Bob Dylan's influence on popular music is incalculable. As a songwriter, he pioneered several different schools of pop songwriting, from confessional singer/songwriter to winding, hallucinatory, stream-of-conscious narratives. As a vocalist, he broke down the notions that in order to perform, a singer had to have a conventionally good voice,... [+] Read More

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Bob Dylan's influence on popular music is incalculable. As a songwriter, he pioneered several different schools of pop songwriting, from confessional singer/songwriter to winding, hallucinatory, stream-of-conscious narratives. As a vocalist, he broke down the notions that in order to perform, a singer had to have a conventionally good voice,... [+] Read More

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Buffy Sainte-Marie has enjoyed a long career that has seen her rise to stardom on the folk circuit and try her hand at country, rock, soundtrack themes, acting, activism, and children's television. For most listeners, she remains identified with the material she wrote and sang for Vanguard in the mid-'60s. Her songs that addressed the plight of... [+] Read More

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The most accomplished interpretive folksinger of the 1960s, Joan Baez has influenced nearly every aspect of popular music in a career still going strong. Baez is possessed of a once-in-a-lifetime soprano, which, since the late '50s, she has put in the service of folk and pop music as well as a variety of political causes. Starting out in Boston,... [+] Read More

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Kate (b.1946) and Anna (b.1944) McGarrigle are Canadian songwriting sisters whose work first came to international recognition in 1974 when Linda Ronstadt recorded Anna's "Heart Like a Wheel" as the title song to one of her albums. The sisters were signed to Warner Brothers and recorded Kate & Anna McGarrigle, an album of deeply felt (sometimes... [+] Read More

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Although she was a significant presence on the folk scene between the late '70s and mid-'80s, it's difficult to categorize Kate Wolf as a folk performer (though that is ultimately the broad category that suits her best). Although she largely employed acoustic instrumentation, she really owed more to the contemporary singer-songwriting movement... [+] Read More

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No talent who came out of Woodstock and who continued actively performing more than a quarter century later remained as closely associated with the 1960s and "flower power" than Melanie. Born Melanie Safka in Astoria, Queens, in 1947, she made her first public appearance at age four on a radio show, later studying at the New York Academy of Fine... [+] Read More

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In the history of popular music, there are a relative handful of performers who have redefined the content of the music at critical points in history: Blind Lemon Jefferson, Benny Goodman & His Orchestra, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin -- people whose music left the landscape, and definition of popular music, altered completely. The... [+] Read More

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When the definitive popular history of post-World War II folk music is written, the chances are excellent that the Kingston Trio will be mentioned prominently along with Peter, Paul & Mary and that the the Brothers Four and the Highwaymen will also rate mentions. Less clear will be the fate of the New Christy Minstrels. The group received... [+] Read More

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Although they are most remembered for including Don Williams in their lineup prior to his ascension to solo country stardom, the Pozo-Seco Singers were much more oriented toward pop/folk than country music. The Texas threesome formed in Corpus Christi, Texas, where Williams and Lofton Kline had a duo called the Strangers Two; with the addition... [+] Read More

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The Weavers had the most extraordinary musical pedigree and pre-history of any performing group in the history of folk or popular music. More than 50 years after their heyday, however, their origins, the level of their success, the forces that cut the group's future off in its prime, and the allure that keeps their music selling are all... [+] Read More

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