Pete Seeger
Genre: Folk
Decades: 8128
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Perhaps no single person in the 20th century has done more to preserve, broadcast, and re-distribute folk music than Pete Seeger, whose passion for politics, the environment, and humanity have earned him both ardent fans and vocal enemies since he first began performing in the late '30s. His never-ending battle against injustice led to his being... [+] Read More

Perhaps no single person in the 20th century has done more to preserve, broadcast, and re-distribute folk music than Pete Seeger, whose passion for politics, the environment, and humanity have earned him both ardent fans and vocal enemies since he first began performing in the late '30s. His never-ending battle against injustice led to his being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, celebrated during the turbulent '60s, and welcomed at union rallies throughout his life. His tireless efforts regarding global concerns such as environmentalism, population growth, and racial equality have earned him the respect and friendship of such political heroes as Martin Luther King, Jr., Woody Guthrie, and Cesar Chavez, and the generations of children who first learned to sing and clap to Seeger's Folkways recordings must number in the millions. Rising above all of Seeger's political ideals and his passion for authentic folk music is his clear voice and chiming banjo which both sing out with a clarity that rings true.

Pete Seeger was born May 3, 1919, in Patterson, NY. The son of Charles and Constance Seeger, Pete grew up in a household filled with both music (his mother was a violinist and teacher, his father was a musicologist and conductor, both of whom had served on the faculty at Juilliard) and political activism (his father worked as a teacher at the University of California at Berkeley, where his pacifism earned him so many enemies that he resigned in the fall of 1918). The youthful Pete initially rebelled against his parents passion for music, but upon hearing a five-string banjo for the first time at the Folk Song and Dance Festival in Asheville, NC, his dream of becoming a painter was pushed aside. He studied sociology at Harvard University beginning in 1936, but left just before his final exams two years later, choosing instead to roam the American South making field recordings with music scholar Alan Lomax. These experiences were the foundation of Seeger's repertoire of work songs, lullabies, folk songs, and ballads that he would revisit throughout his musical career.

Seeger was drafted into the army in 1942, spending much of his time performing to troops in the South Pacific, and in 1943 he got married to Toshi Ohta (who has remained his wife for more than 50 years). After his discharge he continued his travels throughout the U.S., but as a performer instead of a scholar, performing wherever people were gathered, from taverns to churches. On March 3, 1940, he met Woody Guthrie at a migrant worker benefit concert, and soon after the two helped form the Almanac Singers, a loosely organized musical collective that included Lee Hays, Millard Lampell, Sis Cunningham, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Leadbelly, Josh White, Burl Ives, and Richard Dyer-Bennett at different times. The Almanac Singers' career was brief (lasting just over a year), but their pacifist attitudes and their ability to draw large crowds brought them under the scrutiny of the political powers of the time. Upon the dissolution of the Almanacs, Seeger, and Hays formed the Weavers with Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman who found universal success with their bright renditions of folk songs and spirituals like "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," "Wimoweh," "Goodnight Irene," and "On Top of Old Smoky." Unfortunately, Seeger and Hays' leftist leanings had long been under the scrutiny of the FBI, and ironically, their straightforward and innocuous performances were drawing disdain from the diehard leftist press. In 1955 Seeger was brought before the House of Un-American Activities Committee and his testimony resulted in his being blacklisted for 17 years (and not officially cleared on charges of contempt until 1962).

Seeger left the Weavers in 1958, for a solo career just as the seeds of the music they planted were beginning to take root on college campuses and in coffeehouses across the U.S. He spent much of the '60s in the South, marching in civil rights protests and arranging an old spiritual into what he named "We Shall Overcome," which has become the anthem of the pursuit for equality worldwide. In 1962, he put the words to a portion of the book of Ecclesiastes to music, capturing the feel of the changing climate of the youth movement in his song "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)." In addition to the countless social rallies he organized and participated in at this time, Seeger also had a hand in many of the Newport Folk Festivals in the early and mid-'60s. His adherence to the sanctity of folk music came to a boiling point with the advent of folk-rock, and this was visibly demonstrated when he tried to pull the plug on Bob Dylan's very electrified set with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1965. His objection to the Vietnam War was made evident during an appearance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967 where he attacked Lyndon Johnson's war policies during his performance of the song "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy."

Seeger focused his attention on environmental issues in the '70s and '80s, notably with the launch of the sloop Clearwater (a floating classroom, laboratory, stage, and speaker's forum) into the Hudson River in 1969. He also remained active on the festival circuit, appearing at outdoor folk concerts and organizing rallies for any number of causes, from labor unions to anti-pollution legislation. The '90s saw Seeger on-stage receiving awards as often as performing music; with honors including receiving the nation's highest artistic honors at the Kennedy Center, gaining entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and earning the Harvard Arts Medal (despite the fact that he opted not to graduate from the university). He also won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album of 1996, and in 1999 he traveled to Cuba to accept the Felix Varela Medal (Cuba's highest honor for "his humanistic and artistic work in defense of the environment and against racism"). His ceaseless passion for reaching the hearts and minds of those who will listen is summed up by the inscription on his banjo which reads "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender." Pete Seeger's music does not force hate to surrender with muscle or intimidation, but with Seeger's simple honesty and pure-hearted clarity which has truly changed the course of history during the 60-plus years that he has been performing. ~ Zac Johnson, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Peter, Paul & Mary
Genre: Folk
Decades: 3840
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

The most popular folk group of the 1960s, Peter, Paul & Mary in later decades have also proved themselves to be among the most durable music acts in history. Their longevity dwarfs that of the Weavers, while the fact that the trio continues to be associated with a major record label (Warner Bros.) after decades in the business sets them apart... [+] Read More

The most popular folk group of the 1960s, Peter, Paul & Mary in later decades have also proved themselves to be among the most durable music acts in history. Their longevity dwarfs that of the Weavers, while the fact that the trio continues to be associated with a major record label (Warner Bros.) after decades in the business sets them apart from rivals like the Kingston Trio and the Brothers Four. Then again, perhaps it isn't so surprising -- Peter, Paul & Mary's roots run deeper than almost any other folk act one might care to name, while their appeal crosses audience lines that other acts couldn't (and can't) even approach.

Peter, Paul & Mary were part of the 1960s folk revival, but they can trace their roots and inspiration back to music and events from the late '40s, and the founding of the Weavers. In 1948, the musical and political left had been galvanized behind the presidential campaign of former Vice President Henry Wallace and his running mate, Senator Glen Taylor. In the wake of that ticket's defeat that year, in the course of trying to pick up the pieces, singer/composers Lee Hays and Pete Seeger, whose history together went back to the early '40s, and a group called the Almanac Singers, joined with Fred Hellerman and Ronnie Gilbert in forming the Weavers. They subsequently found themselves with the top-selling record in the country, Goodnight, Irene, and for the next two years, the Weavers entertained millions and brought folk music to the public consciousness in a new and vital way through recordings such as "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine." Then, as word of the members' personal leftist political histories began circulating, their bookings came to a halt -- ironically enough, the Weavers as a performing group were virtually apolitical in their songs and presentation, but that didn't save them from being blacklisted by the entertainment industry.

They broke up in late 1952, but they left behind two seeds planted in American popular culture. One, deriving from their success, was a modest folk song revival, in some small clubs and especially on college campuses, mostly as entertainment; and the other, a byproduct of their blacklisting, was the coalescing of newly vital, very politically focused branch of folk music. The latter existed as an underground phenomenon, "apart" from a few relatively friendly locales such as New York City's Greenwich Village; it was invisible to most Americans, but it provided a modest living for older performers, and drew and nurtured new, younger talent.

The entertainment branch manifested itself in the guise of acts like the Easy Riders and their younger successors the Kingston Trio, the Limeliters, the Brothers Four, and the Highwaymen, trios and quartets of male singers who brought a smooth veneer to the music. Each of them had their moment -- and sometimes much more than a moment -- in the sun and on the charts beginning in the late '50s. Older performers such as Pete Seeger of the Weavers (as well as the reunited group itself), Ed McCurdy, and Oscar Brand were also around, selling fewer records but making more serious, purposeful records, aimed at smaller audiences. And younger, grittier performers such as Eric Von Schmidt, Dave Van Ronk, and Ramblin' Jack Elliott were also working and recording. And in 1962 and 1963 came the big-band folk outfits the New Christy Minstrels and the Serendipity Singers, who applied elaborate arrangements, utilizing up to nine singers, to folk melodies.

It was against this backdrop, from the late '40s onward, that Mary Travers (b. November 9, 1936, Louisville, KY), Peter Yarrow (b. May 31, 1938, New York, NY), and Paul Stookey (b. December 30, 1937, Baltimore, MD), all came of age. Travers, the daughter of journalists, was raised in Greenwich Village, and was both politically and musically aware; she'd made her first recordings while still in high school, during 1954, in a chorus backing Pete Seeger for Folkways Records. She became a member of the Song Swappers, doing albums of international folk songs and camp songs, and also participated in a stage production, The Next President, written by and starring topical comedian Mort Sahl. As a singer, she was heavily influenced by Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers and also by Jo Mapes, a bluesy white folksinger from Los Angeles who'd emerged in the mid-'50s.

Paul Stookey, born Noel Paul Stookey, had become a huge fan of jazz and what was later called R&B in the mid- to late '40s, took up guitar, and had formed his first band, the Birds of Paradise, in high school during the early '50s. He continued singing in college, and also discovered two additional talents, as a raconteur and as a standup comic, with a special knack for improvising sound effects. He gravitated to Greenwich Village, where he began to learn about folk music. He and Travers became friends and occasionally performed and composed music together. Mostly, however, he did his comedy at local clubs and she made her living working at Elaine Starkman's boutique on Bleecker Street. (Starkman, later a pioneering art gallery owner in New York's SoHo, was a well-known Village designer who made the gown Travers wore for her first wedding. In 1961, part of Stookey's comedy act was captured in Jack O'Connell's film Greenwich Village Story, another part of which was also shot at the Starkman boutique, though Travers was never glimpsed).

Peter Yarrow was a graduate of Cornell University who fell into music while serving as a teaching assistant. By the end of 1959, he was playing in Greenwich Village and, the following year, was booked on a CBS network television show about folk music, during which he met Albert Grossman. Grossman, who went on to manage Bob Dylan and the Band, proposed the idea to Yarrow of forming a trio that would offer serious folk songs, but utilize the same kind of mixed male/female voices as the Weavers, and also the humor of the Limeliters, and the overall spirit of fun found in acts like the Kingston Trio. Yarrow and Grossman approached Travers, and Stookey came aboard last, dropping his first name in favor of his better-sounding middle name Paul, and Peter, Paul & Mary was born. With the guidance of arranger Milt Okun, who had worked with Harry Belafonte and the Chad Mitchell Trio, they put together a three-part vocal sound that was distinctive and, after seven months of careful preparation, the group emerged to instant acclaim in Greenwich Village.

They were signed to Warner Bros., and their first, self-titled LP was released in March of 1962. It was accompanied by a single, "Lemon Tree," that rose to number 35 on the charts late that spring. This was a good beginning, but it was their second single, "If I Had a Hammer," that marked their breakthrough. The song, written by Seeger and Hays in the days of the Weavers, was a rousing number with great hooks and a memorable chorus, and also a definite (yet not threatening) philosophical and political edge. As topical songs go, its timing was perfect -- in late 1962, the civil rights movement was becoming a concern to a growing number of middle-class onlookers; "If I Had a Hammer" embodied this zeitgeist in its most idealistic form and, with its upbeat, soulful performance -- which made it seductive even to those listeners who cared little about the political controversy of the times -- the single hit number ten on the charts. It also won the trio their first two Grammy Awards, for Best Performance by a Vocal Group and Best Folk Recording.

In their first six months of existence, Peter, Paul & Mary, working in a somewhat more favorable political climate, had managed to do what the Weavers never had a chance to do, bringing political concerns to the public through song. And it was a massive public, owing to the fact that PP&M also had a foot in the entertainment side of the folk song revival -- their music had a decidedly serious edge, but it and the group were also as much fun to listen to as anything the Limeliters or the Highwaymen were doing. Their stage act, as captured on the In Concert album, poked fun at what they did and at themselves, and one couldn't help but laugh at Stookey's comedy, which drew on music, self-generated sound effects, and a self-deprecating manner second only to Woody Allen (then a standup comic himself). Additionally, although this has seldom been discussed in retrospect, they had Mary Travers, who not only had a big voice that helped make the records extraordinary, but was also drop-dead gorgeous, and a great asset in their photographs, television appearances, and concerts.

The overall effect, between the entertainment and the songs, was as though the Kingston Trio had suddenly started doing the repertory of the Almanac Singers, and people were listening. Phil Ochs would attempt a similar but less successful approach to mixing popular music and ideology with his Gold Suit Tour, trying to turn Elvis Presley into Che Guevara. But John Phillips, at that time a folky himself as a member of the Journeymen, would perfect the formula behind PP&M's visual appeal in 1966 with the Mamas the Papas, by putting his wife, Michelle, an ex-model, out front in that lineup.

With "If I Had a Hammer" wafting over the AM airwaves, the Peter, Paul & Mary LP rose to number one and subsequently spent years on the charts. Their second album, Moving, released in January of 1963, got off to a slightly slower start, but it found its way to number two and a 99-week run with help from "Puff (The Magic Dragon)," a song that Peter Yarrow had written in college. The single rose to number two that spring and became one of the most beloved children's songs of all time, as well as the trio's passport through any potential controversy.

