugh. smile. wanna kill yourself,wanna kill others, wanna kill the pain with whiskey..
If you haven’t seen a performer that makes you feel like that( utube don’t count..loses something in the pixels) it’s probably cause you haven’t seen one..they are super rare..that’s what a real star is.. a light in the darkness.. if you ain’t crying and shaking..it’s just pretend..
I just saw James Taylor when he was in town 5 rows back..love the guy.. but he didn’t make me cry…
