Philip David Ochs was an American songwriter and protest singer. Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and distinctive voice. He wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and 1970s and released eight albums.
Big Bill Broonzy was an American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s, when he played country music to mostly African-American audiences. Through the 1930s and 1940s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with working-class African-American audiences. In the 1950s a return to his traditional folk-blues roots made him one of the leading figures of the emerging American folk music revival and an international star. His long and varied career marks him as one of the key figures in the development of blues music in the 20th century.
Guy Hughes Carawan Jr. was an American folk musician and musicologist. He served as music director and song leader for the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee.
Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was an American blues and jazz singer, guitarist, violinist and songwriter. He was a pioneer of jazz guitar and jazz violin and is recognized as the first to play an electrically amplified violin.
The Seldom Scene is an American bluegrass band that formed in 1971 in Bethesda, Maryland. The band's original line-up comprised John Starling on lead vocals and guitar, Mike Auldridge on Dobro and baritone vocals, Ben Eldridge on banjo, Tom Gray on double bass, and John Duffey on mandolin; the latter three also provided backing vocals. Together they released their debut studio album, Act I, in 1972, followed by both Act II and Act III in 1973.
Barbara Dane is an American folk, blues, and jazz singer, guitarist, record producer, and political activist. She co-founded Paredon Records with Irwin Silber.
Ella Jenkins is an American folk singer and actress. Dubbed "The First Lady of the Children's Folk Song" by the Wisconsin State Journal, she has been a leading performer of children's music for over fifty years. Her album, Multicultural Children's Songs (1995), has long been the most popular Smithsonian Folkways release. She has appeared on numerous children's television programs and in 2004, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Joseph Spence was a Bahamian guitarist and singer. He is well known for his vocalizations and humming while playing the guitar. Several American musicians, including Taj Mahal, the Grateful Dead, Ry Cooder, Catfish Keith, Woody Mann, and Olu Dara, as well as the British guitarist John Renbourn, were influenced by and have recorded variations of his arrangements of gospel and Bahamian songs.
Mike Seeger was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, and pan pipes. Seeger, a half-brother of Pete Seeger, produced more than 30 documentary recordings, and performed in more than 40 other recordings. He desired to make known the caretakers of culture that inspired and taught him.
John Cohen was an American musician, photographer and film maker who performed and documented the traditional music of the rural South and played a major role in the American folk music revival. In the 1950s and 60s, Cohen was a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers, a New York-based string band. Cohen made several expeditions to Peru to film and record the traditional culture of the Q'ero, an indigenous people. Cohen was also a professor of visual arts at SUNY Purchase College for 25 years.
Timothy Alan Patrick Rose, was an American singer and songwriter who spent much of his life in London, England, and had more success in Europe than in his native country.
Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion are a musical duo. Guthrie and Irion were married on October 16, 1999 and began performing together as an acoustic duo in the fall of 2000. Their music combined Irion's love of rock and blues with Guthrie's roots of folk and country.
Sammy Walker is an American singer-songwriter. Influenced by the folk and country sounds of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams, Walker emerged in the mid-1970s with two albums for the Folkways label and two albums for Warner Brothers. While appearing on Bob Fass's radio show in 1975, he caught the ear of Phil Ochs, who was impressed by the young songwriter and agreed to produce his first album with Folkways. Walker recorded two albums for Warner Brothers under the tutelage of producer Nick Venet, and toured Europe in 1978 and again in 1986. After recording an album of Woody Guthrie songs in 1979, he did not record again until 1989.
"Worried Man Blues" is a folk song in the roots music repertoire. It is catalogued as Roud Folk Song Index No. 4753. Like many folk songs passed by oral tradition, the lyrics vary from version to version, but generally all contain the chorus "It takes a worried man to sing a worried song/It takes a worried man to sing a worried song/I'm worried now, but I won't be worried long." The verses tell the story of a man imprisoned for unknown reasons "I went across the river, and I lay down to sleep/When I woke up, had shackles on my feet", who pines for his lost love, who is "on the train and gone." The melody in 4/4 timing has a strong resemblance to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", which is in 6/8 timing.
Frank Hamilton is an American folk musician, collector of folk songs, and educator. He co-founded the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, Illinois. As a performer, he has recorded for several labels, including Folkways Records. He was a member of the folk group The Weavers in the early 1960s, and appeared at the first Newport Folk Festival in 1959. He was the house musician – playing guitar and other folk instruments – for Chicago's Gate of Horn, the nation's first folk music nightclub. After many years of teaching, playing, and singing in California he married a third time, and with his wife relocated to Atlanta, where he performs on banjo, guitar, ukulele, voice, and other instruments and co-founded the Frank Hamilton School in 2015.
Jim R. Glover is an American peace activist and folk singer. He is from Cleveland, Ohio and lives in Brandon, Florida.
Brother John Sellers was an American gospel and folk singer.
Suni Paz is an Argentinian singer, songwriter, guitarist, poet, folklorist, translator, and teacher, who has recorded and has been published extensively. Paz is part of the progressive Latin American music movement known as nueva canción.
Jack Warshaw is an American folksinger, songwriter and musician, best known for his 1976 protest song "If They Come in the Morning," aka "No Time for Love." He moved to England in 1965 to start a career as an architect but stayed because the folk music scene and the Vietnam War intervened.
Birds of Chicago is an Americana/folk band founded in March 2012 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The band is led by husband and wife, JT Nero and Allison Russell. Russell is formerly of the Canadian roots act Po' Girl. The duo-fronted band refers to their music as "secular gospel".
