During the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s, the NLCR introduced the authentic string-band sound of the 1920s and '30s, in the process educating a generation that had never heard this uniquely American sound of old-time music. While maintaining music with a social conscience, they added guts and reality to the folk movement, performing... [+] Read More

During the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s, the NLCR introduced the authentic string-band sound of the 1920s and '30s, in the process educating a generation that had never heard this uniquely American sound of old-time music. While maintaining music with a social conscience, they added guts and reality to the folk movement, performing with humor and obvious reverence for the music.

Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tom Paley in 1958 modeled their band after groups like the Skillet Lickers, the Fruit Jar Drinkers, and the Aristocratic Pigs, choosing a name in keeping with the past. When Tracy Schwarz replaced Paley in 1962, The Ramblers added solo songs from the Appalachian folk repertoire, religious and secular, educating a large segment of the American population about traditional music. Folkways recorded the NLCR on five albums in the early 60s, making the Ramblers famous and leading to TV appearances, successful tours, and appearances at the Newport Folk Festival. A songbook with 125 of their songs came out in 1964 and sold well.

The NLCR served at least three important purposes: They brought real folk music to a huge audience, they entertained us well with their highly entertaining acts, and they led us to rediscover the original music on which they had based their band. Tracy Schwarz went on the road with his wife and then his son, gradually leaning toward Cajun squeezebox music; Mike Seeger toured with his wife, Alice, and did many solo spots; and John Cohen continued playing in another string band, while making award-winning documentaries about the old music. ~ David Vinopal, All Music Guide [-] Hide

The half-sister of Pete Seeger and the widow of Ewan MacColl, singer/songwriter Peggy Seeger continued her family's long history of championing and preserving traditional music, most notably emerging as a seminal figure in the British folksong revival of the 1960s. Born June 17, 1935 in New York City, her mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger, was... [+] Read More

The half-sister of Pete Seeger and the widow of Ewan MacColl, singer/songwriter Peggy Seeger continued her family's long history of championing and preserving traditional music, most notably emerging as a seminal figure in the British folksong revival of the 1960s. Born June 17, 1935 in New York City, her mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger, was herself an influential composer and folklorist, as well as the first woman ever awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship Award for Music, while her father, Charles Louis Seeger, was a pioneering ethnomusicologist and the inventor of the melograph, an electronic musical notation instrument. Raised in the company of brothers Pete (widely hailed as the father of the American folk revival of the postwar era) and Mike (also a noted recording artist and the leader of the New Lost City Ramblers), Peggy began playing the piano at the age of seven, and within a few years began transcribing pieces of music. In the years to follow she also learned to play guitar, five-string banjo, autoharp, Appalachian dulcimer and English concertina, later majoring in music at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts; there she first began performing professionally.

In 1955, Seeger continued her studies in the Netherlands, later traveling throughout much of Europe and even into Africa; that same year, she issued the Folkways ten-inch Folksongs of Courting and Complaint. In 1959 she settled in London, where she became involved with MacColl, the famed British musician and playwright. In the decades which followed prior to MacColl's 1989 death, the couple toured the world singing, lecturing and preaching the importance of the British folk song tradition, typically emphasizing the connections between roots music and sociopolitical activism. Over time, Seeger's own original songs adopted an ardently feminist slant; she and MacColl also headed the controversial London Critics Group, producing an annual political theatre production titled The Festival of Fools. They also operated and regularly performed at the folk venue the Singers Club, and formed their own record label, Blackthorne; most important, however, was their work with BBC producer Charles Parker in developing the radio-ballad, a groundbreaking musical documentary form combining field recordings of speech and sound effects with new songs in the folk idiom and complementary instrumental accompaniment.

