If You like this band , you will love ..

Subject: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: GUEST,JulieF
Date: 11 May 00 - 09:14 AM

Having read all the car stereo threads it struck me that we could tap everybody's musical knowledge. The idea is that you think of a famous band that you enjoy and then think of a less well known band with a similar sound /similar outlook - then stick it in the thread so that we can all look for new bands we might enjoy.

So what about it. Unfortunatley, having come up with the idea I can't think of a suitable pairing. Maybe later

Julie

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: DADGBE
Date: 11 May 00 - 10:42 AM

Hi Julie,

I think you may be falling into a trap set for all of us by the cultures we grew up in. Folk music at its best isn't something performed at passive listeners by trained musicians. It's the music that people make in the course of our daily lives: our songs of worship, cake baking, making love, play, work, rocking children to sleep, thinking politically, etc. But, we've all learned the 'active performer vs. passive audience' model instead of a participatory one.

There, having gotten that off my chest, I feel much better now but I haven't answered your question.

The 'music biz' works hard to provide us all with familiar sound devoid of content and trains us to value sound above content. BUT, there are outposts of sanity in the industry.

If you can climb out of the 'similar sound/similar outlook' box, you'll start hearing and maybe making better music.

Forgive me, Julie, for the sermon. Let us pray...

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: DADGBE
Date: 11 May 00 - 10:54 AM

Damn! About half the message just disappeared into the ether. I'll try that part again:

Anything Folk Legacy produces is selected for content and musical value instead of commercial potential. (How many vinyl discs do you have left, Sandy?) Get their field recordings from Beech Mountain, North Carolina and hear plain folks making the music which is part of their daily lives. Or get the CD re-release of Jody Stecher and Peter K. Siegal's field recordings from the outer islands of the Bahamas on the Nonesuch label. It's titled "The Real Bahamas." If you want to splurge, pick up Smithsonian Folkways' re-release of the "Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music." There's a wealth of superb music from 'round the world on CD.

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: black walnut
Date: 11 May 00 - 10:56 AM

i hear you loud and clear, dadgbe, but i think julie is trying to open up our ears to folk we might not otherwise brave a listen to. i think what she's asking for is the kind of thing we often do with our friends....by drawing favourable comparisons, we expand the audience for some of our personal favourite finds. not all folk is done in the kitchen, and not all folk is done on the stage. it's both, and it's more than the sum. (my sermon is done.... now let's take up the offering!)

julie, you've issued a big challenge....
i'll try this one:

if you like Martin Simpson, you'll like Don Ross?

well, it's a start.....!

~black walnut

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: GUEST,JulieF
Date: 11 May 00 - 10:58 AM

Ok - I participate as well - very , very badly at times but we all need somewhere to start looking for other things. Someone may suggest a band , that may lead to a festival visit and hence to more workshop participation and meeting other people. I quite happy if people say - iif you like this you've got to try this - because it is so different. Just looking for ideas.

Julie

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: GUEST,JulieF
Date: 11 May 00 - 11:02 AM

We've all crossed across the airways - or is it just my typing's slow today. Still I've just thought of some

There is the records issued by the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh on the Scottish Tradition. I've forgotten the titles of the ones i've got but I can pull them out at home.

Julie

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: GUEST,Aldus
Date: 11 May 00 - 12:31 PM

I am a big fan of Steeleye Span, especially the early albums. I once picked up an LP at a second hand store by a group Called HedgeHog Pie...they were sort of in the same vein as Steeleye.. I still have the LP and I play it every once in awhile..interesting music. I have not heard anything about this band since.. Does anyone else know anything about them ?

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 11 May 00 - 03:12 PM

Black Walnut, this is paying off already -- I think Martin Simpson is great, but have never heard of Don Ross. I will be sure to check him out. Let's see: if you like John Renbourne, give a listen to Al Petteway. Not identical players, but they share something.

Julie, I understand and agree with a lot of what DADGBE said, but I think there's value in this thread; thanks for thinking of it.

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 11 May 00 - 03:29 PM

If you like Ali Farka Toure, listen to Habib Koite, another Malian guitarist. In fact, I like Koite a good deal more. He's got at least one CD out on Putamayo, and I can't get enough of it.

