Folk / Singer-Songwriter

http://www.othermusic.com/products/tia-blake-folksongs-ballads wrote:n 1971, Tia Blake, then barely eighteen years old and with little money saved, moved alone to Paris where she would soon fall in with an international crew of folk-music enthusiasts. They taught her guitar to accompany the voice she'd been singing with privately since childhood, worked up a repertoire of songs popularized during the folk-music revival of the '60s, and in short order scored a record deal with SFP, a tiny but adventurous label that more usually went in for free jazz, ethnic, and experimental music. The results quite honestly almost beggar belief -- that an album recorded by a mere teenager, and mostly comprised of familiar tunes, could exhibit such remarkable depth. On the greatest tracks there's almost something mysterious happening, as Blake sings with a world-weary tone that totally belies her young age. I've listened to many of these songs back to back with their more famous renditions, and it's amazing how Blake strips any commercialism from her renditions, cutting straight to the essence of the material, and making all other comers sound impossibly corny and pop. At times it reminds me of no less than the great Jackson C. Frank's lone album in that there's often an extra-dimensional depth, or sadness even, that lifts the material into the realms of the unreal.

http://www.coolmojito.com/artist/Pichnarcik/1/2545630 wrote:This rare Phoenix,Arizona folk-psych album is by an obscure singer named Pichnarcik. Entitled "Pichnarcik Sings Astrology",it was released on Zodiac records ...

http://www.last.fm/music/Mike+Tingley wrote:he sole LP of a Caifornian artist, released in Holland, has an impressive opening with the totally Barrett-with-strings “A Real Fine Time”. A rather rich production - the basic rock instruments with something like a strings ensemble - often creating an amazing wall-of-sound, contrasting with the unusual melodic lines that Tingley uses in several tracks. This is rather different from the use of strings in other psychedelic records, like in “Forever Changes” and closer to Phil Spector’s way. Sometimes flutes, layered vocals, tablas and acoustic guitars are used to give the desired psychedelic (or folky in a few cases) sound.

I wouldn’t know if the producer (Tony Vos - also jazz saxophonist, DJ in famous Radio Veronica) or Mike Tingley himself had studied the Beatles’ arrangements in Rubber Soul or Sgt.Pepper that was released a little earlier, but this album is standing between the psychedelic era of the Byrds, Syd Barrett and Sgt. Pepper. There are a few songs that sound too mellow today and they could never be called psychedelic but rather teenage pop, like “Begin the Sun” or “Crossroads”, but this was more or less usual at that time (don’t forget that it was released on Decca)
Another unusual point is the lyrics: we’re listening not just the broken heart stories or the peace-and-love messages that we’d expect, but also political songs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Williamson wrote:Robin Duncan Harry Williamson (born 24 November 1943, Edinburgh) is a Scottish multi-instrumentalist musician, singer, songwriter and storyteller, who first made his name as a founding member of The Incredible String Band.

http://www.somewherethereismusic.com/article-jeremy-harmer-idiosyncratics-and-swallows-wings-1967-68345055.html wrote:I listen to a mage. Not one of those trick players to coarse towers, or even those Mandrake a foil which is repait the time - we are 67 - but one of the most delicate magicians, the most poetic that the scene psych- folk have worn. Idiosyncratics And Swallows Wings listening as one opens a grimoire, a collection of lost packages.

A collection of songs that Jeremy Harmer, flanked by David Costa, future Trees and other master alchemist of East Anglia, delivers us as so many spells, served by a forming chamber (guitar, bass, viola, flute and drums) to precise and nuanced playing. Lyricism colors fleet carried by the air procession, but a lyrical content, warped. The halo of female choirs (Self Contained) from the certain titles (A Happy Song, Each Day With You) make no difference: the voice of Jeremy Harmer is the voice of the spleen is needed to reduce the spleen one vote.