From the mid-1950s onward, Seeger recorded regularly, cutting both original material and traditional compositions as a solo artist and in collaboration with MacColl as well as artists including Guy Carawan, Ralph Rinzler and siblings Mike and Penny; among her key LPs are 1961's Two-Way Trip, 1973's At the Present Moment, 1977's Penelope Isn't Waiting Anymore and the oft-released American Folk Songs for Children, an assembly of material originally collected by her mother. Seeger's best-known original compositions include "Gonna Be an Engineer," which emerged as an anthem of the women's movement, and "The Ballad of Springhill," penned about the Nova Scotia mining disaster. Seeger also wrote music for a number of films, television programs and radio plays. After MacColl's death, she began working with the traditional Irish singer Irene Scott under the name No Spring Chickens, and together the duo formed a record label, Golden Egg. In late 1994, Seeger moved back to the United States, some four decades after first relocating to the U.K.; a year later, she completed work on the collections The Peggy Seeger Songbook, Warts and All and The Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook. Almost Commercially Viable followed in fall 2000. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Tom Paxton proved to be one of the most durable of the singer/songwriters to emerge from the Greenwich Village folk revival scene of the early '60s. In some ways, he had more in common with the late-'50s generation of folksingers such as Dave Van Ronk (who was 16 months his senior) and even older performers than with the new crop of... [+] Read More

Tom Paxton proved to be one of the most durable of the singer/songwriters to emerge from the Greenwich Village folk revival scene of the early '60s. In some ways, he had more in common with the late-'50s generation of folksingers such as Dave Van Ronk (who was 16 months his senior) and even older performers than with the new crop of singer/songwriters with whom he tended to be associated, such as Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs (both of whom were several years his junior). But like Dylan and Ochs, and unlike Van Ronk, Paxton was a songwriter caught up in the left-wing political movements of the time and inspired to compose topical and protest songs. In general, his tended to be more lighthearted than theirs (the musical satirist Tom Lehrer was at least as much of an influence on him as Woody Guthrie), though he could be just as witty and just as harshly critical of his opponents. Like such mentors as Pete Seeger, and unlike Dylan, he never cared to make much of a transition to the mainstream, never picked up an electric guitar and tried to play rock & roll. (None of his many albums ever reached the Top 100, and he never scored a chart single as a recording artist.) Nor did he burn out in the '70s like Ochs. Instead, he kept on, year in and year out, writing and singing songs that commented, often humorously, on the state of the body politic. He also contributed more than a few love songs, some songs of joyous celebration, and especially later in his career, many children's songs. In fact, his biggest successes as a songwriter, the songs that became hits for others and were covered over and over, proving to be his most valuable copyrights, fit into these respective categories: "The Last Thing on My Mind" (by far his most popular work), "Bottle of Wine," and "The Marvelous Toy." But other artists were also attracted to such socially conscious compositions as "What Did You Learn in School Today?" and "Whose Garden Was This?," as well as reflective, melancholy songs like "Ramblin' Boy" and "I Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound."

Born in Chicago on Halloween in 1937, Paxton moved with his family to Bristow, OK, in 1948, when he was ten; his father died soon after. His first musical instrument was the trumpet, but he next took up the ukulele, and in the summer of 1954 an aunt gave him his first guitar. In 1955, he matriculated at the University of Oklahoma at Norman, initially as a drama major. There he became interested in folk music and began writing songs. He graduated in 1959 with a BFA and acted in summer stock, though his main interest had shifted to singing. He went into the army reserve early in 1960, and that spring was stationed at Fort Dix, NJ, which allowed him to begin going into New York City and performing at the amateur-night hootenannies in Greenwich Village clubs. When he finished active duty in September 1960, he settled in New York. He began making his name both as a singer in such clubs as the Gaslight and the Bitter End, and as a songwriter, publishing songs in the folk magazines Broadside and Sing Out!. When Mike Pugh left the Chad Mitchell Trio, Paxton auditioned to replace him; Joe Frazier eventually won out instead, but the group and its music director, Milt Okun, were impressed by Paxton's songs, resulting in his association with the song publishing company Cherry Lane. On March 19, 1962, the trio sang his composition "Come Along Home (Tom's Song)" at an appearance at the Bitter End recorded for their album, The Chad Mitchell Trio at the Bitter End, which was released on Kapp Records that summer.

