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Troubadours of Folk | |
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Compilation album by various artists | |
Released | April 21, 1992 |
Recorded | 1960s–1980s |
Genre | Folk Singer-songwriter |
Length | Five disks |
Label | Rhino Records |
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | Vol 1 [1] |
AllMusic | Vol 2 [2] |
AllMusic | Vol 3 [3] |
AllMusic | Vol 4 [4] |
AllMusic | Vol 5 [5] |
Troubadours of Folk is a five volume series of compact discs released by Rhino Records in 1992. The series documents several decades worth of "contemporary" folk music. The first three volumes focus on the American "folk revival" of the 1960s while the final two volumes focus on singer-songwriter music of the 1970s and 1980s. Because of "licensing restrictions" no songs by Bob Dylan could be included in the anthology. [6] The series tends to focus on American folk music although not exclusively. Rhino later released a series of volumes titled Troubadours of British Folk. [7] [8] [9]
The fourth volume covers what is described as the "heyday" of the singer-songwriter movement.
In most cases the performer is also the songwriter.
The final volume of the collection documents another revival-of-sorts that took place in the 1980s by singer-songwriters influenced as much by 1970s punk rock as 1960s folk. As the liner notes by Barry Alfonso explain:
Of course, folk as a genre had never gone away, just slipped out of the limelight. The rediscovery of the acoustic tradition by punks and other upstarts was newsworthy to rock critics and other arbiters of hipness. But trendy or not, the folk music community had never ceased to exist, and some of its members were dubious about the recent converts asking for admission. These questions about commitment to traditions were part of the same folk sectarian debate that put Bob Dylan in the doghouse after he went electric back in '65.
To avoid arguments over the definition of "folk" the collections attempts to cover "as many segments of '80s folkdom as possible, including those that contested each other's legitimacy."
Songs written by the performer unless otherwise indicated.
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter and composer who was one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He inspired several generations both politically and musically with songs such as "This Land Is Your Land".
A singer-songwriter is a musician who writes, composes, and performs their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies. In the United States, the category is built on the folk-acoustic tradition with a guitar, although this role has transmuted through different eras of popular music. Traditionally, these musicians would write and sing songs personal to them. Singer-songwriters often provide the sole musical accompaniment to an entire song. The piano is also an instrument of choice.
Newport Folk Festival is an annual American folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the Newport Jazz Festival. The festival was founded by music promoter and Jazz Festival founder George Wein, music manager Albert Grossman, and folk singers Pete Seeger, Theodore Bikel, and Oscar Brand. It was one of the first modern music festivals in America, and remains a focal point in the expanding genre of folk music. The festival was held in Newport annually from 1959 to 1969, except in 1961 and 1962, first at Freebody Park and then at Festival Field. In 1985, Wein revived the festival in Newport, where it has been held at Fort Adams State Park ever since.
Margaret "Peggy" Seeger is an American folk singer and songwriter. She has lived in Britain for more than 60 years and was married to the singer-songwriter Ewan MacColl until his death in 1989.
Ramblin' on My Mind is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, released in 1979, by Folkways Records.
Eric Von Schmidt was an American folk musician and painter. He was associated with the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s and was a key part of the Cambridge folk music scene. As a singer and guitarist, he was considered to be the leading specialist in country blues in Cambridge at the time, the counterpart of Greenwich Village's Dave Van Ronk. Von Schmidt co-authored with Jim Rooney Baby, Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years.
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan is a 2005 documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on 20th-century American popular music and culture. The film focuses on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his "retirement" from touring following his motorcycle accident in July 1966. This period encapsulates Dylan's rise to fame as a folk singer and songwriter where he became the center of a cultural and musical upheaval, and continues through the electric controversy surrounding his move to a rock style of music.
John B. "Fritz" Richmond was an American musician and recording engineer. Richmond was a washtub bassist and was also a professional jug player.