It was on the heels of that year's success that Bob Dylan entered the group's orbit. The young folksinger and songwriter -- who came under Grossman's management in 1963 -- hadn't made much impact with his own recordings on Columbia Records; his lyrics were too piercing and his voice too bluesy, in an environment dominated by much smoother folk sounds. PP&M, however, had no problem with public acceptance, and they took Dylan's song "Blowin' in the Wind" to the public in a way that he never could have. Their recording, released in June of 1963, was an instant hit, shipping over 300,000 copies in less than two weeks -- many times the number of records that Dylan himself had sold up that point -- and eventually rising to number two on the charts. Once more, the trio seemed to grab the moment in history, politics, and art with a song. The era of public activism over civil rights, directed at the administration of President Kennedy, was rising to new heights, and "Blowin' in the Wind" embodied the spirit of the time. In one fell swoop, it established Bob Dylan as the new conscience of a generation, and PP&M as the voice of that conscience, culminating with their performance of the song at the same August 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have A Dream speech.

The trio's third album, In the Wind, which was released in October 1963, not only hit number one on the charts but pulled their two previous albums back into the Top Ten with it. Up to this point, all of the trio's successes took place during a relatively quiet time in popular music, in which there was little distraction from rock & roll. With the exception of Elvis Presley and a handful of newer acts such as the Beach Boys and Del Shannon, the music was going through one of its periodic flat periods, which had left the field open to folk acts like Peter, Paul & Mary. All of that changed as 1964 dawned.

Suddenly, PP&M found themselves competing with the Beatles and other groups out of England, playing a new, forceful, and relatively sophisticated brand of rock & roll. Peter, Paul & Mary were the only folk-revival group to survive the British Invasion and the ensuing folk-rock boom with their audience and visibility largely intact. Their record sales slackened somewhat, especially their singles, which had a hard time competing on AM radio with the sounds of the British Invasion, and it was three years before they would enjoy another Top Ten hit. Their albums, however, continued selling well, and their bookings never dropped off.

One of the reasons for their continued success, popularity, and relevance was a series of political and historical events separate from the music. The civil rights movement was still going strong as the battleground shifted from the Lincoln Memorial to the back roads of Mississippi -- where three college students who had come to help register black voters were murdered in 1964 -- to the halls of Congress. The murder of President Kennedy in November of 1963 and Lyndon Johnson's ascent to the presidency began a series of events that finally forced meaningful civil rights legislation out of Congress. Even as that battle continued raging in the streets, from Birmingham, AL, to Cicero, IL, and other points north. Once the laws were on the books, however, Johnson's presidency also opened up a new political wound on the American landscape with his escalation of the Vietnam War. In that uneasy environment, Peter, Paul & Mary had the history of involvement, the credentials, and the credibility to address this new issue in ways that, say, the Kingston Trio never could have, even if they'd wanted to. Moreover, their records had a way of not only staying relevant -- "If I Had a Hammer" was as topical in 1965 as it had been in 1962, but it was still fun to sing around a campfire -- but evolving in their relevancy; as the Vietnam War ran on, and draft notices and departures for the military and service overseas became more commonplace, cuts like the beautiful "500 Miles," off of their debut album, took on deeply personal resonances for tens, and then hundreds of thousands of people.

For the remainder of the decade, the trio walked a fine line, appealing to liberals and anti-war activists, and raising the consciousnesses of the interested, but also entertaining middle-of-the-road listeners, and especially to parents who felt their music was safe for younger children. They were accomplishing precisely what the Weavers had set out to do a decade and a half earlier (and, not coincidentally, also exactly what the Weavers' political opponents had feared the latter group would do, spreading liberal ideas and politics on the popular landscape with pretty music).

Their commercial fortunes and mass appeal remained intact into the second half of the decade. The album In Concert, an unprecedented (for a folk group) double LP, hit number four during the summer and fall of 1964, and the group's next studio LP, A Song Will Rise got to number eight in the spring of 1965. At the same time, however, its highest-charting single, For Loving Me," only reached number 30. See What Tomorrow Brings peaked at number 11 in late 1965, their first placement outside of the Top Ten with an LP, but hardly unrespectable. By 1966, PP&M were feeling the pressure to embellish their music, however, and began adding significant numbers of backup musicians to their records, and exploring more rock-oriented sounds, on The Peter, Paul & Mary Album and, later, Album 1700. Those albums were considered solidly competitive in the musical environment of 1966 and 1967, amid the sounds of folk-rock and psychedelic rock of the era, and both have held up better than those by most of the competition, mostly owing to the quality of the music and the songs. From the beginning of their history, the trio displayed an uncanny ear for great songs and songwriters -- Stookey had steered Grossman to Bob Dylan before many people in Greenwich Village had even heard of him. And in early 1962, before their debut album had even been released, the Kingston Trio had picked up a then-new Pete Seeger song, Where Have All the Flowers Gone," from one of the group's live performances and had a hit with it. During the years 1965-1966, Peter, Paul & Mary gave the first serious airings to the music of Gordon Lightfoot ("For Lovin' Me"), Laura Nyro ("When I Die"), and John Denver ("For Baby (Goes Bobbie)"), interspersed with the occasional unrecorded Dylan tune, such as When the Ship Comes In" and "Too Much of Nothing." Their sales might not have matched the chart-soaring days of 1963, but the albums had the class, beauty, and substance to stand the test of time.

And when they caught the moment again with a song, the trio proved that they could sell records with the best of them. "I Dig Rock 'n' Roll Music," written by Paul Stookey, brought PP&M back to the upper reaches of the charts and heavy AM radio play with a number nine single in the fall of 1967, right in the middle of the psychedelic boom. The song, which parodied the styles of the Beatles, the Mamas & the Papas, and Donovan, was not only catchy and memorable, but also a reminder to the public that, for all of their devotion to causes and issues, Peter, Paul & Mary was a very funny group as well. For much of the year that followed this commercial comeback, the group was involved in politics, in the form of Senator Eugene McCarthy's anti-war campaign for the White House. They appeared on behalf of McCarthy, and even released a record supporting him. McCarthy's candidacy ultimately failed, in a year that also saw the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, though one personal, positive by-product of the peace campaign was that Peter Yarrow ended up marrying the senator's daughter.

In 1969, they returned to the middle of the charts again with Yarrow's "Day Is Done," a surprisingly autumnal work. They also chalked up another Grammy Award that year for Peter, Paul & Mommy, an album of children's songs that became a mainstay of their catalog, reaching generation after generation of parents and children. During the summer of 1969, Warner Bros. got word that DJs around the country had begun playing one of the tracks off of the then two-year-old Album 1700, "Leaving on a Jet Plane," authored by John Denver. Released that September, the single "Leaving on a Jet Plane" peaked at number one, the trio's only chart-topping single, and also pulled Album 1700 back onto the list of top-selling LPs.

By 1970, PP&M had played many hundreds of concerts together and had spent nine years in harness to each other. It was inevitable that there would be a split at some point, given their different, evolving lives. Mary Travers was now the mother of two daughters, Yarrow was newly married, and Stookey, in addition to wanting to work with new and different musical sounds, had developed a serious belief in Christianity. Amid a flurry of sales behind "Leaving on a Jet Plane," and the release in the spring of Ten Years Together: The Best of Peter, Paul & Mary (which rose to number 15), the trio completed their concert obligations and announced in the fall of 1970 that they were taking a year's sabbatical from Peter, Paul & Mary.

The next eight years saw the three musicians release various solo recordings that failed to catch the public's attention in anything resembling PP&M's impact. Mary Travers continued working in a folk-pop vein for a time, while Peter Yarrow wrote topical songs dealing with the politics of the time, and Paul Stookey proved the most adventurous of the three musically, exploring harder rock sounds as well as jazz, and delving into Christian-oriented music. They moved around each other's orbits, appearing on each other's albums occasionally and even reuniting on behalf of George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign, but it was clear by the late '70s that none of them had enough of an audience on his own to sustain a full-time performing career. Travers moved from Warner Bros. to Chrysalis Records, and to a very brief stay with the Arista label, all without any hits, while Yarrow enjoyed a hit as a songwriter with "Torn Between Two Lovers," and also saw one of his '70s compositions, "River of Jordan," turn up in the 1980 comedy film Airplane, sung by Lorna Patterson in an excruciatingly funny scene.

This was all a long way from their 1960s heyday, and a 1978 reunion album also proved a false start, selling more poorly than any LP in their history. The concerts surrounding that album, however, marked the beginning of a gradual re-forming of the trio. Travers, a single mother with two daughters and a menagerie of pets to look after, was nonetheless concerned with the anti-nuclear movement, with which Yarrow had long been involved. Stookey rejoined after some hesitation, and by the early '80s Peter, Paul & Mary were a functioning trio again, playing concerts occasionally and trying to record, including their annual Christmas concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York. Without skipping a beat, they picked up from their early-'60s beginnings, only the civil rights anthems had new meaning in an era when the laws protecting those rights were under attack by the Reagan administration. And they were interspersed with songs about the political strife in El Salvador and the nuclear arms race. As long as they included "Puff (The Magic Dragon)" in their repertory, however, the trio was still largely immune from attack by the right. The real difficulty was getting their work heard by a larger public in the music environment of the 1980s.

By that late date, none of the major labels were interested in the work of folk groups of their vintage so they did it themselves, initially releasing the live reunion album Such Is Love in America on their own Peter, Paul & Mary label. They were associated with Gold Castle Records, a promising independent label, for much of the late '80s, until its failure, but they did get to record a handful of LPs that they ended up owning outright. They retained good relations with Warner Bros., sufficient for Peter Yarrow to personally supervise the digital remastering and transfer of their classic 1960s catalog to compact disc at the end of the 1980s. Finally, in 1992, some 30 years after the trio signed with them, Warner Bros. Records became interested in doing a follow-up to Peter, Paul & Mommy, which had been a perennially good seller in its catalog. The resulting album, Peter, Paul & Mommy, Too and an accompanying television special heralded a return of the group to Warner Bros., which subsequently reissued their entire Gold Castle catalog on CD. Since the 1980s, the group had been moving into the role of elder statesmen of the folk community -- Mary Travers even hosted a television special that brought together the entire present and former membership of the Kingston Trio on stage -- and this status was borne out in 1995 with the Lifelines album. The latter, an all-star concept album featuring the trio performing with colleagues, older and younger -- including Ex-Weaver Ronnie Gilbert and blues legend B.B. King -- was sufficiently successful to generate a concert follow-up, Lifelines Live, the following year. In 1998, they carried the same all-star singalong concept a step further, in a slightly different direction, with Around the Campfire, and in 1999, Warner Bros. issued its second PP&M best-of compilation, Songs of Conscience and Concern. The trio, starting their fifth decade together at the outset of the 21st century, remained as committed to good music and to fighting the good fight as they were in 1962. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Leadbelly
Genre: Folk
Decades: 112
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Huddie Ledbetter, known as Leadbelly, was a unique figure in the American popular music of the 20th century. Ultimately, he was best remembered for a body of songs that he discovered, adapted, or wrote, including "Goodnight, Irene," "Rock Island Line," "The Midnight Special," and "Cotton Fields." But he was also an early example of a folksinger... [+] Read More

Huddie Ledbetter, known as Leadbelly, was a unique figure in the American popular music of the 20th century. Ultimately, he was best remembered for a body of songs that he discovered, adapted, or wrote, including "Goodnight, Irene," "Rock Island Line," "The Midnight Special," and "Cotton Fields." But he was also an early example of a folksinger whose background had brought him into direct contact with the oral tradition by which folk music was handed down, a tradition that, by the early years of the century, already included elements of commercial popular music. Because he was an African-American, he is sometimes viewed as a blues singer, but blues (a musical form he actually predated) was only one of the styles that informed his music. He was a profound influence on folk performers of the 1940s such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, who in turn influenced the folk revival and the development of rock music from the 1960s onward, which makes his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, early in the hall's existence, wholly appropriate.

Huddie Ledbetter was born on the Jeter Plantation near the community of Shiloh, which is in turn near the town of Mooringsport, LA. He was the only son of a sharecropper who moved his family to nearby Harrison County, TX, when the child was about five. Ledbetter attended school from the age of eight to about 12 or 13, after which he worked full-time on the farm his father had managed to buy. He had shown an early interest in music, learning the button accordion as a child and playing in the school band. He later added other instruments, eventually turning primarily to the guitar, having obtained his first one in 1903. By his teens, he was playing and singing for money at local dances. At about the age of 16, he moved to Shreveport, LA, where he lived for two years supporting himself as a performer. From the ages of about 18 to 20, he traveled around Texas and Louisiana, performing and supplementing his income as a farm worker. Falling ill, he returned home, where he recovered, married, and settled down to work as a farmer. In 1910, he and his wife moved to Dallas, TX. There, possibly around 1912, he met the young street musician Blind Lemon Jefferson, five years his junior, and the two teamed up to play around the Dallas area for the next several years. During this period, he switched from the six-string to the 12-string guitar, the instrument that became his trademark.

Ledbetter moved back to Harrison County around 1915. In June, he was arrested due to an incident the specifics of which are lost to history. Eventually, he was convicted of carrying a pistol illegally and sentenced to 30 days on a chain gang. He escaped and moved to Bowie County, TX, where he lived under the name Walter Boyd and returned to performing while also working as a sharecropper. In December 1917, he was arrested and charged with the murder of Will Stafford, the husband of one of his cousins, and with "assault to murder" another man. He was convicted of both charges, the first carrying a sentence of five to 20 years, the second two to ten years, to be served consecutively. In prison, he gained his nickname, Leadbelly, and learned many songs from inmates. In January 1924, he sang for Texas Governor Pat Neff, including a specially written song in which he asked for a pardon. As Neff reached the end of his term as governor in January 1925, he actually did pardon Leadbelly, such that, instead of serving the minimum of seven years required by his sentences, he served six years, seven months, and eight days.

Leadbelly moved to Houston initially, then returned home before settling in Mooringsport. In January 1930, he was involved in a stabbing incident that led to his being charged with "assault with intent to murder." He was convicted, given a sentence of six to ten years, and sent to Angola Prison. There he was a model prisoner, and due to budgetary restrictions brought on by the Depression, he was able to participate in an early release program. He applied for such release in June 1933 and was told that he would be released the following year if Governor O.K. Allen approved the petition.