In the fall of 1962, Paxton recorded his debut album, I'm the Man Who Built the Bridges, at the Gaslight, and it was issued by Gaslight Records, which pressed 2,000 copies. Included on the album were the original versions of such songs as the romantic ballad "Every Time," "The Marvelous Toy," and another children's song, "Goin' to the Zoo." In early May 1963, at a reunion concert by the Weavers at Carnegie Hall, Pete Seeger performed Paxton's song "Ramblin' Boy." The song was included on an album drawn from the show, Reunion at Carnegie Hall 1963, released by Vanguard Records. The following month, Seeger played a solo concert in the same venue and sang three Paxton songs, "Ramblin' Boy," "A Little Brand New Baby," and the satirical "What Did You Learn in School Today?" This show also was recorded, and an LP drawn from it was released on Columbia Records in the fall of 1963 under the title We Shall Overcome, including "What Did You Learn in School Today?" (In 1989, a double CD of the show was released by Columbia/Legacy, We Shall Overcome: The Complete Carnegie Hall Concert, featuring all three Paxton songs.) Also that fall came the next Chad Mitchell Trio album, Blowin' in the Wind, which contained two Paxton compositions, both from his Gaslight LP, "Willie Seton" and "The Marvelous Toy." "The Marvelous Toy" was released as a single, and it peaked at number 43 in January 1964.

Paxton, meanwhile, had increased his profile as a performer, appearing at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, which was recorded by Vanguard. His army experience was reflected in the song Vanguard chose for its Newport Broadside LP, "The Willing Conscript," a comic conversation between a drill sergeant and a recruit who has "never killed before" and is seeking advice on how to do so. A month after the Newport concert, on August 5, 1963, Paxton married Margaret Ann Cummings, known as Midge. The couple had two daughters. Paxton also performed at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, which Vanguard again recorded, but the label didn't issue any of his work from it until the release of its Paxton compilation Best of the Vanguard Years 36 years later. Paxton's success as a performer and songwriter led Vanguard's main rival for the title of leading folk label, Elektra Records, to sign him in 1964, and his label debut, Ramblin' Boy, appeared that fall. In addition to the songwriter's version of the title tune and "What Did You Learn in School Today?," it contained two career-making songs, the romantic ballad "The Last Thing on My Mind" and "I Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound." The latter song was released simultaneously by the Chad Mitchell Trio under the title "I Can't Help But Wonder" on their Mercury Records album Singin' Our Mind; the short-lived Au Go-Go Singers (featuring Stephen Stills and Richie Furay) also covered it on their sole album, They Call Us Au Go-Go Singers, released on Roulette Records in 1964. The following year, the Kingston Trio put it on their Stay Awhile LP (an album that also featured Paxton's rowdy drinking song "Bottle of Wine") under the title "Where I'm Bound," and after that the covers multiplied, with a wide variety of artists, including Dion and even Tiny Tim, taking their turns.

"The Last Thing on My Mind" dwarfed that success, however. A song of regret over the loss of a relationship possessing some of the emotional distancing of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" (though none of that song's bellicosity) and the later hit "Always on My Mind," it finds a lover telling his departing companion that "I could have loved you better, didn't mean to be unkind/You know that was the last thing on my mind." It quickly became a standard. In 1965 alone, covers appeared on chart albums by the Mitchell Trio, Peter, Paul & Mary (another Milt Okun act), and Marianne Faithfull. After that, "The Last Thing on My Mind" spread to country artists, earning recordings by Charley Pride and Hank Locklin in 1967 before the duo of Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton released it as a single that peaked at number seven in the country charts in early 1968. Rock acts such as the Move and the Vejtables tried their hands before Neil Diamond put it on his 1971 MCA album Stones, and after Diamond left MCA in 1973, the label belated released it as a single that peaked at number 56 on the pop chart. The list of other artists who have recorded "The Last Thing on My Mind" includes Bill Anderson, Chet Atkins, Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, Glen Campbell, Judy Collins, Sandy Denny, José Feliciano, Flatt & Scruggs, Anne Murray, Willie Nelson, the Seekers, and Hank Snow.

