Most influential folk rec's - since 1960

Subject: Most influential folk/blues rec's - since 1960
From: DADGAD
Date: 16 Sep 00 - 08:25 PM

Been arguing this one for some time around circuits - what is anyone else's list? Usually is very personal nad where we all were and when - for me it was Davy Graham - an old album called 'Folk Blues and Beyond' ( still have the original!) and the track 'Ain't nobodys business what I do'. Wonderful guitar playing and Graham was so much to so many with such - my list continues on down from there and has Dylan, McTell, Jansch, Maddy Prior, June Tabor, Steeleye, Cyril Tawney, Ewan Mcoll and yes - Emmy- Lou Harris is there too. What do you think?

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Sep 00 - 08:33 PM

I believe # 1 would be Dylan's 2nd album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan". To that you can add every single Dylan album that followed it, particularly "The Times They Are A-Changin'", "Bringing It All Back Home", "Highway 61 Revisited", "Blonde on Blonde", and "John Wesley Harding."

Another major contender would be Joan Baez's first album, and her second also, and "Farewell Angelina".

Another would be Ian & Sylvia's first album.

Joni Mitchell's first album.

Leonard Cohen's first two albums.

PPM's first album.

Buffy Sainte-Marie's first 3 albums, specially the first one ("It's My Way")

Donovan's "Sunshine Superman".

Okay, I'll stop now.

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: Dee45
Date: 16 Sep 00 - 08:51 PM

Tea For The Tillerman - Cat Stevens

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: GUEST,The Invisible Blazoona
Date: 16 Sep 00 - 09:11 PM

I could be wrong, but I believe that the first Harry Smith collection began making the rounds about 1960. That was enormously influential.

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: thosp
Date: 16 Sep 00 - 11:25 PM

the weavers carnagie hall concerts

odetta at town hall

peace (Y) thosp

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: Oversoul
Date: 16 Sep 00 - 11:42 PM

John Fahey, Robbie Basho...where were you? Love beyond words, guitar said it all, still does, any takers?

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: Mark Clark
Date: 16 Sep 00 - 11:57 PM

Why peg the question to 1960? If you move back only one year, you'll be able to pick up Instrumantal Music Of The Southern Appalachians, surely one of the most influential of all recordings back when everyone was learning to play.

If you don't have this one, buy the reissued CD. The blue clicky I provided gives Mudcat credit for your purchase.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 05:36 PM

The Bothy Band:1975 should be somewhere on the list.

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: GUEST,Claudie
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 05:37 PM

Have you forgotten about Sandy Denny, and Fairport Convention, and Pentangle, and Jethro Tull...

Note the British thread here?

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 06:45 PM

(The Late) Bill Williams "blues, rags, and ballads" Nick Drake "pink moon" Souled American "sonny"

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: DADGAD
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 08:51 PM

Well yes - my list does contain Sndy and Fairport - Pentangle maybe not but Jansch def. Yes this is a Brit pespective - apologies to across waters - I loo much to Guthrie but just keeping it narrow on this list. As said it leans much to the influences that drove the revival in UK. Always subjective. More thoughts welcome though. Gerry Forrester - Argyll

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 09:37 PM

a couple of these posts seemed to be real attempts to rate 'influential', while a couple more impressed me as just mentions of 'what hit me hardest'....it's a hard distinction to make---and part of why I don't try to answer questions except the ones which DO ask what I like best....(and, as you all know, *grin*...I am not the best judge of the music of the last 40 years...having missed 75% of it)

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: DonMeixner
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 10:49 PM

For me:

The Sons of the Pioneers 1934-36

"The Promise of the Day" The Corrie Folk Trio and Paddie Bell. 1966ish

"The Weavers at Carnegie Hall" first time.

Phil Ochs "Live"

Tom Paxtin "Morning Again" and "Ain't That News"

Pat Sky "Pat Sky"

"Blues Rags and Hollers" Koerner, Glover, and Ray

" The Clancy Brothers" First Tiparm recording

" Paul Mc Niell Tradionally at the Troubadour"

" The Thorn in Mrs. Rose's Side" Biff Rose

These all shaped the musician I became. I have many that I like as well or even better but these were the biggies in my musical up bringing.

Don

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: GospelPicker (inactive)
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 11:48 AM

The most influential recordings in the history of folk music are the one's we've never heard... The way the sound of my first Robert Johnson 78 got "recorded" in my brain so that I wanted to stop listening to commercial garbage and seek out the real deal... The way Hank Williams' voice and guitar on "Settin' The Woods On Fire" make me jump up and down and get all itchy to play... The way a little kid learns "This Land Is Your Land" (even with the cleaned-up, PC lyrics in the schoolbooks) and never forgets it... Woody, Hank, Robert and many others changed my life and not because of the pressing of the disc... but because of the imprint on my mind and heart.