Song collector John Lomax, in the employ of the Library of Congress, visited Angola in July 1933 with his son Alan Lomax, looking for folk songs to record. They were introduced to Leadbelly, whom they recorded. This initial session, which has not been released commercially, included a song Leadbelly called "Irene" that he had learned from an uncle. Subsequent research has demonstrated that the song was not a traditional folk song, but rather in its original form was written and published in 1886 by African-American songwriter Gussie Lord Davis under the title "Irene, Good Night." But the version taught to Leadbelly by his uncle was much altered from Davis' original.

A year passed without any action being taken on Leadbelly's petition for early release. John and Alan Lomax returned to Angola in the summer of 1934, and they recorded another session with Leadbelly. A few of these recordings were released commercially by Elektra Records in 1966 in a box set called The Library of Congress Recordings and were reissued in 1991 by Rounder Records on a CD called Midnight Special. As that title indicates, among the songs was "Midnight Special," a song Leadbelly first heard during his incarceration in Texas in the early 1920s and which he adapted. The session also included "Governor O.K. Allen," a song Leadbelly had written to encourage the governor to sign his petition of release. The Lomaxes took a record of the song to the governor's office, though there is no evidence that he actually listened to it. But on July 25, 1934, he signed Leadbelly's petition, commuting his sentence to three to ten years, and since Leadbelly had already served four and a half years, he was released on August 1, 1934. In later years, the state of Louisiana repeatedly denied the legend that Leadbelly had sung his way out of prison for a second time.

Upon his release, Leadbelly initially moved to Shreveport, but in the fall of 1934 he sought out John Lomax, who was living in Texas, and went to work for him, acting as his chauffeur and assistant on further trips to prisons in search of songs. At the Cummins Prison Farm in Arkansas, Leadbelly first heard a prisoner perform "Rock Island Line," a song he added to his repertoire and altered extensively. In the winter of 1934-1935, he accompanied Lomax north, where they made a series of appearances at academic and scholarly gatherings such as the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association (MLA) in Philadelphia and lecture-performances at Yale and Harvard. They attracted considerable media attention, including articles in major newspapers and appearances on radio and newsreel versions of Time Marches On. Leadbelly signed a management agreement with Lomax and was in turn signed for a series of recordings by the American Record Corporation (ARC), which issued records on a variety of low-priced labels and also owned the venerable Columbia Records label. The ARC recordings, 40 sides, were made in January, February, and March 1935, though ARC only released two singles at the time, with a third issued the following year. Viewing Leadbelly as a blues artist, ARC emphasized that aspect of his large repertoire, but the records did not sell well in the blues market and most of the recordings remained unissued for decades. The first extensive release of them came with the Columbia Records LP Includes Legendary Performances Never Before Released in 1970, and more of them appeared on Columbia/Legacy's King of the 12-String Guitar in 1991. During this period, Leadbelly also made more recordings for the Library of Congress, some of which appeared on the 1966 Elektra LP and on the 1991 Rounder albums Midnight Special and Gwine Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In.

In March 1935, John Lomax, who had found Leadbelly unreliable during a northeast tour, severed his relationship with the singer, and Leadbelly returned to Louisiana. There he obtained legal representation and sought more money from Lomax, and over a period of months the two worked out a settlement that allowed Lomax to use Leadbelly's songs in his book Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly, published in 1936. In February 1936, Leadbelly moved back north, settling in New York City and attempting to build a career as a performer. From 1937 to 1939, he made more recordings for the Library of Congress at the behest of Alan Lomax, some of which have appeared on the Elektra and Rounder albums already mentioned. He was taken up by left-wing activists who increasingly used folk music as a forum for the expression of their political beliefs, and though he himself appears to have had only a limited interest in politics in general, his fervor for civil rights, expressed in such songs as "The Bourgeois Blues," concurred with theirs. He became part of a community of urban folk musicians, including Aunt Molly Jackson, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and the team of Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee, among others.

In March 1939, Leadbelly was arrested for stabbing a man in New York. While on parole before trial, he made his second set of commercial recordings for Musicraft Records, a session arranged by Alan Lomax to help pay his legal bills. The recordings were issued initially on a Musicraft album called Negro Sinful Tunes and have since been reissued by such labels as Stinson, Everest, and Collectables. Leadbelly was convicted of third-degree assault and served an eight-month sentence.

The singer was busy in 1940, appearing on the network radio series Folk Music of America and Back Where I Come From and launching his own weekly 15-minute program on local WNYC, a show that ran for a year. He also undertook his third set of commercial recordings in June, this time for RCA Victor and accompanied on some tracks by the Golden Gate Quartet. These sessions resulted in an album called The Midnight Special and Other Southern Prison Songs, released on RCA's Bluebird imprint. A 1964 compilation of the material on RCA was called Midnight Special, there was a 1989 collection called Alabama Bound, and in 2003, as part of its Secret History of Rock & Roll series, Bluebird issued When the Sun Goes Down, Vol. 5: Take This Hammer, a compilation containing all 26 tracks that were recorded. In August 1940, Leadbelly also returned to recording for the Library of Congress, and some of these tracks have turned up on the previously mentioned Elektra set as well as on the Rounder albums Gwine Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In and Let It Shine on Me (1991).

In May 1941, Leadbelly recorded his first session for Asch Records, a tiny independent label run by Moses Asch. Leadbelly went on to record extensively for Asch and its successors, Disc and Folkways, this material later reissued both by Smithsonian/Folkways (from the 1990s on) and by various small labels that acquired rights to it. In 1944, he moved to the West Coast, where he remained for the better part of two years. While there, he signed to Capitol Records and did three sessions for the label in October 1944 that resulted in a series of singles. Later, Capitol issued such compilation albums as Classics in Jazz (1953) and Leadbelly: Huddie Ledbetter's Best (1962), drawn from these sessions. Back in New York from 1946 on, Leadbelly continued to record for Folkways, his 1948 recordings later turning up on a series of LPs called Leadbelly's Last Sessions and gathered together into a four-CD box set by Smithsonian/Folkways in 1994.

By 1948, he was beginning to suffer unexplained spells of numbness in his legs, and was often forced to walk with a cane and perform sitting down. In May 1949, he toured in France, but his increasing physical difficulties led to a visit to a doctor who diagnosed him as having contracted amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, an incurable condition leading to paralysis and death. Returning to the U.S., he was able to manage a few more performances, including ones in Texas and Oklahoma in June. (The Texas show was recorded and later released by Playboy Records under the title Leadbelly, erroneously marketed as the singer's last concert.) But he was soon bedridden, and he died at 61 in December.

Leadbelly's fame began to increase almost immediately after his death. In 1950, his song "Irene," now called "Goodnight, Irene," was recorded by the Weavers, a folk group including Pete Seeger and other musicians acquainted with Leadbelly, and became a number one pop hit, with hit covers by such pop singers as Frank Sinatra and a number one country recording by Ernest Tubb and Red Foley. The Weavers then adapted a Leadbelly song called "If It Wasn't for Dickey" (itself based on the Irish folk song "Drimmer's Cow") into "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," which they took into the Top 40 in 1951 and which Jimmie Rodgers covered for a Top Ten hit in 1957. In 1956, the Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group reached the Top Ten in the U.K. and the U.S. with their recording of "Rock Island Line," taken directly from Leadbelly's version, setting off the British skiffle fad that inspired many later British rock stars, including the Beatles. (Johnny Cash scored a Top 40 country hit with his version in 1970.) "The Midnight Special" in Leadbelly's version had first reached the charts for the Tiny Grimes Quintet in 1948. Paul Evans had a Top 40 hit with it in 1960, and Johnny Rivers also took it into the Top 40 in 1965. Leadbelly's "Cotton Fields" (aka "Old Cotton Fields at Home") was a Top 40 hit for the Highwaymen in 1961. All of these songs have become standards. When the folk revival hit in the late '50s, its practitioners frequently covered other songs associated with Leadbelly in arrangements that recalled his.

Leadbelly's own recordings, in addition to the more legitimate reissues on Rounder, Columbia/Legacy, RCA Victor, Capitol, and Smithsonian/Folkways, have turned up on a dizzying number of labels in the CD era, especially as they have come into the public domain in Europe (where copyrights extend only 50 years). Confusing as this discography may be, it is a testament to the continuing influence of Leadbelly on contemporary music. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Odetta
Genre: Folk
Decades: 8064
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Odetta was born on New Year's Eve, 1930, in Birmingham, Alabama. By the time she was six years old, she'd moved with her younger sister and mother to Los Angeles. She showed a keen interest in music from the time she was a child, and when she was about 10 years old, somewhere between church and school, her singing voice was discovered. Odetta's... [+] Read More

Odetta was born on New Year's Eve, 1930, in Birmingham, Alabama. By the time she was six years old, she'd moved with her younger sister and mother to Los Angeles. She showed a keen interest in music from the time she was a child, and when she was about 10 years old, somewhere between church and school, her singing voice was discovered. Odetta's mother began saving money to pay for voice lessons for her, but was advised to wait until her daughter was 13 years old and well into puberty.

Thanks to her mother, Odetta did begin voice lessons when she was 13. She received a classical training, which was interrupted when her mother could no longer afford to pay for the lessons. The puppeteer Harry Burnette interceded and paid for Odetta to continue her voice training.

When she was 19 years old, Odetta landed a role in the Los Angeles production of Finian's Rainbow, which was staged in the summer of 1949 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. It was during the run of this show that she first heard the blues harmonica master Sonny Terry. The following summer, Odetta was again performing in summer stock in California. This time it was a production of Guys and Dolls, staged in San Francisco. Hanging out in North Beach during her days off, Odetta had her first experience with the growing local folk music scene. Following her summer in San Francisco, Odetta returned to Los Angeles, where she worked as a live-in housekeeper. During this time she performed on a show bill with Paul Robeson.

In 1953, Odetta took some time off from her housecleaning chores to travel to New York City and appear at the famed Blue Angel folk club. Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte had both taken an interest in her career by this time, and her debut album, The Tin Angel, was released in 1954. From this time forward, Odetta worked to expand her repertoire and make full use of what she has always termed her "instrument." When she began singing, she was considered a coloratura soprano. As she matured, she became more of a mezzo-soprano. Her experience singing folk music led her to discover a vocal range that runs from coloratura to baritone.

Odetta's most productive decade as a recording artist came in the 1960s, when she released 16 albums, including Odetta at Carnegie Hall, Christmas Spirituals, Odetta and the Blues, It's a Mighty World and Odetta Sings Dylan. In 1999 she released her first studio album in 14 years, Blues Everywhere I Go. Vanguard Records has released two excellent Odetta compilations: The Essential Odetta (1989) and Odetta: Best of the Vanguard Years (1999).

On September 29, 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Odetta with the National Endowment for the Arts' Medal of the Arts, a fitting tribute to one of the great treasures of American music. ~ Philip Van Vleck, All Music Guide [-] Hide

The Weavers
Genre: Folk
Decades: 1472
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

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

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 difficult to explain -- as, indeed, none of this was all that easy to explain at the time. How could a song as pleasant and tuneful as "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" be subversive?

The quartet went from being embraced by the public, and selling four-million-records, to being reviled and rejected over the political backgrounds of its members, and disbanding after only four years together. Yet, despite the controversy that surrounded them, and the fact that their work was interrupted at its peak, the Weavers managed to alter popular culture in about as profound a manner as any artist this side of Bob Dylan -- indeed, they set the stage for the 1950s folk revival, indirectly fostering the careers of the Kingston Trio, among others, and bridging the gap between folk and popular music, and folk and the topical song, they helped set the stage for Dylan's eventual emergence. And the songs that they wrote or popularized, including "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," "Wimoweh," "Goodnight Irene," "Wreck of the John B," "Follow the Drinking Gourd," and "On Top of Old Smoky," continued to get recorded (and occasionally to chart) 50 years after the group's own time.

The Weavers bear a striking resemblance to an earlier group called the Almanac Singers. Pete Seeger (born May 3, 1919) and Lee Hays (born 1914) had worked together for the first time in 1940 as part of the Almanac Singers, who had enjoyed brief but notable success on radio, and as a recording outfit doing topical songs in a folk idiom, until their leftist political views became an issue; the group members had been caught in the uncomfortable position, as dedicated Communists, of having pushed pacifism and American neutrality during 1940 and early 1941, and then reversing themselves after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. In the intervening years, during and after World War II, Seeger and Hays had both been involved in various causes involving international peace, civil rights, and workers' rights, and late in 1948, Hays had suggested trying to form an ensemble similar to, but better organized than the Almanac Singers. The notion went through some evolution, including the idea -- later abandoned -- of a multiracial sextet, before it settled on Seeger, Hays, Fred Hellerman (born May 13, 1927), and Ronnie Gilbert (born September 7, 1926). The Brooklyn-born Hellerman and New York-born Gilbert had first met Seeger and Hays through People's Songs, a loosely knit assembly of songwriters and musicians formed in the basement of Seeger's house in Greenwich Village in 1946, which was intended to bolster the postwar union and social activism. People's Songs started with a great deal of promise but faltered two-and-a-half years later, along with the left in general, after the election of 1948, in which the leftist presidential ticket of Henry Wallace and Glen Taylor ran last in a four-way race. It was just after the election that Hays had suggested a new singing group, and he, Seeger, Hellerman, and Gilbert, along with a fifth member named Jackie Gibson, who dropped out soon after, had initially performed that Thanksgiving. The surviving group, known informally as "the No-Name Quartet," performed at various venues around New York and once on radio, courtesy of folk singer Oscar Brand, before settling on the name the Weavers, derived from a play of the same title by Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann.