But if Paxton had created some copyrights that would be valuable over the long term, he had not sold many records himself. By the fall of 1964, the Beatles and their British Invasion had swamped the commercial folk field along with the rest of American pop music, and folk musicians were on their way out as national stars unless, like Bob Dylan soon would, they adapted to rock music. Ramblin' Boy did not sell well enough to reach the charts, and neither did Paxton's second Elektra album, Ain't That News, released in the fall of 1965. Here, Paxton reflected liberals' increasing opposition to the Vietnam War, which had seen escalated U.S. involvement during the year, particularly in "Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation." Paxton also recorded his version of "Bottle of Wine." He may not have expected that song to become one of his evergreens, but two years later, the Fireballs cut a rocking cover of it for Atco Records that peaked in the Top Ten in March 1968. Five years after that, Doc & Merle Watson's version made it into the country charts.

Paxton's third Elektra album, Outward Bound, was released in September 1966 and found him ignoring the folk-rock trend, employing as usual just a couple of backing musicians. His fourth, Morning Again, did not turn up until the spring of 1968, by which time the Sgt. Pepper era of pop psychedelia had come and largely gone, but had encouraged him to try the same sort of chamber pop style being used by his labelmate Judy Collins. He finally broke into the pop charts with The Things I Notice Now in the summer of 1969 and also charted with Tom Paxton 6 in the spring of 1970, a strong collection that featured the satiric "Forest Lawn" (a Los Angeles cemetery) and the environmental lament "Whose Garden Was This." Both songs were quickly taken up by former Mitchell Trio singer (and Milt Okun client) John Denver, who even titled an RCA album after the latter tune. Denver was a major Paxton booster who also recorded his songs "The Ballad of Spiro Agnew," "Bet on the Blues," and "Jimmy Newman," among others, over the course of his career.

Paxton, meanwhile, had become dissatisfied with the state of his career in the U.S.; he seemed to be more popular in Great Britain, where Tom Paxton 6 had made the Top 25. After performing a June 1970 show at the Bitter End that Elektra recorded for a final release, the two-LP set The Complete Tom Paxton (issued in the spring of 1971), he moved his family to England. There he signed to the U.K. branch of Warner Bros. Records, which released his next album, How Come the Sun, on its Reprise imprint in the summer of 1971. The album gave him his highest chart ranking in the U.S., but that ranking was only number 120, and Peace Will Come, released in the summer of 1972, barely reached the charts at all. Once again, Paxton completed his label commitment with a live album, New Songs for Old Friends, recorded at the Marquee Club in London and issued in the summer of 1973. (Among those new songs was "Wasn't That a Party?," which was covered by the Rovers for a Top 40 hit in 1981.) He moved his family back to the U.S., where they settled on Long Island.

Paxton's departure from Warner Bros. marked the end of his working for major record labels, where he had never felt well treated, anyway. (He was known to joke that his Warner albums were released at midnight and out of print by dawn.) He signed to the Bradley label in the U.K. and recorded his first children's album, The Tom Paxton Children's Song Book, in 1974. (Ten years later, Flying Fish Records reissued the album in the U.S. under the title The Marvelous Toy and Other Gallimaufry.) For the British MAM label, he made Something in My Life (1975; released in the U.S. on Private Stock Records) and Saturday Night (1976). Then, he signed with Vanguard, and on March 1, 1977, he recorded live in the studio, backed by Steve Goodman, for New Songs from the Briarpatch, released that summer. The album included "Did You Hear John Hurt?," Paxton's tribute to the blues singer he had known in Greenwich Village, a song taken up by Doc & Merle Watson. Heroes (1978), Paxton's second Vanguard album, was a particularly strong collection including the harrowing "The Death of Stephen Biko," an account of the murder of the South African civil rights leader, and "Phil," about Phil Ochs, who had killed himself in 1976.

