On Peter Gabriel's album "Passion" there is a haunting version of "Zaar", and old North African melody used for driving away the devil, and alot of Peter's later albums include rhythms and sounds sampled from recordings of African folk musicians. Bob Marley was always great for music with a strong folk root! How about that bizarre arrangement of Paul Simon's "America" by Yes? (I know Simon's not a true folkie- but hey!) Or Aaron Copland's use of the melody from "Simple Gifts" in his own composition "Appalachian Spring" Tom Wait's alway has a strong folk thread running through his music (i.e. "Waltzing Mathilda" "Time") The opposite end of this thread might be "pop songs that make surprizingly good folk tunes. Take, for example, Richard Thompson's acoustic solo version of Britney Spears' song "Oops- I Did it Again!", or Robin Williams doing Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time"
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