The Weavers' first year was spent avoiding starvation. Their intention had been to help support union-sponsored events and other progressive causes, but the members discovered that, in the wake of the collapse of the Wallace campaign, there were hardly any events at which they were welcome, or which could pay them anything. If 1948 had been a disastrous year for the left, 1949 was nothing short of catastrophic, as the forces of reaction, emboldened by Wallace's defeat and with an angry, obstructionist Republican minority in Congress to give them a national platform, went on the attack. In some instances, the attacks were literal -- during the late summer of 1949, rioting broke out at a concert in Peekskill, NY, in which hundreds were injured by members of veterans groups infuriated by the presence of singer and leftist political activist Paul Robeson, who was also the target of an aborted assassination attempt. Challenges became commonplace, to the loyalties of any visible folk singers with a topical edge to their music, or to that of the people who would hire or record them.

Pete Seeger, the most well-known member of the Weavers, was able to eke out fees of as much as $15 at some venues -- there were still schools that would book him to sing for children -- but that was as good as the money got, and it couldn't be increased for the quartet. The Weavers did make a handful of recordings in the late summer and early fall of 1949 for Charter Records, a tiny label run by former People's Songs supporter Mario Casetta, but most of them were never released, and the undercapitalized label closed in 1950.

Fate took a hand when the group, as a last-ditch effort to keep going, auditioned for a spot performing for the Christmas week of 1949 at the Village Vanguard, a New York club owned by Max Gordon, which was most closely associated with jazz. They went over so well that the gig was extended through the winter and then the entire spring, for $250.00 a week split four ways. Their six months at the Vanguard changed the group's fate. Though the club was virtually empty on the four weeknights, on weekends it filled up, and audiences loved the simple, unaffected enthusiasm that the quartet brought to their music. Folk singing by then had become something of an "art," an elitist, academic activity attuned to scholars, but the Weavers came off completely the opposite of this -- guileless and honest, literally four hay seeds without any experience of playing in clubs. Their presentation and popularity, coupled with the visibility of the Vanguard, soon led to reviews in newspapers and trade journals, and these were almost all positive.

It was from the Village Vanguard shows that the group first hooked up with Harold Leventhal, a young music publishing executive. He loved their work but was also honest enough to admit that, at that point in his career, he didn't know enough about business to represent them adequately, so he recommended someone who did, a manager name Pete Kameron. In the meantime, they'd also attracted the attention of Gordon Jenkins, who was then one of the top arrangers and bandleaders in the music business. Jenkins brought them to Decca Records, where he was under contract, and had the group perform for label chief Dave Kapp -- by the time the audition was over, the entire production staff was listening and singing along, but at first no one knew what to do with four white singers, whose repertory ranged from traditional gospel, work songs and children's songs, so Decca passed. It was only when Mitch Miller at Columbia Records offered the quartet a contract that Jenkins got adamant; he had a contract written and a session booked, and the group was signed to Decca.

The first result of their Decca contract was a collection of Christmas songs issued on a 10" LP, which didn't attract much attention. But their second session yielded a pair of songs, "Tzena Tzena Tzena," which got to number two, and "Goodnight Irene," which hit number one and stayed there for 13 weeks, and ended up selling two million copies as a double-sided hit single. Cut just before the group left the Vanguard in June of 1950, the two songs caught everyone by surprise with their sudden success. Ronnie Gilbert had just gotten married and was planning on an extended honeymoon out west. As the newly married couple drove across the country, however, they were astonished to find "Tzena Tzena Tzena" being played on jukeboxes at the eateries where they stopped, and also turning up on the radio.

Gilbert received a telegram urging her to cut short her honeymoon and return to the group to help fulfill the bookings that were pouring in, and for the next year the world seemed to be at their feet. There were as many bookings as Kameron could accept, all for top dollar, and offers of television appearances as well, and Decca Records was eager to record anything by the group in order to keep the success of the first single going. In later years, purists would criticize Jenkins' use of string arrangements and a big band brass sound to accompany the group on the original recordings of "Goodnight Irene," "Midnight Special," and "Wimoweh," but the public never objected and the members themselves all felt that Jenkins had done his best to keep their sound intact while putting them into the commercial context of the time. Certainly, they had no objection to the idea of selling several million copies of a song like "Goodnight Irene," written and taught to them by their friend Leadbelly, who had struggled for decades for success and recognition and, alas, had died the year before. The label tried their sound in different formats and combinations, even teaming the Weavers with Terry Gilkyson, a beautiful baritone-voiced folk singer, on "On Top of Old Smoky."

It was all too good to last; they knew, and it didn't. Ever since the breakout of the first single as a hit, the members had expected that somewhere down the line their past political affiliations would be thrown back in their faces. Their manager did his best to downplay any political associations by the group -- they were never booked into potentially controversial events, such as union meetings or political rallies, and avoided doing songs that were overly controversial. From the very start, the group's repertory had been put together on the fly; at the Vanguard, when they realized that the handful of songs that they'd prepared weren't enough to cover the lengths of the sets that the audience wanted from them, they would propose and spontaneously do songs right there on-stage, all material that they knew well from their own respective pasts and all of it considered "safe" and appropriate for a club audience, rather than a political meeting -- Hays' background as the son of a Methodist minister gave him a rich trove of religious songs to draw on, and the others, with Seeger as the dominant figure after Hays, chose what they thought were the best and safest songs they knew.

The irony was that their concerts -- usually at clubs, or in hotel venues where big bands were the norm -- were so innocuous politically, that the Weavers were derided by the leftist press, even by their former colleague Irwin Silber in the pages of Sing Out!, a journal then known for its strong editorial positions. They were sneered at as sellouts. And then, in the summer of 1950, just as they were being offered a 15-minute weekly television show of their own, the anti-Communist journal Red Channels denounced the Weavers. The offer of the program disappeared -- though the group did do a series of spots for Snader Television, an early syndicator in the new medium -- and soon bookings began drying up, though not immediately and not completely. The records kept selling, with another two million copies of their music purchased in America in 1951, spearheaded by "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," their adaptation of an old Irish folk song that they'd learned from Leadbelly. By that time, however, they were under FBI surveillance and the pressure was on -- it's impossible for someone born after the 1950s to appreciate the stigma, coupled with the threat, attached in those days to the very notion of being seen doing business with someone under FBI surveillance, or being called to testify before a Congressional committee; it could end, or at least severely compromise careers, and split up friends and families; in those days, teachers were being fired from their jobs and students were being threatened with expulsion from colleges for refusing to sign loyalty oaths.

For two years, from the middle of 1950, when the first accusations of the group's alleged disloyalty surfaced, until the summer of 1952, Kameron had been able to keep securing the group some work, in smaller, more out of the way venues and from promoters, especially in the northeast, who were willing to risk the protests, hate mail, and threats that inevitably followed the announcement of a Weavers concert. Part of the problem was the group's sheer visibility -- with "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," as innocuous a song politically as one could imagine, getting a huge amount of airplay, they were a constant source of offense, like a red flag (literally) being waved in the face of rabid anti-Communists. The fact that the Republicans had retaken control of Congress in the 1950 elections, transforming the most rabid anti-Communists from an angry minority into a nasty majority, caused the behavior of their allies around the country to become only more virulent as the military stalemate in the Korean War dragged on through 1951 and 1952. On some subconscious level, it was as though, helpless to defeat the North Koreans (or the Soviets backing them) on the battlefield, the political right transformed any alleged domestic Communists into valid targets, and the Weavers were out there singing, selling lots of records, and making lots of noise. The fact that the group was making money by getting Americans to buy their records, and that a company like Decca Records was earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits from their work, only meant that the Weavers were a corrupting force. The very fact that they'd sneaked into their success so suddenly, virtually "under the radar" of the political right, was an offense. And the fact that no member of the group had ever uttered a word in public (or, for all anyone knew, in private) about the Korean War was, curiously, irrelevant amid all of the controversy.

By the end of 1952, the group had called it quits. Decca no longer wanted to record them because it was difficult, if not impossible, to get their records into the stores, and it was no longer possible to get their music played on the radio. The label kept paying them for the duration of their contract until it ended in 1953, and by then each of the members had moved on to other activities. Another key factor, even if the political and business climate had been more favorable, was Pete Seeger, who was never wholly comfortable working in a group context due to the limitations it placed on his repertory, and who liked even less the compromises that the Weavers had made in pursuing their work. The group was seemingly forgotten by the public over the next three years, their music banished from the airwaves and their records withdrawn -- Ronnie Gilbert and her husband moved to California, Fred Hellerman became a music teacher, Seeger performed as a solo act at whatever schools would book him, and Lee Hays wrote radio commercials.

In 1955, however, Harold Leventhal proposed a reunion concert for the four. They tried to book Town Hall in New York but weren't allowed to rent it, so controversial were they still. Instead, in a move that anticipated Brian Epstein's boldness in booking the hall for the Beatles nine years later, Leventhal rented Carnegie Hall -- the irony was that Carnegie Hall's management, involved in the relatively rarefied world of classical music, was totally unaware of any controversy surrounding the Weavers and had no objections. (Similarly, when Brian Epstein called to book the Beatles years later, on the eve of their breakthrough in America, the Carnegie Hall management had no inkling of who they were and assumed that a "quartet" meant four string players and not a rock & roll group, who would not have been allowed to book the hall.) The Weavers reunion event proved to be a sellout and then some, with hundreds turned away; equally important, it was captured on tape, and the tape was then sold to Vanguard Records.

Vanguard at that time was a small but enterprising label specializing in classical music, run by two brothers, Maynard Solomon and Seymour Solomon, a pair of music lovers and scholars. They had no shareholders to answer to and no corporate structure, and even in the world of classical record distribution were fiercely independent. Vanguard released the reunion concert and did very well with it, they followed it up with a second volume, and suddenly Vanguard and the Weavers had a new recording contract. It was through the Vanguard releases, the reunion concerts, and the recordings that followed, that most of the Weavers' baby-boom audience, and virtually any enthusiasts acquired during the folk revival of the late '50s and early '60s, and at any time after, discovered the group and its music.

Their Vanguard recordings were stripped down, very basic productions, just the group members playing with no dubbed-on accompaniment; these recordings are usually regarded more highly than the Decca material which, in any case, wasn't available for many years in any comprehensive form. Seeger left the re-formed group in 1958, preferring to pursue a solo career on his own. By that time, ironically enough, the stage had been set for just such an opportunity by the Weavers themselves. They may not have survived the blacklist intact, but the interest in folk songs that they'd fostered, along with the proof, in the form of millions of copies of "Goodnight Irene" and "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" that had been sold, wasn't lost on the public or the music business -- by 1956, groups like the Easy Riders (led by Terry Gilkyson and featuring a pair of lesser-known People's Songs alumni, Frank Miller and Richard Dehr), had charted a few huge national hits in a distinctly folk-like idiom with "Marianne"; big record labels were looking at folk music, and smaller ones were recording it, and when the Kingston Trio broke out with the two-million-selling "Tom Dooley" in 1958, the dam burst. Collegiate folk groups were in, and even controversial "old" Pete Seeger was able to get a contract with Columbia Records. By the end of the '50s, the anti-Communists were also in retreat, having been discredited by their woefully flawed national icon, Senator Joseph McCarthy, and his fall from power -- nobody especially wanted to take them on if they could help it, but they weren't winning any new battles or new friends, either. Even the Tokens' 1962 hit single, another version of the Weavers' hit "Wimoweh," entitled "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," only helped sustain the Weavers' reputation.

Seeger's first replacement in the Weavers was Erik Darling (born September 25, 1933), a former member of the Tarriers who lasted with the group until 1961 when he left to pursue a solo career and, eventually, to form the Rooftop Singers; he was succeeded by Frank Hamilton (born August 3, 1934), who stayed until 1963 and was succeeded by an acquaintance of Lee Hays', Bernie Krause, who worked with the group during their final year together, including the 1964 Carnegie Hall concert which featured a composite of all the group members working together. The group members went their separate ways, each of them remaining in music to varying degrees, although Ronnie Gilbert also pursued a degree in psychology; Pete Seeger helped introduce Bob Dylan to the established folk audience, and later showed that he had lost none of his flair for controversy, challenging the popular media with new songs such as "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy," dealing with Vietnam; Lee Hays saw a song that he had co-written with Carl Sandburg as "Wreck of the John B," retitled "Sloop John B," turned into a huge rock & roll hit by the Beach Boys, and he later became a mentor to Don McLean (who also performed with Pete Seeger). In November of 1980, a pair of reunion concerts at Carnegie Hall became the final appearance of the original quartet and the focal point of the film Wasn't That a Time, a documentary that chronicled the Weavers' history. Hays passed away the following summer, thus ending the active history of the group. Since then, two box-set collections of the group's work -- Wasn't That a Time on Vanguard, covering their history from 1950 through 1964, and Goodnight Irene: The Weavers 1949-1953 on Bear Family, devoted exclusively to their first four years together -- have appeared on CD; and Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, a double-CD of previously unreleased live performances from the years 1950-1953 on Omega Records, the successor label to the Solomon brothers' Vanguard Records. Additionally, most of their Vanguard albums have reappeared on compact disc, and a pair of compilations of their Decca work have been issued in England and America. Listening to their material today, the great irony is the sense of timelessness in the performances. The avoidance of controversy, which made the group such pariahs to their compatriots on the left and utterly infuriating to their opponents on the right, gave the Weavers' music a universality that topical songs of the era would have sorely lacked ten or 20 years later. At the same time, the group's unaffected style, partly a result of their sheer inexperience, gave the recordings an honesty and directness that was lacking in the more scholarly approach to folk music that was more typical of the era. The result is a body of songs several hundred strong that have stood the test of time for a half-century or more. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Bob Gibson & Bob Camp
Genre: Folk
Decades: 256
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Bob Gibson and Bob Camp (also known as Hamilton Camp) both had notable solo careers of their own. Gibson was an influential performer in the folk revival, doing a little to take traditional folk interpretations into a more imaginative realm, and an influence on performers such as Roger McGuinn. Camp, who changed his name to Hamilton Camp after... [+] Read More

