Help: Good modern folkies

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: GUEST,canoer
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 02:53 AM

What a great batch of new names! Thanks everyone. Am new to the 'Cat but ... think I'll stick around. My first love is labor/movement stuff, and it's way nice to see some kindred out there.

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 01:31 AM

Let me add the names of some younger performers: Eliza Carthy, Natalie McMaster, and Tim Eriksen/Cordelia's Dad.

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 12:42 AM

Well, Here's a second endorsement for Larry Otway's band, Sorcha Dorcha. I heard him this weekend at the People's Music Network gathering in Queens, NYC, with just ONE of his bandmates, and they were great. Larry writes GREAT protest songs, as do many other contemporary songwriters, and others are keeping the old songs fresh and alive.

Other noted "Protest singers" who were among the many folks at the PMN gathering include Charlie King, Bev Grant, Faith Petric, Pete Seeger, Pat Humphries, Patricia Shih, Terry Kitchen, the Disabled in Action Singers, and Professor Louie.

Other members of PMN who were not in attendence at this winter's gathering include: Utah Phillips, Kim and Reggie Harris, Fred Small, Jane Sapp, Bob Blue, Priscilla Herdman, and Ruth Pelham.

Noteworthy non-PMN-member "protest singers" include Guy Carawan, Tracy Chapman, Alix Dobkin, Ronnie Gilbert, Magpie, Holly Near, Tom Paxton, Peggy Seeger, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Chercy Wheeler.

Singing "Protest Songs" has not died out, it has spread into many areas besides anti-war songs, and civil right songs. Give a listen to some of the above and see.

For more info on the People's Music Network, which has 2 gatherings, winter and summer, each year, email Sarah Underhill at [e-mail]

Mary McCaffrey

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: InOBU
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 09:57 PM

I must say I am very fond of the New York Celtic band Sorcha Dorcha. They do mostly traditional Irish Scotish Welsh and Breton music, with some native American tunes and songs, and modern ballads in the Irish tradition on the subject of everything from forced assimilation of Natives in Canada and resistance to Hydro Quebecs dams, to the murder of Gypsies in the Czech Republic. They have really impressed me over the past few months.
If you are in the New York area, you should catch them at Bagatelle, 12 Saint Marks Place, (8th street between 2nd and 3rd Ave) Every Wednesday night 8 -10:30 and Sunday 6 - 8:30
Larry Otway
(this has been a shameless comercial endorcement from Larry Otway, Uilleann Piper - Sorcha Dorcha)

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: WyoWoman
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 09:00 PM

I certainly like Si Kahn, whose music I discovered after someone here on the 'Cat recommended him. Really deep social conscience and some wonderful lyrics.

Of course, in my day, we were motivated to write and think politically because the boys I went to high school with were being sent off to a foreign war and were dying all around us for reasons we couldn't discern or doubted heartily. Nothing like that to radicalize a generation.

Thanks, Canoe. Welcome to the 'Cat. Haven't seen you in these parts before, but then, I've been a bit scarce lately.

WW

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: sophocleese
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 08:01 PM

Eileen McGann and Tanglefoot are two more Canadian names very much worth mentioning. Actually let me just look at my CDs. Tom Lewis who sings songs of the sea, MacCrimmon's Revenge from Halifax who do wonderful instrumental music, Puirt a Baroque who combine East Coast music with Scottish Art music of two centuries ago, and I have to put in a word for a Barrie area musician Don Bray, he knows his way around a guitar and can write some great songs as well.

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: Sorcha
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 07:33 PM

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Aileen and Elkin thomas yet, currently living in Pennsylvania, I believe

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: GeorgeH
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 01:31 PM

Strikes me if Guest I would like to name names of some of those '60s folkies he/she was a fan of we'd be better able to make suggestions about who he/she should check out! There's such a wide spread of suggestions here (some of whom I love, some I'd go out of my way to avoid) that the overall list isn't likely to be much help!

G.

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: GUEST,canoer
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 12:02 PM

WyoWoman, thanks for supporting social awareness! It's tough when few respond to, for instance, Ochs-like songs for today. (And few writing them!!!) My humble opinion, the songs won't come until there's a big enough swell in consciousness to inspire and support them. Don't the songs of today just reflect the general individualistic "cocooning"/"be your own millionaire" atmosphere that's prevalent? I don't think the protest-song wave of the sixties took off until there were first sufficiently large movements for the musicians to work from. So, we'll just have to be part of the support for the next wave. Hopefully coming soon! Thanks for your post.

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: Bert
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 11:32 AM

Just listen to Mudcat Radio Wednesday night for lots of real Mudcatter music. It's the best there is.

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: GUEST,Gorgeous Gary
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 10:47 PM

I second the James Keelaghan and Garnet Rogers recommendations (and I'm not even Canadian...tho some of my best friends are!).

Other faves: Pete and Maura Kennedy, Schooner Fare, Artisan, Poor Clares (for the Celtic fans)

-- Gary

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: WyoWoman
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 10:32 PM

Peter, I don't quite understand the Wyoming reference, but I'm working at taking no offense. Have you ever actually BEEN out here?