Hootenanny was an American musical variety television show broadcast on ABC from April 1963 to September 1964. The program was hosted by Jack Linkletter. It primarily featured pop-oriented folk music acts, including The Journeymen, The Limeliters, the Chad Mitchell Trio, The New Christy Minstrels, The Brothers Four, Ian & Sylvia, The Big 3, Hoyt Axton, Judy Collins, Johnny Cash, The Carter Family, Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, The Tarriers, Bud & Travis, Josh White, Josh White Jr., Leon Bibb, and the Smothers Brothers. Although both popular and influential, the program is primarily remembered today for the controversy created when the producers blacklisted certain folk music acts, which then led to a boycott by others.
Geoff Muldaur is an American active singer, guitarist and composer, who was a founding member of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and a member of Paul Butterfield's Better Days.
Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground is a book by Boston Globe journalist Scott Alarik with photographs by Robert Corwin. It was published in 2003 by Black Wolf Press. The book is a compilation of over 120 articles by the author that appeared in either The Boston Globe or Sing Out! between 1992 and 2002. The compilation includes interviews and stories about many of the key figures in contemporary folk music in America and the United Kingdom. Some of the writing is focused on the folk music scene in the Boston, Massachusetts area. The book is 416 pages and contains 96 photographs of the featured musicians.
The American folk music revival began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, Richard Dyer-Bennet, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob Niles, Susan Reed, Paul Robeson, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Cisco Houston had enjoyed a limited general popularity in the 1930s and 1940s. The revival brought forward styles of American folk music that had in earlier times contributed to the development of country and western, blues, jazz, and rock and roll music.
Festival is a 1967 American documentary film about the Newport Folk Festivals of the mid-1960’s, and the burgeoning counterculture movement of the era, written, produced, and directed by Murray Lerner.
Gerdes Folk City, sometimes spelled Gerde's Folk City, was a music venue in the West Village, part of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, in New York City. Initially opened by owner Mike Porco as a restaurant called Gerdes, it eventually began to present occasional incidental music. It was first located at 11 West 4th Street, before moving in 1970 to 130 West 3rd Street. The club closed in 1987.
Joel Tepp is an American multi-instrumentalist with a 40-year history in live and recorded music. He was born in 1948. He majored in criminology at UC Berkeley, where he was a gymnast, a gold medalist on the pommel horse and a member of the 1968 NCAA national championship team along with Dan Millman. He then completed another round of studies in music at UCLA.
Jim Kweskin is an American folk, jazz, and blues musician, most notable as the founder of the Jim Kweskin jug band, also known as Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band, with Fritz Richmond, Geoff Muldaur, Bob Siggins and Bruno Wolfe. The Jug Band was a significant part of the folk and blues revival of the 1960s. Maria Muldaur, formerly with the Even Dozen Jug Band, joined the band in 1963. During the five years they were together, the Jug Band successfully modernized the sounds of pre–World War II rural music.
Contemporary folk music refers to a wide variety of genres that emerged in the mid 20th century and afterwards which were associated with traditional folk music. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. The most common name for this new form of music is also "folk music", but is often called "contemporary folk music" or "folk revival music" to make the distinction. The transition was somewhat centered in the United States and is also called the American folk music revival. Fusion genres such as folk rock and others also evolved within this phenomenon. While contemporary folk music is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, it often shares the same English name, performers and venues as traditional folk music; even individual songs may be a blend of the two.
Gil Turner was an American folk singer-songwriter, magazine editor, Shakespearean actor, political activist, and for a time, a lay Baptist preacher. Turner was a prominent figure in the Greenwich Village scene of the early 1960s, where he was master of ceremonies at New York City's leading folk music venue, Gerde's Folk City, as well as co-editor of the protest song magazine Broadside. He also wrote for Sing Out!, the quarterly folk music journal.
Tom Paxton is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning more than fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He is noteworthy as a music educator as well as an advocate for folk singers to combine traditional songs with new compositions.
Dominique Flemons is an American old-time music, Piedmont blues, and neotraditional country multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. He is a proficient player of the banjo, fife, guitar, harmonica, percussion, quills, and rhythm bones. He is known as "The American Songster" as his repertoire of music spans nearly a century of American folklore, ballads, and tunes. He has performed with Mike Seeger, Joe Thompson, Martin Simpson, Boo Hanks, Taj Mahal, Old Crow Medicine Show, Guy Davis, and The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band.