Paxton next moved to the Mountain Railroad label, working with longtime friend Bob Gibson, who produced 1979's Up & Up, which featured the baseball song "My Favorite Spring" and the lovely "Home to Me (Is Anywhere You Are)," and 1980's The Paxton Report, containing many topical songs, among them the humorous comment on the government's bail-out of one of the major automotive companies, "I Am Changing My Name to Chrysler." (In 1982, Paxton enjoyed a surprise hit in the U.K. when the Fureys revived his 20-year-old song "Every Time" under the title "I Will Love You" and reached the charts with it.) Bulletin, released on Hogeye Records in 1983, also had a high quotient of satiric and topical songs, among them "A Little Bitty Gun," which tweaked First Lady Nancy Reagan, and "There's Something Wrong With the Rain," about pollution. The same year, Paxton signed to the larger independent folk label Flying Fish and issued Even a Gray Day, a strikingly nonpolitical collection of the love songs he had written over the years.

For a year and a half starting in 1984, Paxton toured with Bob Gibson and Anne Hills as a trio under the name Best of Friends. They never recorded an album, but their shows were heard on radio, and in 2004 Appleseed Records released one of those performances under the title Best of Friends. Paxton's 1985 Flying Fish LP One Million Lawyers and Other Disasters was a return to satiric form with the title song ("In ten years there's gonna be one million lawyers/How much can a poor nation stand?") and "Yuppies in the Sky" (a parody based on the 1949 hit "Riders in the Sky [A Cowboy Legend]"). In 1986, Paxton launched his own label, Pax Records, issuing A Folk Song Festival (an album of covers of traditional folk songs), A Paxton Primer (re-recordings of his own songs), Balloon-alloon-alloon (a children's collection), and A Child's Christmas. He was, however, still contracted to Flying Fish, which issued 1986's And Loving You, the live album Politics (1988), and another collection of re-recordings, The Very Best of Tom Paxton (1988). He finished off his commitment to Flying Fish with It Ain't Easy in 1991.

In the early '90s, Paxton issued a series of children's albums through Sony Kids: A Car Full of Songs, Peanut Butter Pie, and Suzy Is a Rocker. Then, in 1994, he signed to Sugar Hill Records and returned to adult concerns on Wearing the Time; Live: For the Record, released in June 1996, was a concert recording that found him back to writing satiric songs about topical subjects like the scandal involving controversial ice skater Tonya Harding. He pacted with Rounder Records for two 1997 children's albums, Goin' to the Zoo and I've Got a Yo-Yo. At the turn of the century, retrospective collections began to appear, including Rhino's I Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound (1999) and Vanguard's Best of the Vanguard Years (2000), while his performances on the Mountain Stage radio series, 1994-2000, were collected on Blue Plate's Live from Mountain Stage (2001).

By 2001, Paxton had moved operations to the Appleseed label, which issued a duo album with Anne Hills, Under American Skies, that July. Red House Records released a new children's album, Your Shoes, My Shoes, in February 2002, and it earned Paxton his first Grammy nomination. In October 2002, Appleseed put out his first new studio album for grownups in eight years, Looking for the Moon, and it too was rewarded with a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Recording. At that time, Paxton, still performing on a regular if limited basis in his mid-sixties, was living with his wife of 40 years in Alexandria, VA, and had become a grandfather. 2006 saw Live at McCabe's Guitar Shop, drawn from a 1991 live performance, issued by Shout Factory! ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Along with the Kingston Trio, the Limeliters were one of the most successful folk groups of the early 1960s, a time when the folk music revival was in itself a sort of backlash against the anti-establishment rock & roll generation. The original group consisted of Glenn Yarbrough, vocal and guitar (b.1930), Lou Gottlieb, vocal and bass... [+] Read More