Bob Gibson and Bob Camp (also known as Hamilton Camp) both had notable solo careers of their own. Gibson was an influential performer in the folk revival, doing a little to take traditional folk interpretations into a more imaginative realm, and an influence on performers such as Roger McGuinn. Camp, who changed his name to Hamilton Camp after working with Gibson and did a number of solo recordings under that name, is known as the composer of "Pride of Man," given an electric folk-rock treatment by Quicksilver Messenger Service. For a time in the early '60s, Gibson and Camp teamed up to form a duo, resulting in one album, At the Gate of Horn (1961, Elektra), which was one of the better-remembered folk LPs of the time. McGuinn, who was in the audience when the album was required, went as far as to make it his pick in MOJO magazine's "Last Night a Record Changed My Life" section, hailing the harmonies and Gibson's 12-string guitar work. Actually it sounds like a pretty average relic of the hootenanny age, and even Camp would go on to do more interesting things in his solo career. Gibson and Camp, according to that piece in MOJO, "never got along entirely well," and their association -- pushed along by manager Albert Grossman -- was short-lived, resulting in just the one LP in the 1960s. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Josh White
Genre: Folk
Decades: 496
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Most blues enthusiasts think of Josh White as a folk revival artist. It's true that the second half of his music career found him based in New York playing to the coffeehouse and cabaret set and hanging out with Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, and fellow transplanted blues artists Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. When I saw him in Chicago in the 1960s... [+] Read More

Most blues enthusiasts think of Josh White as a folk revival artist. It's true that the second half of his music career found him based in New York playing to the coffeehouse and cabaret set and hanging out with Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, and fellow transplanted blues artists Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. When I saw him in Chicago in the 1960s his shirt was unbuttoned to his waist à la Harry Belafonte and his repertoire consisted of folk revival standards such as "Scarlet Ribbons." He was a show business personality -- a star renowned for his sexual magnetism and his dramatic vocal presentations. What many people don't know is that Josh White was a major figure in the Piedmont blues tradition. The first part of his career saw him as apprentice and lead boy to some of the greatest blues and religious artists ever, including Willie Walker, Blind Blake, Blind Joe Taggart (with whom he recorded), and allegedly even Blind Lemon Jefferson. On his own, he recorded both blues and religious songs, including a classic version of "Blood Red River." A fine guitar technician with an appealing voice, he became progressively more sophisticated in his presentation. Like many other Carolinians and Virginians who moved north to urban areas, he took up city ways, remaining a fine musician if no longer a down-home artist. Like several other canny blues players, he used his roots music to broaden and enhance his life experience, and his talent was such that he could choose the musical idiom that was most lucrative at the time. ~ Barry Lee Pearson, All Music Guide [-] Hide

John Fahey
Genre: Folk
Decades: 3968
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

One of acoustic music's true innovators and eccentrics, John Fahey was a crucial figure in expanding the boundaries of the acoustic guitar over the last few decades. His music was so eclectic that it's arguable whether he should be defined as a "folk" artist. In a career that saw him issue several dozen albums, he drew from blues, Native... [+] Read More

One of acoustic music's true innovators and eccentrics, John Fahey was a crucial figure in expanding the boundaries of the acoustic guitar over the last few decades. His music was so eclectic that it's arguable whether he should be defined as a "folk" artist. In a career that saw him issue several dozen albums, he drew from blues, Native American music, Indian ragas, experimental dissonance, and pop. His good friend Dr. Demento has noted that Fahey "was the first to demonstrate that the finger-picking techniques of traditional country and blues steel-string guitar could be used to express a world of non-traditional musical ideas -- harmonies and melodies you'd associate with Bartok, Charles Ives, or maybe the music of India." The more meditative aspects of his work foreshadowed new age music, yet Fahey played with a fierce imagination and versatility that outshone any of the guitarists in that category. His idiosyncrasy may have limited him to a cult following, but it also ensured that his work continues to sound fresh.

Fahey was a colorful figure from the time he became an accomplished guitarist in his teens. Already a collector of rare early blues and country music, he made his first album in 1959, ascribing part of it to the pseudonymous "Blind Joe Death." Only 95 copies of the LP were pressed, making it a coveted collector's item today. (In the 1960s, Fahey would re-record the material for wider circulation.) In college, he wrote a thesis on Charley Patton (an exotic subject at the time). Yet Fahey did not perform publicly for money until the mid-'60s, after his third album.

Fahey's early albums for Takoma in the mid-'60s laid out much of the territory he would explore. His instrumentals, filtering numerous genres of music into his own style, evoked haunting and open spaces. At times they could be soothing and plaintive; at other times they were disquieting, even dissonant. The more experimental aspects of his material even foreshadowed psychedelia in their lengthy improvisations (some cuts lasted as long as 20 minutes), use of Indian modes, unpredictable stylistic shifts, and overall eerie strangeness. His persona as a weirdo of sorts was amplified by his bizarre and lengthy song titles and liner notes. He also employed odd guitar tunings that continue to exert an overlooked influence on contemporary musicians to this day.

Fahey remained consistently popular on a cult level through the mid-'80s. His most commercially successful efforts, oddly, were probably his Christmas albums, which are among the more interesting holiday records of any genre. For a time he ran the Takoma label, where he was instrumental in starting the career of Leo Kottke (who owes much of his stylistic inspiration to Fahey), as well as promoting lesser-known talents like Robbie Basho. He was a catalyst in other subtle ways, helping to form Canned Heat by introducing Al Wilson (who played on a Fahey album in 1965) to Bob Hite, and rediscovering Delta bluesman Bukka White with his friend Ed Denson.

Fahey sold Takoma to Chrysalis in the mid-'70s, but continued to record regularly, and also tour (though his live performances were erratic). In 1986, he contracted Epstein-Barr syndrome, a long-lasting viral infection that, combined with diabetes and other health problems, sapped his energy and resources. Although the Epstein-Barr virus was finally overcome, the mid-'90s found him living in poverty in Oregon, where he paid his rent by pawning his guitar and reselling rare classical records. The appearance of a major career retrospective on Rhino, Return of the Repressed, in 1994 boosted his profile to its highest level in years. In 1997, he returned to active recording with City of Refuge and was planning a Revenant definitive package of Charley Patton's work when he died following sextuple-bypass surgery at the age of 61. The Fahey discography is dauntingly large and diverse; the neophyte is advised to start with the two-disc Return of the Repressed, but those who wish to dig deeper will be very pleased with Takoma's extensive reissues, which started to appear in the late nineties. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Chad Mitchell Trio
Genre: Folk
Decades: 0
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

[-] Hide

Doc Watson & Family
Genre: Folk
Decades: 0
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

[-] Hide

Doc Watson
Genre: Folk
Decades: 7936
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

In the latter half of the 20th century there were three pre-eminently influential folk/country guitar players: Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, and Arthel "Doc" Watson, a flat-picking genius from Deep Gap, NC. Unlike the other two, Watson was in middle age before gaining any attention. Since 1960, though, when Watson was recorded with his family and... [+] Read More

In the latter half of the 20th century there were three pre-eminently influential folk/country guitar players: Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, and Arthel "Doc" Watson, a flat-picking genius from Deep Gap, NC. Unlike the other two, Watson was in middle age before gaining any attention. Since 1960, though, when Watson was recorded with his family and friends in Folkways' Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley's, people have remained in awe of this gentle blind man who sings and picks with a pure and emotional authenticity. The present generation, folkies and country pickers alike, including Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, the late Clarence White, Emmylou Harris, and literally hundreds of others, acknowledge their great debt to Watson. Watson has provided a further service to folk/country by his encyclopedic knowledge of many American traditional songs. While Travis and Atkins started on acoustic guitars and moved to electric, before Watson's "discovery" during the folk revival in the early '60s, he played electric in a local all-purpose band that played current rock, swing, country, and of course folk music. He gained recognition gradually, first from the Clarence Ashley album, which led to a rave performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963. Folkways soon recorded an album of Watson, followed in 1964 by a series of albums by Vanguard, nearly one a year through the decade. No sooner had interest in folk music waned than Watson was back in great demand because of the three-disc Will the Circle Be Unbroken, a watershed album in 1972 that was created by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. It featured Watson, Travis, Roy Acuff, and a who's who of country greats. Merle, Watson's son and a talent in his own right, began appearing with his father regularly. The result was good enough for them to win two Grammys for traditional music, in 1973 and 1974. Father and son played beautiful music together for over 15 years, until Merle died tragically on the family farm in 1985. Following his son's death, Doc continued with his appearances, showcasing his beautiful voice, his great instrumental talent, and his mastery of traditional material. He is an American treasure.

Early in his childhood in Deep Gap, Watson was struck by an illness that restricted the bloodflow to his eyes, resulting in his blindness at an early age. As a child, he was surrounded by music and was given a new harmonia every Christmas. When he was ten, his father gave him a homemade fretless banjo, which Doc played consistently for the next three years. Around the same time he picked up the banjo, Watson began attending the School for the Blind in Raleigh, NC. At the age of 13, Doc began playing guitar after being introduced to the instrument by his cousin. Six months after receiving his guitar, Doc and his older brother Linney began busking on street corners, singing traditional numbers. By his late teens, Watson had learned how to finger-pick from his neighbor Olin Miller.

In 1941, Watson joined a band that had a regular radio program in Lenoir, NC. It was at this show that he earned his nickname, once one of the announcers referred to the guitarist as "Doc" during the broadcast. For the next six years he played around North Carolina. In 1947, he married Rosa Lee Carlton, the daughter of fiddler Gaither W. Carlton. Though his father-in-law taught him a number of traditional songs, Doc didn't play any traditional material publically during the '40s, preferring to concentrate on country instead; to pay the bills, he also worked as a piano tuner. Watson joined the supporting band of a local pianist and railroad worker named Jack Williams in 1953. With Williams, Doc played electric guitar and perfromed a variety of music, from country to rock and pop. After staying with Jack for eight years, Watson joined the Clarence Ashley String Band and traveled with the group to New York in order to appear at a Friends of Old-Time Music concert. His performance at the concert was a resounding success, and he was invited to perform at Gerde's Folk City in Greenwich Village.

The invitation to perform in New York was an indication that the folk boom of the early '60s was beginning to gain momentum, and Doc became one of the major benefactors of the revival. Young college students began to follow his music and he soon switched to acoustic guitar on the advice of Ralph Rinzler. During 1961, Watson made his recording debut on Clarence Ashley's Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley's, a performance which earned him considerable acclaim. Two years later, his solo spot at the Newport Folk Festival stole the show; that same year he released his first solo album, Doc Watson & Family. In 1964, Doc began giving concerts accompanied by his son Merle on second guitar. From that point on, Doc and Merle were constant collaborators and one of the most popular performers on the folk and traditional music circuit. Even when the folk boom of the '60s died down toward the end of the decade, Watson retained his audience, and when he was spotlighted on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's breakthrough 1972 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken, he earned another generation of new fans. In 1974, his album Then and Now won the Grammy for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording; the following year, he and Merle took home the same award for their Two Days in November.

Doc and Merle continued to perform and record successfully during the early '80s, giving numerous successful concerts each year and earning many awards, including another Grammy in 1979 (Best Country Instrumental Performance for "Big Sandy"/"Leather Britches"). In 1985, Merle tragically died in a tractor accident on his home farm. Following his son's death, Doc stopped performing for a short time, yet he made a comeback supported by guitarist Jack Lawrence and bassist T. Michael Coleman, who had played with Watson since 1974. Throughout the '80s and '90s, Doc continued to perform and record to enthusiastic audiences. During that time he won two more Grammys -- Best Traditional Folk Recording for both 1986's Riding the Midnight Train and 1990's On Praying Ground -- as well as a North Carolina Award in Fine Arts. Home Sweet Home followed in 1998 and Third Generation Blues in 1999. ~ David Vinopal, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Eric Andersen
Genre: Folk
Decades: 7936
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Eric Andersen has maintained a career as a folk-based singer/songwriter since the 1960s. In contrast to such peers as Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs, Andersen's writing has had a romantic/philosophical/poetic bent for the most part, rather than a socially conscious one, though one of his best-known songs, "Thirsty Boots," has as its background the... [+] Read More

Eric Andersen has maintained a career as a folk-based singer/songwriter since the 1960s. In contrast to such peers as Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs, Andersen's writing has had a romantic/philosophical/poetic bent for the most part, rather than a socially conscious one, though one of his best-known songs, "Thirsty Boots," has as its background the Freedom Rides of the early '60s. (The song has been recorded by Judy Collins and others.)