http://www.jeffzentner.com/bio/ wrote:Jeff Zentner lives in Nashville, along with several other musicians. He writes songs about rust and dirt and the dying days of summer. He writes songs about time, death, memory, and love. His songwriting is influenced by the likes of Townes Van Zandt and Leonard Cohen. He is also particularly influenced by writers such as Cormac McCarthy, Joe Bolton, Jack Gilbert, and Michael Ondaatje.
He released his first album, “Hymns to the Darkness”, in November 2006, shortly after moving to the mountains of North Carolina from Tennessee.
In April 2009, Jeff released his second solo album, “The Dying Days of Summer.” Guests on the album include katiejane garside (Ruby Throat, Queen Adreena, Daisy Chainsaw), Andria Degens (Pantaleimon, Current 93), Josie Little, Matt Bauer, Jay Foote, and Sara Zentner.
The few people who heard these albums seemed to enjoy them well enough.
Jeff is also known for his work with the Southern Gothic trio Creech Holler, formed in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 2004. In 2006, Creech Holler released “With Signs Following.” In 2008, Creech Holler released “The Shovel and the Gun.”
Jeff appears on the album “We Are Only Riders - The JLP Sessions Project,” a tribute to the late Gun Club frontman Jeffrey Lee Pierce, released in 2010 on Glitterhouse Records. He performs on guitar, mandolin, dobro, and banjo with David Eugene Edwards on the song “Rambling Mind,” with Mark Lanegan on “Constant Waiting,” and with Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell on “Free to Walk.” Other guests on the tribute include Nick Cave, Debbie Harry, Lydia Lunch, Mick Harvey, Barry Adamson, The Raveonettes, Dave Alvin, and Johnny Dowd.
He appears on the sequel to "We Are Only Riders," entitled "The Journey is Long," released in March 2012 on Glitterhouse Records. He appears on songs with Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Nick Cave, Debbie Harry, Warren Ellis, Tex Perkins, Kid Congo Powers, Mark Lanegan, Isobel Campbell, and Lydia Lunch. He is proudly the least influential and important musician involved in the album.

http://rockasteria.blogspot.gr/2011/09/hunt-and-turner-magic-landscape-1972-uk.html wrote:Fabulous grooving folk rock sounds with plenty of atmosphere, first released by the much beloved Village Thing label in 1972. Ian Hunt and John Turner first teamed-up in the late summer of 1970, the inevitable collaboration of two of the West Country's most sought-after session musicians.

String bassist and guitarist Turner had just left the infamous Pigsty Hill Light Orchestra and Hunt, a wizard guitarist and song writer who was already a 'big-name' on the Bristol scene, was looking for a new vehicle for his talents. Both had been spawned by the legendary Bristol Troubadour Club, which Turner had run for several years, and within months the new duo was picking up fans and followers around the UK and in Europe.

This album went straight to number six in the Melody Maker folk charts upon its original release. Years later, Ian Hunt is still making stunning music and is rated amongst the finest guitarists in the land, while John Turner, ever the entertainer and entrepreneur, as well as being in his own words a "part-time rake and bon viveur," was until recently one of Britain's most respected BBC radio and television presenters.

Crystalline acoustic and electric guitars and delicious vocals, backed with electric and string bass and bongos; imagine if you will British band Magna Carta with a guitarist as skilled as Wizz Jones or John Martyn: acoustic instrumentation and strong songs.

http://www.numerogroup.com/artists/richard-smyrnios wrote:Richard Smyrnios’ stage name “Poor Richard” couldn’t have been more apt. After eking out a meager existence in Kalamazoo, Michigan—where he taught himself guitar on a busted three-stringer–Smyrnios, a high-school dropout, took advantage of the only opportunity afforded to him. Stuck on an Air Force base in the Jim Crow south in 1965, he requested a transfer to anywhere and ended up in Khe Sahn—the epicenter of Viet Nam’s growing conflict. Surrounded by 25,000 VC, his personal defenses driven down by stress and despair, Smyrnios collapsed with pneumonia after months of witnessing death and narrowly dodging it himself. While recuperating in the states, he heard the revolution in music that he had missed while stationed in the jungle. Everything had changed.
Pulled from one war and dropped into what felt like another, Smyrnios began a painful process of re-immersion. He entered college at Western Michigan in Kalamazoo and picked up the guitar again. What had kept him sane in the heat of battle kept his head clear for songwriting, and after graduation, he supported himself through his music. Grueling gigs at the Holly’s restaurant chain featured him and a guitar for five-hour stints, five nights a week. A few years later, with the help of a local record store, Place Of The Sun was issued on the Kazoo label. Featuring Richard’s sister Angi on harmony vocals and the melodious Jim Rife on fife, “As I Walk” is an otherwise fairly straightforward affair. For a moment, Poor Richard’s luck seemed to change. Place Of The Sun sold well enough locally and even made its way out to Los Angeles where a “big time” publisher was interested in putting Smyrnios in its stable. Inexplicably, Poor Richard passed on the deal. A few years later he would reappear as Sonora, his fortunes largely unchanged.

