It's Folk week!
 

Just two weeks after folk rock week, a quick check of the theme calendar informs me that this week it is...folk week!

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say this week will be a bit of a fail! Maybe MB can suprise me though. I hope so anyway!

Given the recent theme for folk rock and after checking the schedule, i would personally assume that this week is intended to be dedicated more to traditional folk music.

Reading materials:
Wiki
RYM

I'll share some songs that I've always liked:

Phil Ochs - I Ain't Marching Anymore



The Kingston Trio - Where Have All the Flowers Gone?



The Kingston Trio - Tom Dooley



And of course, Woody Guthrie:

I Ain't Got No Home in This World Anymore:



This Land Is Your Land:

I've been looking forward to this one.

I have to include some Pete Seeger to start.

Pete Seeger- If I Had A Hammer


Pete Seeger- We Shall Overcome


Leadbelly, one of the most influential and admired folk/blues/roots musicians of the 30s

Leadbelly- Goodnight Irene


Leadbelly- House Of The Rising Sun


One of my favorite folk songs of all time, Shenandoah. It has been covered so many times, so I'll pick a good one.

The Brothers Four- Shenandoah


And I want to include some of my favorite covers from Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions, because it's the one thing he does a great job on.

Bruce Springsteen- John Henry


Bruce Springsteen- O Mary Don't You Weep

This one has always been a favorite

Cool account name.

It's William Fitzsimmons week for me.

A few of my favorites:

Loudon Wainwright III - The Swimming Song


Joni Mitchell - California


Woody Guthrie - Jesus Christ

Some of my faves.

Melanie ~ Peace Will Come (According To Plan)



Phil Ochs ~ Changes (with Julie Felix)



Gordon Lightfoot ~ The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald



Billy Bragg ~ Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key (w/ Wilco & Natalie Merchant )



John Gorka ~ Ignorance and Privilege

Steven Von Till (neusosis) his solo works are as bleak as they are utterly beautiful....in my opinion he really has a knack for folk music (this song seriously gives me chills)


Forseti was the sole project of Andreas Ritter whom unfortunately suffered a major heart attack a few years back leaving him partly paralyzed and with brain damage...i love his somewhat upbeat re-telling of this classic dark poem


Changes is Robert N Taylor and has actually been around since the early 60's....a interesting plea to return to more traditional ways


i could not in could conscious make a post which is basically neo-folk and not include Death In June


a soothing and wonderful band from Portland OR


"How art thou nothing, when thou art most of all?"

This is the third week in a row for some kind of folk music. I guess this time it's meant to be more traditional. From all over the world? If so, I'll post some Balkan folk.

'Marijo deli bela kumrijo' is an old Serbian song that has been performed in many ways, this time by a great Pavle Aksentijevic with a band Zapis in a very traditional manner. Beautiful song.


Ansambl Renesans is a Serbian music collective formed in the 60's that uses historical instruments for performing music from the oldest written to the baroque, European and Eastern, including what is known of Byzantine music. But they also perform traditional Balkan folk. 'Skomraška igra (Jugglers'Play)' is an old Serbian dance performed here as it was meant to sound like in Middle Ages. Oj ha!


This thread gives me another reason to post this beautiful song 'Nine Iron Doors' from a great Macedonian band Anastasia. It's on their soundtrack album for the film Before the Rain.


A virtuoso violinist Lajkó Félix and a Hungarian singer Magdolna Rúzsa performing a traditional Hungarian song 'Még azt mondják' with a modern improvisational touch. Yeah!


And of course Boban Marković Orkestar, the most famous Serbian brass band that won numerous prizes at the Guča trumpet festival and is pretty well known internationally thanks to Emir Kusturica's films mainly.

I'm picking three by one of my favorite folksingers, Richie Havens. Richie grew up in a tough section of the Bronx & taught himself to play guitar in his teens to using his own set of unconventional open tunings instead of the conventional low E-G-A-D-B-E which are the normal tunings of the 6 guitar strings.

In the early Sixties Richie gravitated to the Bleeker Street cafe & coffee house scene. He was in good company. Richie was the friend and musical peer of such notable musicians as Peter Paul & Mary, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Dave Van Ronk, John Phillips & Cass Elliot (later of the Mama's & Papa"s), Roger McGuinn (later the founder of the Byrds), the notorious Fugs & Judy Collins.

Richie was unusual because he a black singer in a urban folk revival that largely consisted of middle class young white performers who earnestly interpreting the authentic sounds of black blues & folk singers of the 20s & 30s. Of course Mr. Havens had more authentic credentials than nearly all of them, as talented as many of the young folk revivalists were.

Richie's sonorous baritone voice & his mastery of jazz, blues & the American folkways landed him a recording contract with Verve records which was primarily a boutique label for elite jazz musicians like Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Stan Getz & Count Baise.

Until Woodstock Richie's musical following was limited to a devoted cult of jazz & folk rock fans.

Richie Havens will always be associated with Woodstock & he was the opening act there. Nobody had ever played before a crowd of 500,000 people. Veteran performers Arlo Guthrie, Country Joe McDonald, Stephen Stills, John Sebastian all sat paralyzed and unwilling to perform because of overwhelming stage fright which was probably magnified by their own cannabis & LSD consumption.

Somebody dared Richie to go out on the massive stage to open up the Festival. Without blinking, Richie fearlessly strolled out before the audience of 500,000 hippies like he owned Max Yagur's farm. When Havens broke into his electrifying version of Freedom he won over the crowd. Afterwards Havens said he paid no attention to the size of the audience & acted as if he was playing a routine gig before a crowd of 78 people in a coffee house in Greenwich Village.

Here's the video of Richie opening up Woodstock with Freedom in bright shining moment in what seems like several lifetimes ago.



The song is my favorite. It's called Follow.



Richie Havens rearranged an old jug band song, San Francisco Bay Blues & transformed it from a novelty song associated with street singer Jesse Fuller into a gorgeous jazzy folk ballad.