GospelPicker

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: GUEST,James
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 12:37 PM

The ones that had the most impact om me..Bob Dylan, the Times they are a changin..the first two or three Joan Baez Albums, Frankie Armstrong, Martin Carthy, Fairports Liege and leaf and Below the Salt by Steeleye Span. Nic Drake also was a great influence as were the Watersons.

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 02:55 PM

Doc Watson Live on Vanguard, I believe.

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: tradsteve
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 12:26 AM

Martin Carthy's Second album, Nic Jones Penguin Eggs, Bob Dylan's Freewheelin', Weavers At Carnegie Hall, Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall, and Robert Johnson's complete works

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: Mbo
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 12:30 AM

RIOF by Dougie MacLean

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 01:48 AM

The first two Dylan albums...set the stage for the fusion of traditional and introspective/poetic Folk that influenced everyone from Trad Purists to Rock Stars

Sweetheart of the Rodeo...The Byrds and Gram Parsons take classic Folk,Contemporary Folk and Old-Time Country (Dylan,Guthrie,Haggard,the Louvins,Merle Travis) and blend them to create Country Rock and its antithesis,alternative country

Mr Tambourine Man...Folk is introduced to the rock audience,giving the Folk Revival its greatest push forward,or downward depending on your point of view.

Fairport Convention...as the Byrds jumped traditional into rock in America,Fairport Convention was electrifying the ballads of their country.

Who Knows Where the Time Goes Judy Collins...like Dylan's early work,a mixture of her influences,including Ian Tyson,Leonard Cohen,and Robin Williamson, and her own material.I think it's the definitive Female Folk album of the 60s.

Weavers at Carnegie Hall...I think it was recorded at the end of the 50s,but released in the 60s.Classic commercial Folk that called heavily on the work of people like Woody and Leadbelly,it summarized the state of Folk by the Old Masters at the jumping-off point for the New Folk movement of Dylan,Ochs,Baez,etc.

Blues at Newport-1963...Gathering of Blues Greats in Newport's pre-electric days of 1963 that brought people like John Lee Hooker,Rev Gary Davis,Mississippi John Hurt and Terry and McGhee into the limelight,and initiated the rediscovery and re-release of much early blues work.

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 04:39 AM

I see that so far most mudcatters have cited their personal influences. But when I saw the title of this thread I thought of overall mass influence. This brought to mind a credit I saw regarding the Kingston Trio...."If the Kingston Trio hadn't started the folk revolution of the early 1960's, it is unlikely that Columbia would have considered signing the likes of Bob Dylan." The Kingston Trio has 3 Albums on Billboard's Top 100 Albums...I am not sure which ones exactly, but I know that their first album is one of them. I would cite this as the most influential.

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 06:16 AM

Britney Spears, S club 7 etc

If anything makes me appreciate good folk music teen pop does...;-)

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: kendall
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 08:25 AM

Buryl Ives, untitled. The Weavers, The Kingston Trio, Tom Paxton, Gordon Bok and Utah Phillips.

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 10:27 AM

James Taylor's first non-Apple album changed the way a lot of performing guitarists approached the playing of folk music. The traditional "folk strum" became passe once people started articulating chords, using passing notes, changing major chords to demolished and argumentative ones, etc. And the traditional folk sound became an endangered species in the coffeehouses as the growth of the singer-songwriter (Navel Gazing R'US) branch of the folk tree accelerated (thanks to James and Joni Mitchell). It became more compelling to tell "my story" than "his-tory", and traditional music began to lose popularity in it's own venues.

I was one of those guys who got lured by the new sound then and confess to still appreciating it now. In the past few years, though, I've become more aware of the downside of what I thought was a purely positive development in the music. I guess it's true that "something's lost and something's gained in living everyday", as the song goes. And "influential" doesn't necessarily mean "good" now, does it?

Oh yeah - two other guys that I found to be pretty influential were Richie Havens and Taj Mahal. R. Havens incorporated that strong rhythmic feel and Taj showed how you could blend folk and blues until you weren't sure which was which.

Subject: RE: Most influential folk rec's - since 1960
From: northfolk/al cholger
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 10:55 AM

As I've said in past similar threads, the Elektra Folk Box a four album compilation...now out of print...I wore it out playing it.

And I keep posting the same, hoping someday, someone says "hey, Al, I have a clean copy, can I make you a recording?"

as far as most influential, an old Pete Seeger album with "Talking Union", changed my life. I have spent every day for about twenty five years, following Pete's direction... talking union.