After emerging from the Northeast folk-club circuit, Andersen began to record in 1965 with Today Is the Highway. His second album, 'Bout Changes & Things, contained some of his most accomplished writing, including the highly poetic "Violets of Dawn," "Thirsty Boots," and "I Shall Go Unbounded." All were sung in Andersen's flexible tenor (he shaded toward a baritone later), backed by rapid, intricate fingerpicking. In the late '60s and early '70s, Andersen experimented with country, pop, and rock music, settling on an amalgamation by the time of his masterpiece Blue River in 1972. This was also his most commercially successful album, but Andersen, like friends Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zandt, was always too serious-minded for the mainstream. In the '70s and '80s, he recorded sporadically while playing folk clubs around the U.S. and especially in Europe, where he took up residence. His later material, including 1989's Ghosts Upon the Road, recalls his work in the '60s as it ruefully reflects on that decade. The '90s saw Andersen collaborate with friends like Rick Danko and Jonas Fjeld on Danko/Fjeld/Andersen, as well as release a solo album, 1998's Memory of the Future; Andersen also oversaw the release of Stages: The Lost Album as well as a 1999 re-issue of Blue River. You Can't Relive the Past followed early the next year. Beat Avenue from 2003 was an ambitious double CD while 2004's The Street Was Always There nostalgic look back at the music of the New York Greenwich Village scene of the early- to mid-'60s. Waves from 2005 was another album of covers, but with broader material. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Steve Goodman
Genre: Folk
Decades: 1536
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Growing up in what he called "a Midwestern middle-class Jewish family," Steve Goodman began playing the guitar as a teenager. He was influenced by the folk revival of the early '60s and by country performers such as Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams. After attending college in the mid-'60s, he turned to playing in Chicago clubs by night and... [+] Read More

Growing up in what he called "a Midwestern middle-class Jewish family," Steve Goodman began playing the guitar as a teenager. He was influenced by the folk revival of the early '60s and by country performers such as Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams. After attending college in the mid-'60s, he turned to playing in Chicago clubs by night and writing commercial jingles by day. In 1971, he opened for Kris Kristofferson and was seen by Paul Anka, who financed demo recordings that led to a contract with Buddah Records and the release of Steve Goodman, which featured his train song "The City of New Orleans," a Top 40 hit for Arlo Guthrie in 1972 and now a folk standard. Goodman made a second album for Buddah, Somebody Else's Troubles (1973), then broke with the label, which went on to issue an outtakes record, The Essential Steve Goodman (1975). Goodman moved to the singer/songwriter-oriented West Coast label Asylum for his first charting album Jessie's Jig & Other Favorites in 1975, the same year that outlaw country singer David Allen Coe made the Top Ten of the country charts with a cover of his "You Never Even Called Me by My Name" from the Steve Goodman album. Goodman's subsequent Asylum albums were Words We Can Dance To (April 1976) (featuring "Banana Republics," popularized by Jimmy Buffett), Say It in Private (October 1977), High and Outside (February 1979), and Hot Spot (1980). None became a major commercial success, but Goodman established himself on the national club and festival circuits, frequently appearing with mandolin player Jethro Burns, formerly of the country duo Homer & Jethro. Goodman turned record producer for his friend and fellow Chicagoan John Prine on Prine's 1978 album Bruised Orange. In 1983, Goodman followed Prine in establishing his own independent label, Red Pajamas, which released the live Artistic Hair and Affordable Art (1984). Goodman died of leukemia after battling the disease for many years. Red Pajamas released Santa Ana Winds (1984) posthumously, as well as a double-disc LP drawn from a concert in his memory, A Tribute to Steve Goodman, which featured John Prine, Bonnie Raitt, and others. After a second posthumous release, Unfinished Business, Red Pajamas licensed the Asylum material and put out two Best of the Asylum Years compilations. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Arlo Guthrie
Genre: Folk
Decades: 3840
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Like his father Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie has carved out a career as a folksinger and songwriter with a social conscience who leavens political messages with humor. Though Woody Guthrie was hospitalized for much of Arlo's youth, the youngster nevertheless grew up in a musical community that included Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, and Cisco Houston.... [+] Read More

Like his father Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie has carved out a career as a folksinger and songwriter with a social conscience who leavens political messages with humor. Though Woody Guthrie was hospitalized for much of Arlo's youth, the youngster nevertheless grew up in a musical community that included Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, and Cisco Houston. He learned to play the guitar at age six and was performing in coffeehouses by his late teens.

Guthrie's early fame was based on his anti-Establishment shaggy-dog story in song, "Alice's Restaurant," actually a comic monolog about the singer's troubles with the police and the draft board that was extremely timely when it appeared on record in 1967. The Alice's Restaurant album became Guthrie's only gold record, but he made a series of folk-rock records through the '70s, filling them with his own songs and those of his contemporaries, notably Steve Goodman's "The City of New Orleans," which became Guthrie's sole hit single in 1972.

Guthrie's commercial fortunes, like those of most folkies, declined by the end of the '70s, and he made his last album for Warner Bros. in 1981. Since then, he has launched his own label, Rising Son, which has reissued his Warner albums and released his new recordings. He continues to tour extensively and to work for such causes as environmentalism, issuing Mystic Journey in 1998. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Woody Guthrie
Genre: Folk
Decades: 480
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Woody Guthrie was the most important American folk music artist of the first half of the 20th century. Coming out of Oklahoma, Guthrie had firsthand knowledge of the Dust Bowl diaspora chronicled in John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath. In fact, Guthrie wrote his own version of the story in a song called "Tom Joad." By the time he gained... [+] Read More

Woody Guthrie was the most important American folk music artist of the first half of the 20th century. Coming out of Oklahoma, Guthrie had firsthand knowledge of the Dust Bowl diaspora chronicled in John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath. In fact, Guthrie wrote his own version of the story in a song called "Tom Joad." By the time he gained recognition in the '40s, Guthrie had written hundreds of songs, many of which remain folk standards to this day. When he was interviewed by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in March 1940, Guthrie punctuated his reminiscences by singing "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You," "Dust Bowl Blues," "Do-Re-Mi," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "I Ain't Got No Home," and other songs. He later wrote "Pastures of Plenty," "The Grand Coulee Dam," and his masterpiece, "This Land Is Your Land." He was also an author (Bound for Glory) and a newspaper columnist.

Guthrie made some recordings for RCA in 1940, but much of his work was issued on the small Folkways label. Meanwhile, in the late '40s and early '50s, versions of his songs became hits for such artists as the Weavers. By then, Guthrie himself was in physical decline, suffering from Huntington's chorea, a hereditary neurological disorder. But during his long illness, Guthrie's influence spread to the next generation, fostering the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s. Not only is Bob Dylan unimaginable without him, but large segments of popular music are permanently affected by his concerns as a songwriter and his approach to the form. Guthrie also composed a body of children's music toward the end of his performing career in the early '50s, when he was raising a family with his wife Marjorie. The songs, many sung from a child's point of view, have been covered and performed extensively since. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

The Kingston Trio
Genre: Folk
Decades: 3968
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

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

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 Kingston Trio were one such group, transforming folk music into a hot commodity and creating a demand -- where none had existed before -- for young men (sometimes with women) strumming acoustic guitars and banjos and singing folk songs and folk-like novelty songs in harmony, of which the Trio themselves were the defining ensemble for the next five years.

On a purely commercial level, from 1957 until 1963, the Kingston Trio were the most vital and popular folk group in the world. Their record was incontestable, one of the most popular acts in the history of Capitol Records and the American record industry, making them the most popular folk group in history, surpassing the Weavers' earlier success. Equally important, the trio -- Dave Guard, Nick Reynolds, and Bob Shane -- made folk music immensely popular among many millions of listeners who previously had ignored it.

The group's success transcended their actual sales. Without the enviable record of popularity and sales that they built up for folk music, it is unlikely that Columbia Records would ever have had any impetus to allow John Hammond to sign an unknown singer/guitarist named Bob Dylan, or to put Weavers co-founder Pete Seeger under contract; for Warner Bros. to record the Greenwich Village-based trio Peter, Paul & Mary; or Vanguard Records to do as many albums as they actually ended up recording with the re-formed Weavers in the late '50s and early '60s.

The group was founded in Palo Alto, CA, by Dave Guard (1934-1991), a graduate student from Stanford University, and two of his close friends, Bob Shane (born 1934) and Nick Reynolds (born 1933), from Menlo College. Guard and Shane had both been born in Hawaii, and had originally played together in high school in Honolulu. Reynolds hailed from Coronado, CA, the son of a career Navy officer, and had previously attended San Diego State and the University of Arizona before enrolling at Menlo College as a business major. He first spotted Shane asleep in the back of the hall during a very boring lecture on accounting, and the two became friends. They soon started hanging out, drinking, and chasing women together, and this, in turn, led to playing music, initially as a way of being popular at parties -- Shane's guitar and Reynolds' bongos became a fixture at local frat gatherings, and after a few weeks of this, Shane introduced Reynolds to Dave Guard.

It turned out that Hawaiian music fit in perfectly with the luaus that people were throwing locally, and Shane and Guard taught Reynolds some genuine Hawaiian songs. The group was playing at a local tavern two nights a week, but the formation of the Kingston Trio was still not quite in place. Shane returned to Hawaii for a time to work for his father's sporting goods company, and tried to become the future island state's answer to Elvis Presley as a solo act -- meanwhile, Guard and Reynolds began playing with Joe Gannon on bass and singer Barbara Bogue, and became Dave Guard & the Calypsonians. Reynolds then left for a time following his graduation and was replaced by Don McArthur in a group that was known as the Kingston Quartet.

Fate stepped in when a local publicist who'd seen the Calypsonians offered to help out the group, but only if they got rid of Gannon, whose bass playing was less than rudimentary. When he left, Bogue exited as well, and in the resulting shuffle, Reynolds and Shane (back all the way from Hawaii) were brought back into the group, now rechristened the Kingston Trio.

Their initial approach to music was determined by the skills that each member brought or, more accurately, didn't bring to the trio -- Bob Shane sang most of the lead parts simply because he had no familiarity with harmony singing, while Nick Reynolds sang a third above the melody, and Guard handled whatever was left above or below. Guard had taken some banjo lessons, but otherwise they were completely self-taught on their instruments, with Shane teaching Guard his first guitar chords while they were still in high school. Reynolds swapped his ukulele for a tenor guitar.

They were booked into the Purple Onion, a leading night spot in San Francisco, opening for comedienne Phyllis Diller. Guard then sent out postcards to 500 people that all three of them knew at Stanford and Menlo, inviting them to a week's worth of shows at the Purple Onion. The result was a series of sell-out shows, and a one-week engagement that was doubled, before the Trio got its own headlining gig at the club, lasting five months from June to December of 1957. During that summer, the group was spotted by Bob Hope's agent, Jimmy Saphier, who brought demo tapes of the trio to Dot and Capitol Records -- the latter label sent producer Voyle Gilmore, who had previously recorded Frank Sinatra and the Four Freshmen, to the Purple Onion, and a seven-year contract was signed soon after.

The group spent the next few months intensively rehearsing, refining, and polishing their act as they went along, secure in their position at the Purple Onion. They recognized that musical ability alone was not going to keep audiences entertained, and they quickly developed a comic stage banter, which grew out of their own personalities, and learned how to pace themselves, their songs, and their banter for maximum effect, and also how to make it sound spontaneous to audiences night after night.

The group followed the Purple Onion engagement with a national tour that took them to the Holiday Hotel in Reno, NV, Mr. Kelly's in Chicago, and the Village Vanguard in New York, all of them successful appearances. During this tour, the group recorded their self-titled debut album in a series of sessions held over the three days. That record contained a brace of classic Kingston Trio songs, including "Scotch and Soda," "Hard, Ain't It Hard," and "Tom Dooley." The latter song, picked up by a deejay in Salt Lake City who began playing it, became a single in July of 1958 -- it spent October through January in the Billboard Top Ten, selling over three million copies, and becoming, in the estimation of historian Bill Bush, one of that handful of records, such as Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel" and the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand," that transformed the musical landscape. In the process, the trio earned appearances on The Dinah Shore Show and The Kraft Music Hall. "Tom Dooley" was so successful that it became the basis for a feature film, The Legend of Tom Dooley -- a sort of low-budget variant on Love Me Tender -- starring Michael Landon as the doomed title character.

Their residence in San Francisco was now at the much more prestigious Hungry I. It was there that they recorded their second album, before a live audience in the summer of 1958. The album sold well despite the fact that it broke little new ground, merely showcasing the group's engaging interaction with their audience and some spirited singing. At Large, the trio's third album, was their first done in stereo, and the first recording on which the group began to change their sound, advancing it significantly from their roots. There was extensive use of overdubbing, with multiple voices, guitars, and banjos, so that there were upward of a half-dozen trio "members" heard at any one time singing and playing. By that time, they had broadened their repertory as well, to embrace R&B as well as folk songs. The trio made the cover of Life magazine on August 3, 1959, and were voted the Best Group of the Year for 1959 in the pages of both Billboard and Cashbox magazines, the twin recording industry bibles, as well as two Grammy awards.

None of this exactly pleased the serious folk audience, who felt that the Kingston Trio, in popularizing traditional songs, also cheapened them. Although the group got a reasonably enthusiastic reception at the Newport Folk Festival, they were never embraced by the folk audience of the late '50s. There was also probably some professional resentment, owing to the fact that these three college graduates in their twenties, who had never paid their dues in the labor or anti-Nazi struggles of the 1930s and '40s, or endured the frosty anti-Left political atmosphere of the early and mid-'50s, were suddenly making hundreds of thousands of dollars with the very same repertories that these serious folkies had performed for decades.

The group was, however, immensely popular with almost every segment of the mass audience, but most of all among college students, who found both relaxation and validation in their mix of folk songs, humor, and good spirits. They were sufficiently well liked by older listeners, and embraced by younger audiences to justify their appearances on television series such as The Jack Benny Show (where they mimed to their recordings of "I'm Going Home" and "Tijuana Jail," the latter sung on a set made up as -- you guessed it -- a Tijuana jail).

By the early '60s, there were lots of Kingston Trio imitators running around: the Limeliters (featuring Glenn Yarborough), who actually were contemporaries of the trio; the Highwaymen (from Wesleyan University), who scored big with "Michael"; Bud & Travis; the Journeymen, whose ranks included John Phillips and Dick Weissman, who were probably the most promising of them all; the Halifax Three (with Denny Doherty) from Canada; and, on the "big-band" folk side, the New Christy Minstrels under Randy Sparks, and the Serendipity Singers from the University of Colorado; the Big 3 (with Cass Elliot) and, later, the Shilos (featuring Gram Parsons), all capable of recording popular versions of old folk songs. None matched the trio's exposure or sales, but there was plenty of work to go around in those days, in any case -- folk music was what was happening, and other record labels and folk clubs were willing to try anything to imitate Capitol's success with the Trio. Even Roulette Records, best known for rock & roll acts and as a recording haven for veteran jazz acts such as Count Basie, had a resident folk trio in the Cumberland Three, featuring a singer/songwriter/guitarist named John Stewart. This era was later recalled and satirized in Christopher Guest's comedy A Mighty Wind, in which the Kingston Trio and other collegiate-type folk groups of the period were parodied in the guise of "the Folksmen."