Wyo Woman

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: Metchosin
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 10:07 PM

to add to the list Old Blind Dogs...first 4 or 5 albums, the pages are slow to come up but the band is worth the wait, click here

Also The Albion Band from the UK with a great Canadian connection with the song, Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump, off the Acousticity CD

Too many others to list.

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: GUEST,ddw
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 10:06 PM

How 'bout Joel Mabus? And I hear a guy named Rick Fielding is a bit better than pretty good....

david

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: GUEST,E-lizabeth
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 09:47 PM

These are some of my favourites: Lucinda Williams, Cozy Sheridan, Nanci Griffith, Chris Smither(his latest album - Drive You Home - is devastating), Laura Smith, Jesse Winchester, Gillian Welch, Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts. There is so much great music out there. Enjoy!

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 09:33 PM

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 06:01 PM

You might like to check out Pete Morton. Great songwriter with an individual style of delivery and one of my favourites.

All the best,

mcmoo

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 01:47 PM

Another Canadian List...

Good list Willie-O, but ya missed a couple... ;-)

Stephen Fearing... really fantastic songwriting, and man can he play !!! Also, sorta on the Fearing tack, check out Blackie And The Rodeo Kings, the Willie P. Bennet tribute band (LOL)

If ya like Don Ross, find any CD by Alex Houghton... WOW can this tiny girl play!!

Ian Tyson?!? Bollocs!! I'll pick Ian Tamblyn instead... But i never really like that "Cowboyography" thing... Ian Tamblyn ison of Canadas most prolific songwriters ever... One of my favorite singer-songwriters has always been Vancouvers Ferron... I thinks she's living somewhere near Seattle now on an island somewhere...

I can't believe I almost forgot the band Tamarack!!

Celticy stuff... The Irish Descendants, or as they are known out East, Those 4 Fat Guys!! LOL!! Great blokes...

Fear Of Drinking, again from out west... They put out a new CD a few months ago I think....

The List won't be complete unless I mention Mad Pudding...

Deffinatly, get The Paperboys!!

And for sorta a mix of celtic and contemp. folk, there's this guy in Windsor, who plays the pubs and bars... almost a tall guy with long red hair... I think his name is Quinton or something... He hasn't got a CD or anything, but from being with him at the bar over a few pints of Guinness I get the idea he'd love to do one... But he's kinda skint... putting his woman through school so she can get a real job and support his folk music habit... If ya see him under his grey fedora, request some James Keelaghan, or some Garnet Rogers... He's really good at that kind of stuff... then ask him to play one of his own tunes...

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: Midchuck
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 12:51 PM

Meaning no disrespect, but I can't see how "Willie-O" could list important modern Canadian folkies and omit Ian Tyson in his second incarnation.

The average eastern US folkie assumes he must have died after Ian and Sylvia broke up. There are places in Montana and Wyoming where if you can't sing anything off "Cowboyography," they'll beat you up and throw you out in the street.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: WyoWoman
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 12:09 PM

Ani diFranco isn't really a folkie, I don't suppose. But she's a helluva protest singer.

Liz Phair is crude, rude and angry, but she makes some good points about the relationship between men and women these days.

I'm concerned that so many of the singer-songwriters are writing about personal drama -- relationships, which are important, but not the end-all and be-all of human existence -- rather than social and political causes. The wage gap between the haves and have-nots in the U.S. is real and oppressive; the environment is on the ropes in many, but not all, places; our politicial process is for sale to the highest bidder; and on and on, but I don't see a lot of music being addressed toward those issues.

But... maybe it is and I'm not listening in the right direction. So I'll watch this thread and see what suggestions come up.

WW

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: GUEST,Ickle Dorritt
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 10:49 AM

For live performance UK try Denny Bartley and Chris Sherbourne, Jez Lowe, Dick Gaughan too mant to mention

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: Willie-O
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 10:42 AM

Canadian picks: the late Stan Rogers of course (d 1983), James Keelaghan, Connie Kaldor, guitarist Don Ross (if you like adventurous acoustic playing), Lennie Gallant, JP Cormier who I saw last night...and beyond Canada, if you want to understand who is influencing about a zillion young women singer-songwriters who don't sit down to play, try out Ani DiFranco.

Willie-O

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: Terry Allan Hall
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 09:39 AM

John Gorka, The Roches, Tish Hinojosa, Suzanne Vega, The Indigo Girls, Peter Case are just a few worth checking out.

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: Sunley
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 09:23 AM

For U.K. , Kate Rusby (often discussed in The Forum) has good selections on her CDs, as does Nacy Kerr/James Fagan. Jane Threfall & Carl Hogsden are good but shy of the recording studios.

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: JamesJim
Date: 29 Jan 00 - 10:26 PM

Si Kahn, John McCutheon, Sparky Rucker.

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jan 00 - 08:35 PM

The Trunch Tradition as maintained by Sid Kipper, obviously. "Norfolk and Good."

Subject: RE: Help: Good modern folkies
From: wildlone
Date: 29 Jan 00 - 07:57 PM

Show of Hands are not to bad.
I think Damien Barber is worth checking out.
If Tim van Eiken? keeps going the way he is he will be one of the names of the future.

Subject: Good modern folkies
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jan 00 - 07:44 PM

I am a great fan of the sixties folk revival, but am not too familiar with too many folkies who came on the scene in the 80s or 90's who is worth looking into?