http://mirelwagner.bandcamp.com/track/no-death wrote: Mirel Wagner is a 23 year old singer/songwriter, born in Ethiopia and raised in Espoo, Finland. Since age 16 she's writing gloomy Blues and Folk songs, stripped down to the bone. It's just about her airy but rough voice and a minimalistic guitar picking. Avoiding theatralic gestures effortlessly her music has a unique intensity and emotional weight.

John Martyn wrote:John Martyn, OBE (11 September 1948 – 29 January 2009), born as Iain David McGeachy, was a British singer-songwriter and guitarist. Over a 40-year career, he released 21 studio albums, working with artists such as Eric Clapton, David Gilmour and Phil Collins. He was described by The Times as "an electrifying guitarist and singer whose music blurred the boundaries between folk, jazz, rock and blues".

http://waxidermy.com/mossy-davidson-northwind-calling/ wrote:For me Mossy is incomparable. She is herself, unique- like the songs on this album, which have a special way of touching people. These songs are true Alaskan folk music, a very personal expression of the joys and dreams, beauty and solitude of living on the last frontier- songs of love for the North Country, of pioneers and fishermen, wild places and changing times.

https://www.facebook.com/onthecoastofheaven/info?tab=page_info wrote:Duncan McKnight is a rock ‘n roll recording artist and multi-instrumentalist influenced by psychedelic rock, old country and 1960s garage. Born in Bakersfield, California, he moved to Berlin in 2005 at the age of 18, where he fronted The Virgin Tongues, a three-piece that hailed comparisons to the Velvet Underground and Jesus and Mary Chain, perhaps because of the minimalist stage set up and the guys’ dandyish attitudes. Their most popular song, "Six Feet Underground" is still heard in bars and clubs in Berlin and throughout Europe and elsewhere.

Poised for success, things came to a crashing halt when, in 2009, Duncan fell out a third story window of a building in Reykjavik the night before playing a show with Icelandic rockers Singapore Sling. He suffered various injuries, including damage to the cerebellum, multiple fractures, a collapsed lung, and was in a coma for 8 days. During a nine-month recovery period in Iceland, he had to relearn how to walk, talk, and play music. Icelandic artist Nonni DEAD inspired Duncan greatly, and helped him through the existential aspect of his recovery.

It took five years to relearn how to sing and play the guitar, but after physical and vocal therapy, in 2012, McKnight self-released his comeback, a 24-track psych folk album, Live from the Indian Burial Grounds, a collection of recordings from California, Germany, Iceland, and Denmark. Clocking in just under 70 minutes in length and laid down on four track.

http://www.yogarecords.com/artists/blackburn/ wrote:Most would probably agree that this is one of the very best psych-style LPs from the 1980s. Not retro at all but (like Bobb Trimble) a piece of the late 1960s preserved from time’s rust. Male-female vocals lament and serenade ‘the quest for knowledge of love and beauty’ in an appealling soundscape, with lyrical guitar leads throughout, good use of mellotron, occasional tablas, flute and bells. The recording has a definite 1981 sound but (again like Bobb) this somehow becomes an advantage. The vocal blend is superb and may recall Anonymous and Bermuda Triangle, while the wistful mood and beautiful melodies is a bit like British band Ithaca or the melodic sides of Seventh Dawn. Moments such as ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ go truly deep...

[T]his is recommended to anyone open for a folkpsych trip inside the melancholy and bliss of an acid-fueled romance” -- Patrick Lundborg, The Acid Archives

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Elliott_%28musician%29 wrote:Ron Elliott (born Ronald Charles Elliott) on October 21, 1943) is an American musician, composer and producer, best known as songwriter and lead guitarist of rock band The Beau Brummels. Elliott wrote or co-wrote the band's 1965 U.S. top 20 hits "Laugh, Laugh" and "Just a Little." In addition to reuniting with the Beau Brummels on occasion over the years, Elliott released a solo album in 1970, and has played on and produced albums by a number of other artists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wyatt wrote:Robert Wyatt (born Robert Wyatt-Ellidge, 28 January 1945) is an English musician, and founding member of the influential Canterbury scene band Soft Machine, with a long and distinguished solo career. He is married to English painter and songwriter Alfreda Benge.

http://www.last.fm/music/Shelagh+McDonald wrote:Originally from Scotland, Shelagh McDonald moved to London in the late 1960s, where she was part of the folk-music scene. In 1970 she released her first album, Shelagh McDonald Album, which sold rather poorly. 1971’s Stargazer sold better, and was critically acclaimed. However, some time after its release, McDonald disappeared and wasn’t heard from again until quite recently.

Shelagh McDonald’s music is close to that of some of her contemporaries, for example, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, and Duncan Browne. Her voice is a clear soprano, somewhere between Joni Mitchell and Sandy Denny. On her albums she worked with, amongst others, Fairport Convention’s Richard Thompson, The Pentangle’s Danny Thompson and Robert Kirby (who is most famous for the arrangements he did for Nick Drake).

http://psychspaniolos.blogspot.gr/ wrote: Ελάχιστες έως ανύπαρκτες οι πληροφορίες για αυτό το Καλιφορνέζικης προέλευσης ντουέτο που έβγαλε αυτό μοναδικό Lp σε private press το 1969. Εξαιρετικού επιπέδου acid psychedelic folk.

Σπάνιο να το βρείτε για να το ακούσετε  και το οποίο σας το συνιστώ ανεπιφύλακτα να το έχετε στη συλλογή σας. Η τιμή του ορίτζιναλ δίσκου σε mint κατάσταση προκαλεί ίλιγγο. Νομίζω έχει ξεπεράσει πλέον τα 2.500 δολάρια.
Ο Ken Kusudo σε ηλικία 17 ετών ακόμα μαθητής Λυκείου και ο Jeff Worth ήταν τα δύο μέλη.

http://www.italianprog.com/a_piazza.htm wrote:Very few people probably knew these album until some years ago, as they went totally unnoticed at the time.
Armando Piazza was a singer-songwriter from Naples and released these albums with curious titles on the local B.B.B. label (that also released the Showmen 2 album), selling them by himself in concerts and through magazines. The albums contained acid-psych ballads, all English-sung and mainly based on acoustic guitar but sometime with good use of electric instruments, they're also notable for the help of American musician Shawn Phillips (who lived in Naples for some years) on guitar and b

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/forest-mn0000740423/biography wrote: The Incredible String Band was nothing more than a cult act in the U.S., so it may come as a surprise to American listeners that the ISB actually spawned imitators on their home turf. Forest was the most faithful of these, releasing a couple albums of medieval-hippie minstrelsy in 1969-1970. Each member of the trio (Martin Welham, Derek Allenby, and Hadrian Welham) was a multi-instrumentalist, playing not just the expected guitars, but harmonium, harpsichord, pipes, whistle, organ, and mandolin. If the group lacked the electricity and drums associated with rock, at the same time they could not be associated with the straight folk scene; their lyrics were too strange, and their approach too eclectic.

Full Circle
Through the recommendation of top British DJ John Peel, Forest found a home on Harvest, the pioneering U.K. progressive rock label. Their first, self-titled LP was an Incredible String Band clone; while it may have been somewhat less grating than the ISB at their most excessive, it also was not as innovative or imaginative as the ISB at their best. Their second and, as it turned out, final effort (Full Circle, 1970) was an improvement, finding their songwriting skills improving substantially, and their arrangements becoming more diverse and original.