Along with the Kingston Trio, the Limeliters were one of the most successful folk groups of the early 1960s, a time when the folk music revival was in itself a sort of backlash against the anti-establishment rock & roll generation. The original group consisted of Glenn Yarbrough, vocal and guitar (b.1930), Lou Gottlieb, vocal and bass (1923-1996), and Alex Hassilev, vocal, guitar, and banjo (b.1932).

In 1959, Gottlieb, a former jazz pianist and member of the folk group the Gateway Singers had just completed his doctoral thesis on 15th century cyclic masses when he heard Hassilev and Yarbrough sing together at Hollywood's Cosmo Alley nightclub. Enchanted with the vocal blend, Gottlieb suggested that the three of them team up to make demos for the Kingston Trio, with Gottlieb himself providing arrangements of traditional folk songs and some original material. The trio jelled so well that they struck out on their own, naming themselves after the Limelite club in Aspen, Colorado, where they had honed their sound and perfected their stage act. That summer, a successful stint at San Francisco's hungry i led them to their recording debut for Elektra and then a series of best sellers for RCA Victor.

As individuals, the Limeliters were each extraordinarily talented, but emotionally incompatible (Hassilev often referred to the group members as "the Bicker Brothers").

Hassilev had a rich, robust voice and was adept at a variety of languages. Gottlieb was an arranger and composer in addition to having a brief career as a stand-up comic. And Yarbrough possessed one of the purest, most exquisite voices on the planet. Unlike many other groups, the Limeliters' individual voices were never lost when singing together. Yarbrough's soaring tenor, Gottlieb's baritone in the middle, and Hassilev's bass-baritone on the bottom blended beautifully, but without losing the uniqueness of each voice. On stage, Gottlieb played stand-up bass and acted as the group's emcee, peppering the act with scholarly witticisms, wry asides, and zany non sequiturs.

Between 1961 and 1963, the Limeliters were one of the hottest acts in show business. They made appearances on television, sang on commercials, and embarked on an exhaustive touring schedule which saw them perform as many as 310 days out of each year. In 1963, the group survived a near-catastrophic plane crash in Provo, Utah, prompting the three to reassess their priorities as performers. Yarbrough was the first to quit, leaving to start his own successful solo career. He had a number 12 charting hit in 1965, "Baby the Rain Must Fall," before losing favor with audiences. For a short while, Ernie Sheldon filled in for Yarbrough before the group finally disbanded in 1965. Hassilev became a producer and actor and Gottlieb moved to Sonoma County in Northern California, where he founded one of the '60s' most notorious hippie communes, the Morningstar Ranch.

In 1973, the original Limeliters reunited and began touring again, albeit to smaller audiences. Yarbrough quit again in 1981 and was replaced by Red Grammer, a talented tenor who easily assumed Yarbrough's role with the group. When Grammer left to pursue a solo career as a children's entertainer, Rick Dougherty joined. The group continued to perform at small venues throughout the '80s and '90s, building up a loyal following consisting mostly of fans from their glory years. Gottlieb's death in 1996 at the age of 72 threatened to put an end to the group's existence, but Hassilev has since kept the flame alive. ~ Cary Ginell, All Music Guide [-] Hide

The Rooftop Singers were the most successful of the folk revival's one-hit wonders -- their single major chart entry, "Walk Right In," was a number one record and also the biggest-selling single in the history of their label, Vanguard Records.

The group was a trio consisting of Erik Darling, Bill Svanoe, and Lynne Taylor, formed in... [+] Read More

The Rooftop Singers were the most successful of the folk revival's one-hit wonders -- their single major chart entry, "Walk Right In," was a number one record and also the biggest-selling single in the history of their label, Vanguard Records.

