Showing 1 - 23 of 23
Artist: Broadside Heart
Some people jump from airplanes to get a rush. Others race cars, bungee-jump, and sometimes light themselves on fire over and over again to see when Ripley will accept them. Not us. Just like most bands that start out young and never give up, we get our adrenaline from being on stage in front of hundreds of screaming fans. Yeah, we started... [+] Read More
Artist: Broadside Band
Artist: Broadside Electric
Artist: Blind Boy Grunt
In late 1962 and early 1963, Bob Dylan made over a dozen recordings at sessions administered by the folk magazine Broadside. In October 1963, three of these songs -- "John Brown," "Only a Hobo," and "Talking Devil" -- appeared on the Broadside/Folkways compilation LP Broadside Ballads, Vol. 1, credited to Blind Boy Grunt. (The album also... [+] Read More
Artist: Agnes Cunningham
Agnes "Sis" Cunningham and husband Gordon Friesen were the founders of Broadside, the influential music journal that first published many of the most popular and enduring songs of the folk revival era, including seminal contributions from then-fledgling artists Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs. Cunningham was born in Watonga, OK, in 1909, the product of... [+] Read More
Artist: Gordon Friesen
Gordon Friesen and wife Agnes "Sis" Cunningham were the founders of Broadside, the influential music journal that first published many of the most popular and enduring songs of the folk revival era, including seminal contributions from then-fledgling artists Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs. Friesen was born March 3, 1909, in Weatherford, OK; when he was... [+] Read More
Artist: Gil Turner
Preacher, actor, talent scout, and folksinger, Gil Turner qualified as a 20th century renaissance person. He authored the Civil Rights anthem "Carry It On" and was the first to record Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Don't Think Twice." Turner played the five-string banjo and 12-sting guitar, and he bragged about his ability to yodel. A... [+] Read More
Artist: Supreme NTM
The hard-hitting, frequently polemical French hip-hop group Supreme NTM was formed in 1989 by Dee Nasty, Joeystarr, and Koolshen with their DJ, Détonateur S. They debuted one year later with a track on the compilation Rapattitude and their first single, "Le Monde de Demain." Authentik, the Supreme NTM debut full-length, appeared in 1991, and... [+] Read More
Artist: The Freedom Singers
In the early 1960s, folk singing and political activism went hand-in-hand. In the South in particular, participants in the Civil Rights Movement sang spirituals like "We Shall Overcome" and "We Shall Not Be Moved" as they marched in the streets. The Freedom Singers were formed in the midst of civil rights battles in Albany, Georgia in 1962.... [+] Read More
Artist: Len Chandler
When Len Chandler arrived in New York City in the 1950s, he had no intention of getting involved with the folk music scene. Born in Akron, Ohio in 1935, he showed an interest in music at an early age. "My father was in the army," Chandler recalled, "and my mother bought me a little plastic flute with eight holes in it, and I played songs on it... [+] Read More
Artist: Margaret MacArthur
Margaret MacArthur has been collecting and singing the traditional songs of New England's working-class and farm communities for nearly half a century. In 1985, officials of the New England arts biennial committee named MacArthur one of seven "living art treasures of New England."
MacArthur's earliest exposure to the oral tradition came through... [+] Read More
Artist: Lee Mallory
Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Lee Mallory might be best known as a member of the Millennium, the late-1960s sunshine pop group that's garnered a sizable cult following for their sole album. Mallory wrote or co-wrote some of the material for the elaborately produced band, which crossed the sound of the 1966-67 Beach Boys with more... [+] Read More
Artist: Mason Jennings
Singer/songwriter Mason Jennings blends the deeply personal insights of a poet, the political broadsides of a protest singer, and the broad musical eclecticism of a jazz musician with the passion and commitment of a rock & roller. The result has made him one of the most talked-about new artists on the acoustic music scene and earned him a loyal... [+] Read More
Artist: Bonnie Dobson
A minor performer of the 1960s folk revival, Bonnie Dobson will be forever known (if she's even known at all) as the author of "Morning Dew," a moving ballad about the threat of nuclear devastation. Also titled as "Take Me for a Walk" -- that is how it's titled on the previously unreleased 1962 recording that came out on the 2000 The Best of... [+] Read More
Artist: Louis Killen
A mainstay of British folk music since the '50s best-known for his collections of sea shanties and whaling songs, Louis Killen is a singer, archivist, lecturer, and historian on the level of Ewan MacColl, Pete Seeger, and A.L. Lloyd, all of whom Killen worked with at one time or another.
Born in the northern village of Gateshead-on-Tyne, County... [+] Read More
Artist: Irwin Silber
Irwin Silber prospered as a writer, left-wing organizer, and book editor, but his greatest claim to fame originates from his editorial duties at Sing Out during the 1950s and 1960s. He, like Gordon Friesen and Sis Cunningham of Broadside magazine, became an important broker behind the scenes of the American folk revival. Silber was born on... [+] Read More
Artist: Moses Asch
Moe Asch is one of the most important non-musicians in the history of twentieth century music, whose story is virtually synonymous with that of his record label, Folkways. From the 1940s to the 1980s, Folkways issued hundreds of important folk music recordings, and in fact was the first significant independent label to dedicate itself to the... [+] Read More
Artist: Phil Ochs
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
Artist: Fela Kuti
It's almost impossible to overstate the impact and importance of Fela Anikulapo (Ransome) Kuti (or just Fela as he's more commonly known) to the global musical village: producer, arranger, musician, political radical, outlaw. He was all that, as well as showman par excellence, inventor of Afro-beat, an unredeemable sexist, and a moody... [+] Read More
Artist: Francis Child
Although Francis J. Child qualifies as the father of all song collectors, his name lacks the familiarity of a collector like Alan Lomax. Fans of traditional British and American folk music will nonetheless be familiar with his song collection, the Child ballads. For many, the 305 ballads that comprise the collection qualify as the mother lode of... [+] Read More
Artist: Cyril Poacher
One of the warm friendly, if somewhat weird voices on many Topic traditional song compilations, Cyril Poacher also recorded several entire albums on his own beginning in the '70s, at an age when many professions encourage retirement. Most likely singing didn't seem like work to Poacher, who like his father was a cowman almost all his life. He... [+] Read More
Artist: Stampfel & Weber
Although technically they have only released one album as Stampfel & Weber, 1981's Going Nowhere Fast, singer/violinist/banjoist Peter Stampfel (b. October 29, 1938, in Wauwautosa, WI) and singer/guitarist Steve Weber (b. June 22, 1942, in Philadelphia, PA) have worked together off and on, as a duo and with others, since they met in New York... [+] Read More
Artist: Tom Paxton
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