The trio's record of hits continued unabated for the next two years, into 1961 -- according to Bill Bush, they accounted for 20 percent of Capitol Records' profits for the entire year of 1960, during a period when the label's roster also included such legends (and sales powerhouses) as Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. They defined the entire folk-pop genre in much the same way that the Beach Boys defined surf music and the Beatles later defined both the so-called "Merseybeat" sound and the entire British Invasion. Their influence extended far beyond their corner of the music marketplace -- the Trio not only recorded an enviable array of hits but also introduced to the world a number of songs that became hits in the hands of others, including "It Was a Very Good Year" during the 1950s and, in the early '60s, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." As a reflection of the group's impact, their manager, Frank Werber, was one of the most influential behind-the-scenes figures in music, occupying a position in early-'60s popular music not too far from that occupied by Beatles manager Brian Epstein in England from 1963 onward -- he could literally give some aspiring musician a good living and a future at the stroke of a pen, and record labels were eager to audition his clients as potential recording artists.

The Trio's youthful exuberance and mix of upbeat sensibilities and traditional songs seemed perfectly of a piece with the dawn of the Kennedy administration, and their music a veritable soundtrack for college life during the era. Before the new president had even taken office, however, the Kingston Trio faced its first major crisis. In January of 1961, amid growing differences over the musical direction of the group, Dave Guard left the Kingston Trio. The most serious and cerebral member of the group, Guard was the one who knew a lot of the folk songs, especially the songs from other countries, that the Trio had performed and recorded. His very sophistication, however, resulted in his departure, out of a desire to explore folk music on a broader level, with fewer concessions to popular taste. After leaving the Trio, Guard founded a quartet called the Whiskeyhill Singers with Judy Henske, David "Buck" Wheat (who had been the Trio's bassist), and Cyrus Faryar -- their one album for Capitol, done in a style very different from that of the Trio, met with little success, and the group later appeared on the soundtrack of the blockbuster Western How the West Was Won (1962).

The Kingston Trio carried on, however, its success unabated, with new member John Stewart, beginning in early 1961. Stewart, a onetime aspiring rock & roller who had switched to folk music and gotten two of his songs recorded by the Trio, was part of the Cumberland Three when Guard left the Kingston Trio. He was brought into the Kingston Trio following a lag of several months while Shane and Reynolds took time off -- their first break since 1958 -- and his arrival reinvigorated the Trio personally and professionally. Beginning with "Take Her out of Pity," a group original featuring Stewart's first lead vocal with the Trio, and such Stewart compositions as "Coming From the Mountains," the group continued evolving musically, and their records kept selling.

Fate intervened soon after he arrived when the group happened to catch a performance by the trio Peter, Paul & Mary, and heard their rendition of a Pete Seeger song entitled "Where Have All the Flowers Gone." The Kingston Trio duly recorded their own version of the song, which marked a new era for the group -- though the Trio had avoided being topical in a confrontational way, they had added Woody Guthrie songs such as "Pastures of Plenty" to their repertory during the Guard era, and recorded the anti-Nazi ballad "Reuben James" on their first album with Stewart, and introduced some politics in their concerts as time went by; College Concert, recorded in December of 1961, included the comment in the intro of "Goin' Away for to Leave You" describing a piece of square dance music requiring the dancer to throw one's partner "as far right as possible" as "the John Birch Polka," a reference to the ultra-right wing John Birch Society (whose followers believed, among other things, that President [and former General of the Army] Dwight Eisenhower was a communist stooge).

The Trio's version of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" reached number 21, not as high a place as many of their earlier singles, on the pop charts, but it also got picked up by a new category of radio station and listener, making number four on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. More than that, as a song of social protest and serious intent, it became the favorite Trio song for millions of younger folk listeners who had come along in the years since "Tom Dooley." What's more, the timing of the single could not have been better if it had been planned -- it gave the previously apolitical group an antiwar statement to their credit on the pop charts, just as American college campuses were slowly becoming politicized again for the first time since the 1940s; and although American troops' involvement in combat in Vietnam was still a few years away, the Cuban Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962 spurred a small but vocal antiwar movement into existence, whose members often overlapped with the folk music audience.

The trio was still doing standing-room-only business into 1962 and early 1963 -- by then they'd even recorded one song that expressed the goals and hopes of the burgeoning civil rights movement, "Road to Freedom" on the album #16. The mere fact that it was their 16th album posed problems for the Trio, however -- coming up behind them were performing groups that were more directly political than they were, and more attuned to the next wave of folk music. Where the Trio did Seeger and Guthrie songs, other performers, most notably Peter, Paul & Mary, had picked up on the compositions of Guthrie's self-appointed successor, Bob Dylan, and were soon topping the charts and raising the public consciousness with recordings of "Blowin' in the Wind" and other songs.

The Kingston Trio, by contrast, still had pure entertainment as a big part of their image and purpose, and looked too much like part of the establishment. It was a problem similar to that of the Chad Mitchell Trio, rivals to the Kingston Trio, who had embraced some of Dylan's work (but, thanks to a producer's misjudgment, never issued any of it as singles), and who were known to be "irreverent" -- "irreverent" was fine for comics and entertainers, and acceptable to parents, but it made the Mitchell Trio and the Kingston Trio seem like establishment lackeys, while Dylan (and, to a lesser degree, Phil Ochs) were generating in-your-face challenges to a ton of social and political assumptions that helped hold campuses (or, at least, the communities where they were based) together, in Dylan's case in a voice that was equal parts Woody Guthrie, Dave Van Ronk, and Furry Lewis, and none of it "pretty" in the traditional sense that middle-class audience defined pretty.

By 1962, there was a split in the folk music audience. On one side was the newly identified topical folk audience, principally younger college students and more serious high-school students, augmented by older activist-oriented types who had kept their heads down and their profiles low for most of the late '50s. They identified with Seeger, Guthrie, Lee Hays, and the leftist/union background of the Almanac Singers, which extended into modern politics in antiwar sentiment and a deepening involvement in the civil rights movement. They didn't constitute a majority of listeners, even on many college campuses, but they were committed to folk music and their dedicated attendance at concerts and clubs amplified their influence. On the other side were the pop-folk listeners, or what the leftist listeners would have called the right-wing folk audience. It wasn't that groups like the Kingston Trio or the New Christy Minstrels were right-wing (even if the Minstrels' first Columbia album featured a quote endorsing them from former President Dwight Eisenhower -- Ike was hardly an ideologue, but it would be difficult to imagine him endorsing Bob Dylan's first album, also issued on Columbia), so much as simply offering music that -- the occasional topical, purposeful song aside -- tended to be upbeat and enjoyable without a lot of heavy-lifting in the analysis department. Others would say that the Kingston Trio and their like didn't exploit folk music for political purposes.

The Trio might've survived the loss of the folk listeners, and gotten through this period with their audience of middle-of-the-road college students, augmented with younger children (whose parents always regarded folk music as a safe haven), and older listeners, except that those middle-brow college students had no real commitment to folk music; they liked what sounded good to them, and by early 1963, they were ready to move on to other sounds. The kids going to college in 1962 and 1963, after all, had grown up with rock & roll as part of their musical environment, and while the student attending college in, say, 1957-1961 might've thought of Elvis Presley or Jerry Lee Lewis or Chuck Berry as beneath him, the college student of the early '60s was a lot more flexible.

And just about then, a new wave of rock & roll acts had begun emerging, heralded by the Beach Boys (ironically, also a Capitol act, and who wore striped shirts remarkably like those of the Kingston Trio), the Kingsmen, and similar others. Along with a growing number of R&B-based acts, this music began drawing away the more boisterous, fun-loving segment of the college audience that had always been part of the Trio's core fandom. The situation that the group faced was summed up, albeit in hindsight, in the movie Animal House, in the toga party scene. A drunk Bluto Blutarsky (John Belushi) comes staggering down the stairs, passing a folksinger serenading a group of coeds with "The Cherry Song" ("I gave my love a cherry that had no stone...."), reaches over, smashes the singer's guitar to bits, and stumbles on, muttering, "sorry," while Sam Cooke's "Twistin' the Night Away" plays in the background.

With the college audience gone, all that the Trio could find as listeners were the folkies. But on that stage, they found themselves undercut by the likes of Bob Dylan on the left and Peter, Paul & Mary from the center. The Kingston Trio found themselves swamped by a wave of relevance and topicality on one side and their seeming musical irrelevance on the other. Their sales plummeted toward the end of 1963, and the arrival of the Beatles and the British Invasion in early 1964 sealed their fate. Capitol Records clearly had bigger fish to fry, and in the late spring of that year they and the label parted company.

The Trio continued recording and performing, first for Decca before calling it quits in June of 1967. Ironically, they still had an ear for good songs -- "I'm Going Home" was as fine a folk-style single as anyone recorded in 1964, and they subsequently did excellent recordings of works such as Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing on My Mind" and "Where I'm Bound," and Gordon Lightfoot's "Early Morning Rain." But the group that had so embodied the confidence and boldness of the Kennedy years seemed totally out of place in Lyndon Johnson's America, with its campuses torn by antiwar protests and its inner cities ablaze in racial strife. Ironically, the same month that the Beatles and Capitol Records were to release yet another album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, that would effect a seismic shift in popular music, few people noticed the Trio's farewell gig at the Hungry I in San Francisco on June 17. Stewart went on to become a very successful songwriter ("Daydream Believer") and recording artist ("Gold"). Nick Reynolds left the music business, moving to Oregon, where he ranched sheep and ran a theater, among other activities. Dave Guard remained active as a musician until his death from cancer in March of 1991, writing several music instruction books and becoming deeply involved with what had become known as world music.

Bob Shane had opposed the breakup, however, and in 1972 re-formed the Kingston Trio (initially as the New Kingston Trio), amid the same '50s nostalgia boom that had already given performers like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley new careers. By the late '70s, with George Grove and Roger Gambill joining Shane, the group had found a small but enthusiastic audience. In 1981, as part of a concert taped for a public television broadcast, the current and former group members gathered together into a sort of Kingston Trio mega-group (à la Yes on Union), of Bob Shane, Nick Reynolds, Dave Guard, John Stewart, George Grove, and Roger Gambill, with Mary Travers as host, with Lindsey Buckingham -- a longtime Trio fan -- as special guest. The untimely death of Gambill in the late '80s led to Nick Reynolds rejoining, and the Kingston Trio has kept going, as a sort of "folk oldies" outfit, into 1999. A current version of the group, featuring Shane, Grove, and new member Bob Haworth (born 1946), who succeeded Nick Reynolds on the latter's retirement in 1999, continued working through 2004, nearly 50 years after Guard, Shane, and Reynolds first started singing together. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Bob Gibson
Genre: Folk
Decades: 3968
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

While Bob Gibson's recordings may sound like run-of-the-mill white-boy folk to modern listeners, he played an important role in popularizing folk music to American audiences in the 1950s at the very beginning of the folk boom. His 12-string guitar style influenced performers like Gordon Lightfoot and Harry Chapin; he was a mainstay at one of the... [+] Read More

While Bob Gibson's recordings may sound like run-of-the-mill white-boy folk to modern listeners, he played an important role in popularizing folk music to American audiences in the 1950s at the very beginning of the folk boom. His 12-string guitar style influenced performers like Gordon Lightfoot and Harry Chapin; he was a mainstay at one of the first established folk clubs in the U.S., the Gate of Horn in Chicago; and he wrote songs with Shel Silverstein and Phil Ochs, as well as performing in a duo with Hamilton Camp. Most of all, he was one of the first folkies on the scene--when he began performing and recording in the mid-'50s, there was hardly anyone else playing guitar-based folk music for an educated, relatively affluent audience.

Gibson was a salesman for a developmental reading company before he was inspired by take up folk music in 1954, after hearing Pete Seeger perform. He learned Jamaican music while working cruise boats off Florida, and taught some to the Terriers, who recorded the "Banana Boat Song" (made famous by Harry Belafonte). On his first recordings for the Riverside label in the late '50s, he played banjo and 12-string guitar with light accompaniment, presenting a wide assortment of traditional folk tunes, as well as some originals.

Gibson helped Joan Baez and Phil Ochs in their early days, and was managed by Albert Grossman, who later handled the affairs of such giants as Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul & Mary. In fact, Gibson has said that Grossman wanted to team Bob and Hamilton Camp up with a female singer before hitting upon the same type of trio approach with Peter, Paul & Mary, although Gibson wasn't interested in the idea. But Gibson probably was a little too retro for bigtime folk success in the '60s anyway. He was older than most of the performers on the scene, and his approach too tame and clean-cut, even though he and similar performers had helped created the sparks of the folk boom just by playing such material to begin with. In the latter period of his life he did continue to perform in Chicago, and help out with programs for that's city's Old Town School of Folk Music. He died in September 1996 at the age of 64. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Sandy Denny
Genre: Folk
Decades: 768
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Maddy Prior, Jacqui McShee, and June Tabor all give her a run for her money, but the late Sandy Denny remains the pre-eminent British folk-rock singer. In addition to recording several albums of her own, Denny was an integral force behind the best work of the most respected British folk-rock band of all, Fairport Convention, and also contributed... [+] Read More

Maddy Prior, Jacqui McShee, and June Tabor all give her a run for her money, but the late Sandy Denny remains the pre-eminent British folk-rock singer. In addition to recording several albums of her own, Denny was an integral force behind the best work of the most respected British folk-rock band of all, Fairport Convention, and also contributed mightily to recordings by the Strawbs and Fotheringay. It's impossible for words to fully evoke the haunting, spectral presence of her powerful and penetrating alto voice, which seemed to bring the mythology of English moors and folktales to life in contemporary, 20th century settings.