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: black walnut
Date: 11 May 00 - 03:47 PM

Whistle Stop,

That's great! Don is a top-notch guitar player; he was the first two-time winner of the U.S. fingerstyle guitar competitions at Winfield Kansas. Not bad for a Canadian, eh?
I recommend you start with "Passion Session" (Narada), which is Don Ross with no band. You can really hear what this guy can do on guitar (one of them, the Graf, is a 7 string). Absolutely amazing, and a really nice guy, too! Let me what you think.

~black walnut

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: Wesley S
Date: 11 May 00 - 04:08 PM

The first ones I thought of were Solus, Altan and Dervish

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 12 May 00 - 08:11 AM

Thanks again, Black Walnut -- I'll give it a listen.

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: DADGBE
Date: 12 May 00 - 10:37 AM

After shooting my mouth off earlier in this thread...I think this is a great thread. I'm learning a lot! Thanks to all.

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 12 May 00 - 10:59 AM

Several book and music shop websites do this but fail to distinguish (naturally) between things I order for myself and things I order as presents, so I spend a lot of time honing my "preferences" to weed out the ones I don't like. The Mudcat already serves this purpose better, after a while I got to know those 'Catters who share my tastes and have discovered artists new to me based on their recommendations. Otherwise, as Bert would say, I'd be stuck in the '50s!
Thanks to all 'Catters whose enthusiasm for particular musicians has added to my collection. (If the wife ever finds out who's responsible, you're dead meat!!
RtS

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: Metchosin
Date: 12 May 00 - 11:32 AM

Aldus, can't help you with HedgeHog Pie, but if you like early Steeleye Span, you will love the Old Blind Dogs, especially their earlier work, Close to the Bone, New Tricks, Tall Tails and Legacy.

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: paddymac
Date: 12 May 00 - 11:49 AM

HMM - Solus, Altan & Dervish. Solus, I think, is mostly Irish-American youngun's , and damned good. Altan is a Donegal band with a reflection of the area's scotch-irish heritage in their music. Also damned good. Dervish is a Sligo band, sort of in the same neck of the woods as Altan, but with a distinctive Sligo sound. Also exceptionally good. If you happen to be in Sligo, be sure to check out a pub called "Sheela-na-gig" down by the river. It's run by three of the folks in Dervish and if the group is not on tour most of them can usually be found playing in the seisiuns there. Seisiuns are five nights a week, excepting Wed & Sat.

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: black walnut
Date: 12 May 00 - 02:10 PM

Overnight I worried a tiny bit about what I said above. Each performer has a different voice, and what I think they might have in common is not what someone else might be looking for....

I'll tell you what I'm thinking:

Martin Simpson in an incredible guitar player, technically and passionately. He's bluesy, celtic, gospel.....

Don Ross is an incredible guitar player, technically and passionately. He's jazzy, bluesy, celtic......

Kelly Joe Phelps (another I'd thought to mention) is an incredible guitar player, technically and passionately. He's blues. True true blues. Beautiful sexy blues.

So, I hope that nobody tries to listen to Don Ross, and then says, "But he doesn't sound anything like Martin Simpson. Black Walnut is Nuts". I do hear some overlap of styles, but I was more drawn to the ease with which they play - the way that the guitar is so much a part of these guys, like another arm, almost. I never tire of hearing their recordings over and over again. These three are all Top-of-the-Ladder guitar players!

~black walnut (am i making any sense?)

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 12 May 00 - 02:54 PM

Perfect sense. If they were identical, you'd only need one of them. It's more a question of having a feeling that people who find something to like in one of the might be drawn to something that the other does. And I agree with Roger, folks on the Mudcat can make these connections better than the retailers can.

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: Jim Krause
Date: 12 May 00 - 04:00 PM

I rather like my Irish tunes flavored with a bit of the blues, as strained through the African tradition. I don't know how to describe it, but listening to a Galax fiddler play Temperence Reel vs. a fiddler from the other side of the pond, well, I'd like 'em both, no doubt, but still there's something catching about that funky Appalachian sound I just can't get over. So here's my submission to the thread. If you like the Camp Creek Boys, you'll like the Highwoods Stringband. If you like the Highwoods Stringband, you'll like the Volo Bogtrotters.

Subject: RE: If You like this band , you will love ..
From: black walnut
Date: 13 May 00 - 08:41 AM

oooooh, that sounds delicious, soddy.
and all new to me.....

~'nut