folk music
Dar Williams has hope for America's small towns
The folk singer has observed what brings neighbors together in communities where she performs.
Goin’ nowhere
Llewyn Davis lives a decidedly nonromantic existence as a starving artist. He’s a good musician, but there are thousands like him, and they can’t all succeed.
"Bricks and mortar will not stay"
I've always been immersed in music, and I never forget a song lyric. So a college friend used to call me "Verse Boy" and would ocassionally challenge me to come up with a hymn or folk song's lesser-known stanzas on command. "National anthem, verse three" he might say, and off I'd go with "And where is that band /Who so vauntingly swore..." (That one's a doozy, by the way. Compared to verse three, verse one might as well be "This Is My Song.")
Anyway, this week someone linked to an old Mental Floss post on subsequent verses of children's songs.
Happy birthday, Woody Guthrie
I'm prone to the occasional rant about how much I dislike the movement folk music of the 1960s—its lack of subtlety, its odd mix of the earnestly humorless and the cornball, its endless verses of repetition. But I love Woody Guthrie, who was born 100 years ago today.
Guthrie was a generation older than the 60s troubadours and a singular influence on many of them, none of whom shared his gifts and sensibilities.