The group was a trio consisting of Erik Darling, Bill Svanoe, and Lynne Taylor, formed in late 1962. Darling (b. 1933) had been Pete Seeger's successor in the Weavers from 1958 through 1962, and had previously worked as a member of a jazz-folk influenced trio, the Tarriers, who had a modest hit with "Banana Boat Song." He'd also appeared on dozens of recordings (mostly on Vanguard, to which the Weavers were signed) by other artists during the late 1950s and early 1960s as a guitar accompanist.

It was sometime after exiting the Weavers in June of 1962 that Darling chanced to hear "Walk Right In," a ragtime-style number originally recorded by Gus Cannon and Cannon's Jug Stompers in 1929. Darling decided to put together a group to record the song, and hooked up with Bill Svanoe, a former fine arts major and economics student who had turned to playing guitar and singing full-time. Lynne Taylor was a jazz singer who had been working in East Coast nightclubs since her teens. She had appeared on bills with Frank Sinatra, Sophie Tucker, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and played the Village Vanguard in New York for 28 weeks, later singing with Benny Goodman and Buddy Rich's band.

The trio cut "Walk Right In" for Vanguard in 1963, in a version with updated lyrics and a new arrangement featuring paired 12-string acoustic guitars, which reached the number one spot later that year and yielded an album of the same title. The group differed markedly from the Weavers and most of the popular folk trios of the era, being far more influenced by blues and ragtime, as well as less profoundly earnest in its political sensibilities. Lynne Taylor's singing showed more of a jazz influence than was usual, while Darling and Svanoe's guitar playing showed higher-than-average dexterity.

The Rooftop Singers made it to the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 (and there was a resulting live album), but their popularity only lasted about a year. By the middle of the decade, they were supplanted by rawer solo singers like Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, and Tom Rush, bolder vocal outfits like the Seekers, and louder folk-rock bands like the Byrds and the early Jefferson Airplane. The trio released further singles, including "Tom Cat" and "Mama Don't Allow," and a pair of albums, Goodtime and Rainy River, before splitting up in 1967. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Wasn't That a Time! is a treasure for serious Weavers fans. Featuring 87 songs on its four discs, including several unreleased numbers, the box set is designed for devoted fans; the liner notes are filled with anecdotes and photos that provide a good portrait of the group. For some casual fans, it might be a bit too much, but Wasn't That a Time!... [+] Read More

Wasn't That a Time! is a treasure for serious Weavers fans. Featuring 87 songs on its four discs, including several unreleased numbers, the box set is designed for devoted fans; the liner notes are filled with anecdotes and photos that provide a good portrait of the group. For some casual fans, it might be a bit too much, but Wasn't That a Time! is a fitting tribute to the seminal folk group. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide [-] Hide

If there were any liner notes to this album, they might explain that this is a recording of a reunion concert that the Chad Mitchell Trio taped for PBS in 1987, though the copyright date is 1992 and this audio version was issued in 1996. In any case, the trio proves to still be in good voice and good humor after 22 years apart, singing many of... [+] Read More

If there were any liner notes to this album, they might explain that this is a recording of a reunion concert that the Chad Mitchell Trio taped for PBS in 1987, though the copyright date is 1992 and this audio version was issued in 1996. In any case, the trio proves to still be in good voice and good humor after 22 years apart, singing many of the songs that their audiences loved in the early 1960s, including "The John Birch Society" and "Lizzie Borden." Since many of the group's original recordings were also live performances, they have a better right than many veteran acts to re-record their well-known numbers. The added attraction here is the appearance on one track of John Denver, who replaced Mitchell in the group in 1965. After the Chad Mitchell Trio's recordings had been out of print for decades, the year 1996 brought new CD compilations from Vanguard and Varese Vintage that better represent the group than this later one. But that doesn't keep it from being an enjoyable show. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Among the first successful folk groups, The Highwaymen emerged as leaders of the "hootenanny" movement of the '60s. Included is the immensely popular title song and 23 others. ~ Roundup newsletter, All Music Guide

