Folk and Acoustic: Post Your Favorite Artists, Groups, and Songs | Page 6 | The Boneyard

Folk and Acoustic: Post Your Favorite Artists, Groups, and Songs

My favorite folk band for the last 50 years is Steeleye Span. Here's one of my faves of theirs.

 
Here's one from Planxty, an Irish traditional supergroup. This is called the Raggle-taggle Gypsy, but it's the same song that Steeleye (and Sandy Denny) did as Black Jack Davy and Cathal McConnell did as The Dark-eyed Gypsy. The instrumental tacked on was probably written by harper Blind Rory O'Cahan in the early 17th century.

 
Janis Ian is probably my favorite modern "folk" singer-songwriter. Here's a live version of Stars, the title song from her "comeback" album, recorded when she was a grand-old 22 or 23. The intro that's cut off from this says (from memory) that she wrote this thinking of a star who can't go anywhere without encountering fans, hecklers, etc. She doesn't say it, but she did go through some of that when she was 15-16.

She's a shy person, and had great difficulty playing for a crowd. It really says something about her that she could absolutely put herself out there, as in this performance.

 
This Richard Thompson song......I play it over and over, such a beautiful lament on lost love:

 
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Jackson Browne made it famous, but Danny O'Keefe wrote it- maybe the best song ever about life on the road for a starving artist:

 
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DeepThreat said:
Can't believe I'm the first person to pay homage to the great John Prine on this string. An American treasure.
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I was just about to go there, loved John. Saw him do "Hello in There" live in Indianapolis about 1988 or so, small club. One great night it was.
 
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@UpstateNY post brought Traffic to mind. I got John Barleycorn Must Die when I was probably 9 or 10. The title song is a brilliant rendition of an oft-performed folk song. When I was young I didn’t understand that Little Sir John wasn’t a person. I love Traffic’s last stanza:

The huntsman he can’t hunt the fox, nor so loudly to blow his horn
And the tinker he can’t mend kettle nor pot
Without a little barleycorn

Steeleye Span‘s last verse makes John’s role as a personification patenr:

They’ve worked their will on John Barleycorn, but he’s lived to tell the tale
For they pour him out of an old brown jug, and they call him home-brewed ale

Here’s a brilliant rendition by Traffic, somewhat older than they were in 1970:

 
Taj Mahal's wonderful driving song - "Truck Driver's Two Step"

Love the steel drums and the ladies backing chorus:

 
This is the first Bruce Cockburn song I ever heard, when he was still doing very folky stuff. I played this at a couple of gigs.

Lordy, Bruce can play a guitar!

 
Bigboote said:
This is the first Bruce Cockburn song I ever heard, when he was still doing very folky stuff. I played this at a couple of gigs.

Lordy, Bruce can play a guitar!

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If I had a rocket launcher.
 
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