Denny was studying to be a nurse when she began to pursue music seriously in the mid-'60s, partially at the encouragement of the then-struggling Simon & Garfunkel, whom she met when they were still unknown. She was also friendly with the American folk singer Jackson Frank, and recorded a couple of his songs on her first album (now available as The Original Sandy Denny). While this solo acoustic recording was her most traditional folk effort, it showed considerable potential, which she came closer to realizing on the 1967 album she recorded as a member of the Strawbs. This found her singing with fuller folk-rock arrangements, and also included her first recorded composition, "Who Knows Where the Time Goes." The song gave Denny her first international recognition when Judy Collins recorded it in 1968.

Denny was tapped to replace Judy Dyble in Fairport Convention in 1968, and is prominently featured on their late-'60s albums What We Did on Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking, and Liege and Lief. These are not only recognized as Fairport's best work, but as some of the finest British folk-rock records of all time. Although Denny shared the lead vocal chores with other members of the group, it was her singing that highlighted the best tracks, such as "Tam Lin," "Fotheringay," and "Autopsy" (the last two of which she wrote).

Denny left Fairport Convention in 1970, and while both she and Fairport would produce some worthwhile work in the future, it's fair to say that neither band nor singer would reach the same peaks again. She formed the short-lived Fotheringay, which also included her future husband Trevor Lucas on guitar, but which disbanded after one decent album (a planned second LP was never completed). She recorded a few solo albums for Island in the 1970s that sometimes suffered from unsympathetic over-production and weak material, though the highlights are worth hearing. There was also an unremarkable album of oldies covers that she helped out with as a member of the Bunch, a British folk supersession of sorts that also included Richard Thompson. When mainstream rock listeners heard her voice in the 1970s, however, it was usually not on her own records, but as a guest vocalist on Led Zeppelin's "The Battle of Evermore."

Much of the best of Denny's later solo work, oddly, is found on live and BBC recordings, some of which surfaced on the box set Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (others appear on the bootleg Dark the Night). While Denny was a first-rate folk-rock singer, she usually didn't mesh well with mainstream rock or hard rock arrangements, and the live work usually framed her vocals in more appropriately sparse settings. She joined Fairport again for a while in the mid-'70s, appearing on the 1975 album Rising for the Moon, but the reunion didn't really excite either the participants or the audiences, and she left for good in 1976. Her final LP, Rendezvous, came out in 1977; the following year, she died from injuries sustained in a fall down a flight of stairs. In 1998, Island released Gold Dust, a recording of her final live performance taped at London's Royalty Theatre on November 27, 1977. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Joan Baez
Genre: Folk
Decades: 8064
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

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

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, Baez first gained recognition at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival, then cut her debut album, Joan Baez (October 1960), for Vanguard Records. It was made up of 13 traditional songs, some of them children's ballads, given near-definitive treatment. A moderate success on release, the album took off after the breakthrough of Joan Baez, Vol. 2 (September 1961), and both albums became huge hits, as did Baez's third album, Joan Baez in Concert, Pt. 1 (September 1962). Each album went gold and stayed in the bestseller charts more than two years.

From 1962 to 1964, Baez was the popular face of folk music, headlining festivals and concert tours and singing at political events, including the August 1963 March on Washington. During this period, she began to champion the work of folk songwriter Bob Dylan, and gradually her repertoire moved from traditional material toward the socially conscious work of the emerging generation of '60s artists like him. Her albums of this period were Joan Baez in Concert, Pt. 2 (November 1963) and Joan Baez 5 (October 1964), which contained her cover of Phil Ochs' "There But for Fortune," a Top Ten hit in the U.K.

Like other popular folk performers, Baez was affected by the changes in popular music wrought by the appearance of the Beatles in the U.S. in 1964 and Dylan's introduction of folk-rock in 1965, and she began to augment her simple acoustic guitar backing with other instruments, initially on Farewell, Angelina (October 1965). It was followed by a Christmas album, Noël (October 1966), and Joan (August 1967), albums on which she was accompanied by an orchestra conducted by Peter Schickele. Baez continued to experiment in the late '60s, releasing Baptism (June 1968), in which she recited poetry, and Any Day Now (December 1968), a double album of Dylan songs done with country backing, which went gold.

In March 1968, Baez had married antiwar protest leader David Harris, who was imprisoned as a draft evader. Harris was a country music fan, and Baez's turn toward country, which continued on David's Album (June 1969) and One Day at a Time (March 1970), reflected his taste. Blessed Are... (August 1971) was a gold-selling double album that spawned a gold Top Ten hit in Baez's cover of the Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." It was followed by Carry It On (December 1971), the soundtrack to a documentary about Baez and Harris. Baez switched record label affiliation to A&M Records with Come from the Shadows (May 1972), which moved her in a more pop direction. Where Are You Now, My Son? (May 1973) included sounds taped during Baez's visit to Hanoi in December 1972.

In the late '60s and early '70s, Baez moved toward pop/rock music and also began to write her own songs, culminating in the gold-selling Diamonds & Rust (April 1975), which was followed by the entirely self-written Gulf Winds (October 1976). Baez moved to the Portrait label of CBS Records with Blowin' Away (June 1977), but she left the label after Honest Lullaby (May 1979), and her next album, European Tour (1980), was released only outside the U.S. It was another seven years before she found an American record label, Gold Castle, for Recently (1987), which was followed by the live album Diamonds & Rust in the Bullring (January 1989) and Speaking of Dreams (October 1989). Baez moved to Virgin Records for Play Me Backwards (August 1992).

In 1993, Vanguard released Rare, Live & Classic, a three-CD boxed set retrospective. Ring Them Bells, a live album on which Baez was joined by musical descendants like Mary Chapin Carpenter and Indigo Girls, came out on Guardian Records in 1995. Gone from Danger, her first studio album in five years, followed in 1997, and it was another six years before the release of Dark Chords on a Big Guitar in 2003. A November 2004 concert in New York was documented on the 2005 release Bowery Songs. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Judy Collins
Genre: Folk
Decades: 8064
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Judy Collins was one of the major interpretive folksingers of the '60s. A child prodigy at classical piano, she turned to folk music at the age of 15 and released her first album, A Maid of Constant Sorrow, in 1961 when she was 22. That album and its follow-up, The Golden Apples of the Sun, consisted of traditional folk material, with Collins's... [+] Read More

Judy Collins was one of the major interpretive folksingers of the '60s. A child prodigy at classical piano, she turned to folk music at the age of 15 and released her first album, A Maid of Constant Sorrow, in 1961 when she was 22. That album and its follow-up, The Golden Apples of the Sun, consisted of traditional folk material, with Collins's pure, sweet soprano accompanied by her acoustic guitar playing. By the time of Judy Collins #3, she had begun to turn to contemporary material and to add other musicians. (Jim, later Roger, McGuinn tried out his first arrangements of "The Bells of Rhymney" and "Turn, Turn, Turn" on this album, before using them with The Byrds.)

Collins's musical horizons were expanded further by 1966 and the release of In My Life, which added theater music to her repertoire and introduced her audience to the writing of Leonard Cohen; it was one of her six albums to go gold. Her first gold-seller, however, was 1967's Wildflowers, which contained her hit version of "Both Sides Now" by the then-little-known songwriter Joni Mitchell.

By the '70s, Collins had come to be identified as much as an art song singer as a folksinger and had also begun to make a mark with her original compositions. Her best-known performances cover a wide stylistic range: the traditional gospel song "Amazing Grace," the Stephen Sondheim Broadway ballad "Send in the Clowns," and such songs of her own as "My Father" and "Born to the Breed." Collins recorded less frequently after the end of her 23-year association with Elektra Records in 1984, though she made two albums for Gold Castle. In 1990, she signed to Columbia Records and released Fires of Eden, her 23rd album. A move to Geffen preceded the 1993 release of Judy Sings Dylan...Just Like a Woman; Shameless followed on Atlantic in 1994. Six years later, Collins released the Christmas album All on a Wintry Night. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Elizabeth Cotten
Genre: Folk
Decades: 1920
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Elizabeth Cotten was among the most influential guitarists to surface during the roots music revival era, her wonderfully expressive and dexterous finger-picking style a major inspiration to the generations of players who followed in her wake. Cotten was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in the early weeks of 1893; after first picking up the... [+] Read More

Elizabeth Cotten was among the most influential guitarists to surface during the roots music revival era, her wonderfully expressive and dexterous finger-picking style a major inspiration to the generations of players who followed in her wake. Cotten was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in the early weeks of 1893; after first picking up the banjo at the age of eight, she soon moved on to her brother's guitar, laying it flat on her lap and over time developing her picking pattern and eventually her chording. By the age of 12 she was working as a domestic, and three years later gave birth to her first child; upon joining the church, she gave up the guitar, playing it only on the rarest of occasions over the course of the next quarter century. By the early 1940s, Cotten had relocated to Washington, D.C., where she eventually began working for the legendary Charles Seeger family and caring for children Pete, Peggy and Mike.

When the Seegers learned of Cotten's guitar skills a decade later, they recorded her for Folkways, and in 1957 she issued her debut LP, Folksongs and Instrumentals. The track "Freight Train," written when she was 12, became a Top Five hit in the U.K., and its success ensured her a handful of concert performances. The great interest in her music spurred her to write new material, which appeared on her second album, Shake Sugaree. As Cotten became increasingly comfortable performing live, her presentation evolved, and in addition to playing guitar she told stories about her life and even led her audiences in singing her songs; over the years, she recalled more and more tunes from her childhood, and in the course of tours also learned new material. Cotten did not retire from domestic work until 1970, and did not tour actively until the end of the decade; the winner of a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship Award as well as a Grammy -- both earned during the final years of her life -- she died on June 29, 1987. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Phil Ochs
Genre: Folk
Decades: 768
summary  |  albums  |  songs  |  bio  |  similar  |  news  |  reviews

Singer/songwriter Phil Ochs was a self-coined "singing journalist" when he began performing in New York in the early '60s. Like Bob Dylan, the rival who always outpaced him, Ochs made his reputation singing topical protest songs. He stayed with them much longer than Dylan (and indeed would never really abandon them), but eventually he too would... [+] Read More

Singer/songwriter Phil Ochs was a self-coined "singing journalist" when he began performing in New York in the early '60s. Like Bob Dylan, the rival who always outpaced him, Ochs made his reputation singing topical protest songs. He stayed with them much longer than Dylan (and indeed would never really abandon them), but eventually he too would follow Dylan into electric music and more personal, abstract, and romantic compositions. Ochs came off as a perennial second-best to critics during his heyday. It was only after his tragic tailspin and eventual death that he was properly appreciated as one of the most sincere and humane songwriters of his day, whether detailing political atrocities or more poetic concerns.

Ochs moved from Ohio to New York in the early '60s, and was soon a prolific writer of the topical, left-leaning protest songs then in vogue. His initial recording efforts, heard on compilations for Broadside, Folkways, and Vanguard, were rather dry and instantly dated. By the time made his Elektra debut in 1964 with All the News That's Fit to Sing, Ochs was finding his own voice -- more melodic than Dylan (if not as lyrically innovative), its strident accusations tempered by a warm delivery and underlying compassion. With second guitar by Danny Kalb (later of the Blues Project), his first album was highlighted by "Power and the Glory" and "Bound for Glory," as well as an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Bells." The similar follow-up I Ain't Marching Any More (1965) gave the anti-war movement two rallying calls with the title track and "Draft Dodger Rag," along with a moving civil-rights piece, "Here's to the State of Mississippi."

Ochs addressed all manner of anti-war, civil rights, labor, and social justice issues on his first albums, the best of which was In Concert (1966). Ochs' social criticism was deepening in acuity, as heard on "Canons of Christianity," "Cops of the World," and the satirical "Love Me, I'm a Liberal." But he also began to move into non-political subjects with equal or greater effect, as on "There But for Fortune" and "Changes," his most famous love song.

In Concert was Ochs' final acoustic album. He'd already moved into electric rock with a fine (though flop) single-only version of "I Ain't Marching Anymore." In 1967, he broke from his acoustic folk troubadour image with a vengeance, leaving Elektra for A&M and moving to Los Angeles. There he plunged into Baroque folk-rock, with mixed results. Some of the tracks on his late-'60s A&M records are among the best he ever did, especially the devastating social apathy parody "Outside a Small Circle of Friends." On others, he seemed to be overreaching or straining for highbrow poetry. The L.A. session production sometimes enhanced his musical settings, but the more elaborate and pretentious arrangements worked against the material just as often.

Ochs hadn't forsaken his political commitments, appearing at the violence-riddled 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. By 1969's Rehearsals for Retirement, some weariness and disenchantment with idealism was beginning to seep into both his compositions and his singing. The problems became more acute with 1970's facetiously titled Greatest Hits, when the standard of his material began to drop noticeably.

Although it wasn't foreseen at the time, Greatest Hits was his last studio album. Ochs did remain active, recording a live LP (initially released only in Canada) that excited controversy with its strange mix of original songs and unexpected covers of old rock & roll tunes by Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, performed in a gold lamé suit. The '50s revival act was received poorly by an audience accustomed to a folkie troubadour, but that was among the least of Ochs' obstacles. His well of original compositions had run dry, and he was developing severe alcohol and psychological problems. In a mysterious mugging incident in Africa, his voice was permanently damaged.

Ochs did record a couple of flop singles in the early '70s, but by the middle of the decade he was largely inactive, and afflicted with serious depression. In early 1976, he hanged himself at his sister's suburban home. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide [-] Hide