Among the first successful folk groups, The Highwaymen emerged as leaders of the "hootenanny" movement of the '60s. Included is the immensely popular title song and 23 others. ~ Roundup newsletter, All Music Guide [-] Hide

While the neophyte might be better advised to start with the 20-track 1972 Columbia compilation The World of Pete Seeger, this collection would make a good second purchase to hear the highlights of Seeger's major-label sojourn. Eschewing such favorites as "Little Boxes" (Seeger's sole chart single) and "If I Had a Hammer" (which Seeger... [+] Read More

While the neophyte might be better advised to start with the 20-track 1972 Columbia compilation The World of Pete Seeger, this collection would make a good second purchase to hear the highlights of Seeger's major-label sojourn. Eschewing such favorites as "Little Boxes" (Seeger's sole chart single) and "If I Had a Hammer" (which Seeger co-wrote), but including many other familiar performances (among them "Turn! Turn! Turn!" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"), the set is thematically organized into story songs, political songs, biographical songs, and children's songs. This separation sometimes seems arbitrary -- "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" and "Harry Sims" (about a mine workers' union organizer) would seem to fit better in the political column than as stories or biographies -- and in concert, where much of this material was recorded, Seeger deliberately mixes his songs up while drawing on at least a few other categories. But for the most part, the grouping works on disc, and along with classics like "We Shall Overcome" and "This Land Is Your Land," there are some pleasant discoveries, such as the story of "Aimee Semple McPherson," from Seeger's debut Columbia album Story Songs, and Woody Guthrie's "Belle Star," a duet with Ramblin' Jack Elliott from The Badmen. At a running time well under two hours, the album could have been more comprehensive, and the liner notes, spread among seven writers, amount to little more than superficial tribute. So, this is not the kind of retrospective Seeger deserves. But it gives a good sense of the range of his talent, and it is full of enlightening, entertaining songs and performances. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Gibson & Camp could never be accused of overstaying their welcome. In 1961, the folk duo got together and recorded their debut album, Gibson & Camp at the Gate of Horn, which turned out to be a landmark folk release that influenced a generation of musicians. (Roger McGuinn, who attended the shows at which it was recorded, later formed the Byrds,... [+] Read More

Gibson & Camp could never be accused of overstaying their welcome. In 1961, the folk duo got together and recorded their debut album, Gibson & Camp at the Gate of Horn, which turned out to be a landmark folk release that influenced a generation of musicians. (Roger McGuinn, who attended the shows at which it was recorded, later formed the Byrds, who displayed a distinct Gibson & Camp feel, especially early on, and later in their career covered "Old Blue" from the record.) Beyond the album, the duo themselves had an impact on much early-'60s folk music, notably on the sound of Simon and Garfunkel, who put their "You Can Tell the World" on their debut album in 1964. By that time, Gibson & Camp had split up, to reuniting for their second album, Homemade Music, in 1978. Even less prolific than Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, they didn't hook up again until 1986 when they recorded this album, a recreation of their long out of print first one, down to the stage remarks. They added three songs, starting with "You Can Tell the World" and Gibson's "Well, Well, Well" (a folk standard recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary) and ending with Gordon Lightfoot's "For Lovin' Me." And they slightly updated "John Henry, the Thinking Man" for the computer age. But otherwise, this was Gibson & Camp at the Gate of Horn all over again, and it sounded remarkably fresh for that. With their creatively intertwining harmonies, the duo always sounded like more than two singers somehow, and their mixture of traditional folk with elements of blues, gospel, country, and square-dance music brought out the best of the early days of the folk boom. All of that sounded just as exuberant 25 years later, as did the good-humored interaction between the two. There remained something magical about these performers together, which made the infrequency of their recording a frustration to folk fans, even as their few pairings stirred excitement. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide