Legacy: A Collection of New Folk Music and Legacy II: A Collection of Singer-songwriters are a pair of compilations that were released by Windham Hill Records in 1989 and 1992 respectively to introduce listeners to a new crop of young singer-songwriters.
The first volume was an attempt to document a very recent "passing of the torch from one generation to another" that was taking place with a resurgence of folk music in the 1980s. In his liner notes, folk radio host for WNEW-FM, Pete Fornatale explains:
The depth and breadth of this new scene is truly staggering. The only constant is diversity. Sure, it owes a debt to the great American Folk Tradition, but call any of the fifteen artist gathered on this sampler a "folkie" and you're liable to get smashed over the head with a six-string acoustic guitar! This is, after all, the post-Dylan era of American music. The old labels simply don't work anymore. Especially when it comes to the arts. It's just an annoying habit we human have of categorizing anything and everything. There's no need for it. At all. Period.
Will Ackerman goes on to note the debt owed to "marvelously talented singer/songwriters" Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman and Michelle Shocked for "prying open the doors at radio and retail", but suggests that they are just the beginning and predicts that a real musical movement is about to explode onto the scene.
Some of the artists included on the compilation went on to major label record deals. Others remained fairly obscure. Windham Hill began long term relationships with some of the artists. Years later John Gorka recalled these events: "Windham Hill decided to include one of my songs on the first Legacy songwriters compilation. Before it was even released, Will Ackerman called to say that they would like me to record for them. Land of the Bottom Line came out shortly thereafter...."[2]
Some of the artists already had albums of their own while other did not. Some of the artists also appeared on compilations for Fast Folk Musical Magazine.
Following the album's release, some of the artists appeared together in concerts to promote the compilation.[3]
The second volume was released several years after the first. As Will Ackerman's liner notes explain:
When we released the first volume of Legacy, we were documenting the resurgence of a new folk music and the singer-songwriter. Tracy Chapman and Suzanne Vega heralded this renaissance and new voices like John Gorka are emerging as part of the next wave. Four of the artists on Legacy went on to major label distribution recording deals. And far from being a flash in the pan this musical movement is very much alive and flourishing. The intelligent lyric is back. The singer-songwriter is very much a force again in today's music scene. Legacy II presents some of the finest emerging talents now recording. You'll be hearing more from them, but this may be where you discover them first.
The first compilation also resulted in the formation of a new branch at Windam Hill, High Street Records, a label that was to do for singer-songwriters what Windam Hill had done for new-age music. This second disc was introduced as a High Street Records release. High street also signed deals with some of the artist from the first compilation such as John Gorka and Pierce Pettis.
↑ "Here in Gravyland: John Gorka", by Adrienne Redd (with additional interview material by Mark D. Moss), Sing Out! Vol 39, # 3, p. 12-18, (Nov/Dec '94/Jan '95)
John Mark Heard III was an American record producer, folk rock singer, and songwriter originally from Macon, Georgia, United States. Heard released 16 albums, and produced and performed with many other artists as well, such as Sam Phillips, Pierce Pettis, Phil Keaggy, Vigilantes of Love, Peter Buck of R.E.M., John Austin, The Choir, Randy Stonehill and Michael Been of The Call. Heard produced part of Olivia Newton-John's The Rumor, which also included a cover of Heard's own "Big and Strong".
Pierce Pettis is an American singer-songwriter from Fort Payne, Alabama, United States.
New-age is a genre of music intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management to bring about a state of ecstasy rather than trance, or to create a peaceful atmosphere in homes or other environments, and is associated with environmentalism and New Age spirituality.
The Four Bitchin' Babes is a group of female singer-songwriters with rotating membership performing mainly humorous, satirical, or light-hearted songs in the folk genre. The artists have made numerous albums and have worked with producer Jeff Bova.
High Street Records was a subsidiary label of Windham Hill Records from about 1990 to 1997. Notable acts who recorded for the label include John Gorka, Pierce Pettis, Patty Larkin, The Subdudes, Downy Mildew, and Dots Will Echo. Several singer-songwriters associated with High Street appeared on the 1989 Windham Hill compilation, Legacy: A Collection of New Folk Music and the 1992 follow-up on High Street, Legacy II: A Collection of Singer-songwriters.
John Gorka is a contemporary American folk musician. In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine called him "the preeminent male singer-songwriter of what has been dubbed the New Folk Movement."
Patty Larkin is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist based in Boston, Massachusetts. She is a founding member of Four Bitchin' Babes. Her music has been described as folk-urban pop music.
Philip Aaberg is an American pianist and composer. He gained international recognition through a series of successful piano recordings released on Windham Hill Records. Although classically trained, Aaberg incorporates classical, jazz, bluegrass, rock, and new music elements into his compositions and musical structures. Although best known for his solo piano work, he is most at home in the chamber jazz genre. His compositions are noted for their "rigorous keyboard technique, diverse influences, and colorful compositional style."
Ellis Paul is an American singer-songwriter and folk musician. Born in Presque Isle, Aroostook County, Maine, Paul is a key figure in what has become known as the Boston school of songwriting, a literate, provocative, and urbanely romantic folk-pop style that helped ignite the folk revival of the 1990s. His pop music songs have appeared in movies and on television, bridging the gap between the modern folk sound and the populist traditions of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.
Rod MacDonald is an American singer-songwriter, novelist, and educator. He was a "big part of the 1980s folk revival in Greenwich Village clubs", performing at the Speakeasy, The Bottom Line, Folk City, and the "Songwriter's Exchange" at the Cornelia Street Cafe. He co-founded the Greenwich Village Folk Festival, now a non-profit, and is still the President and co-producer of its events. He is perhaps best known for his songs "American Jerusalem", about the "contrast between the rich and the poor in Manhattan", "A Sailor's Prayer", "Coming of the Snow", "Every Living Thing", and "My Neighbors in Delray", a description of the September 11 hijackers' last days in Delray Beach, Florida, where MacDonald has lived since 1995. His songs have been covered by Dave Van Ronk, Shawn Colvin, Four Bitchin' Babes, Jonathan Edwards, Garnet Rogers, Joe Jencks, and others. His 1985 recording "White Buffalo" is dedicated to Lakota Sioux ceremonial chief and healer Frank Fools Crow, whom he visited in 1981 and 1985, and who appears with MacDonald in the cover photograph. Since 1995 MacDonald has lived in south Florida, where his cd, "Later that Night" was named "Best Local Cd of 2014" by The Palm Beach Post and reached the top ten in national roots music charts. His first novel, The Open Mike, about a young man in the open mike scene of Greenwich Village, was published on December 5, 2014, by Archway Publishing. On December 10, 2020, MacDonald released his 13th solo recording, Boulevard, on Blue Flute Music.
John Studebaker "Jack" Hardy was an American singer-songwriter and playwright based in Greenwich Village, who was influential as a writer, performer, and mentor in the North American and European folk music scenes for decades. He was cited as a major influence by Suzanne Vega, John Gorka, and many others who emerged from that scene in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Hardy was the author of hundreds of songs, and toured tirelessly for almost forty years. He was also the founding editor of Fast Folk Musical Magazine, a periodical famous within music circles for twenty years that shipped with a full album in each issue, whose entire catalog is now part of the Smithsonian Folkways collection.
Pure John Gorka is a "best of" collection of John Gorka's work selected from the five albums Gorka released on the Windham Hill/High Street label between 1990 and 1996. This collection was released on June 27, 2006, by Windham Hill as part of a series of "Pure" albums by former Windham Hill artists; other titles cover the careers of diverse musicians such as Jim Brickman, Mark Isham, Shadowfax, Tuck & Patti, and Will Ackerman.
After Yesterday is the seventh studio album by folk singer-songwriter John Gorka. It was released on October 20, 1998, by Red House Records. The album marked Gorka's return to Red House, after five albums with Windham Hill/High Street Records. This was heralded as a homecoming-of-sorts as Red House had issued Gorka's debut, I Know in 1987. The album also marks several changes in the life of the artist himself. Themes of parenting and family life first heard here on songs such as, "When He Cries" and "Cypress Trees" have now become a regular feature of Gorka's subsequent albums.
Fast Folk Musical Magazine was a combination magazine and record album published from February 1982 to 1997. The magazine acted as a songwriter/performer cooperative, and was an outlet for singer-songwriters to release their first recordings.
Land of the Bottom Line is the second album by contemporary folk singer-songwriter John Gorka. The album was also Gorka's major label debut for High Street Records/Windham Hill Records. The album was highly acclaimed by critics at the time, and continues to be cited by some as Gorka's finest work. The album's fifteen tracks and near hour-long length also provided an unusually large amount of music for a recording of that era. As Sing Out! editor Mark Moss noted in a review, the topics covered run "the gamut of John's favorite subjects: love, hard luck, local characters, and more."
Russel Walder is an American jazz oboist and the founder of Nomad Soul Records.
Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill is an Irish traditional singer, keyboard player, and composer, considered one of the most influential female vocalists in the history of Irish music. She is famed for her work with traditional Irish groups such as Skara Brae, The Bothy Band, Relativity, Touchstone, and Nightnoise.
Kirk P. Kelly is a folk singer, songwriter and labor activist from New York City. In the mid-1980s Kelly and a group of like-minded musicians started calling themselves "anti-folk" and started a small but intense movement. Kelly's music has been infrequently recorded over the years. His work has often included topical songs. Some of Kelly's early songs dealt with the labor movement and were based upon his own work experience. A decade or so after starting his musical career Kelly was accepted to and attended an AFL-CIO organizer's training school and began working throughout the United States as a union organizer.
Steven Miller is an American record producer and executive. He is best known for his association with Windham Hill Records, where his ambient sound helped create notable instrumental recordings such as Michael Hedges’ Aerial Boundaries, Mark Isham’s Vapor Drawings and George Winston’s December.
Windham Hill Records was an independent record label that specialized in instrumental acoustic music. It was founded by guitarist William Ackerman and Anne Robinson in 1976 and was popular in the 1980s and 1990s.
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