F is for Folk Music and Dance

'And set my long bow by my side. It was my music sweet.' -- from the Death of Robin Hood (Child 120)

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Performers

Here are few of my favorite performers who have official or unofficial Web Sites. For several years I stuck them in categories, but have now pared the list and lumped together one list of twenty performers whose webpages I'm most likely to want to visit. See also my favorite performers to dance to.

  1. Cindy Mangsen is the best ballad singer in the business, bar none. She makes music with Steve Gillette, who has put together an Internet Tutorial on Songwriting and the Creative Process, based on the book he wrote. Around here when you say "The Trio," folks know you are talking about Cindy, Priscilla Herdman and Anne Hills..
  2. John Kirk and Trish Miller are the nicest people I know in folk music. I know the word "nice" ain't an adjective usually found in press releases or blurbs, but it is not an insult (they are cute, too). Need more? How about "dynamically expressive, high-energy, Appalachian-clogging, banjo-burstin' and fiddle-fancy performers who are infectiously funny and good-for-the-soul." And you can quote me. Oh yeah, and there is no one my wife and I would rather waltz to at an outdoor festival.
  3. Natalie MacMaster, the dancing fiddle wizard is a show-stopper at every folk music festival she appears. As electric as Natalie may be now, her style is steeped in tradition, and it is easy to see the influence of Buddy MacMaster & Joey Beaton, as well as Jerry Holland.
  4. Pete -- who else would wait until age 77 to first win a Grammy?
  5. Neither Silly Wizard nor the Bothy Band are around any more, but most of the musicians who made up these bands are still active and will always be among the best Celtic players there ever.
  6. When Ian Robb sings with Finest Kind, there is one great mix of harmonious Anglo-Canadian new folk tradition. When he sings with Friends of Fiddlers Green, powerful vocal harmonies are about the only thing that can be predicted.
  7. What has Gordon Bok been up to lately?
  8. Jack Hardy proves you can write songs week in and week out and still find inspiration (and be an inspiration).
  9. I was so glad I had a chance to hear Kate Wolf before she died in 1986. When I heard her, I thought I might not have many chances to hear her again, but only because she lived in California and didn't travel to the eastern US very often. She made you want to weep or celebrate. A friend sang one of her songs at our wedding. I think many people still include Kate in their lives that way.
  10. From up in the northern part of England, Jez Lowe is a brave enough songwriter to put some social criticism into his songs, but skilled enough as a songwriter that his messages aren't assaults. He is an excellent and versatile musician, which makes him both a powerful and delightful performer.
  11. Dave Van Ronk, the gravel-voiced songbird, was in top form to the very end. His music was as original as it was eclectic, and I have never seen anyone become more consumed by the song he or she was singing.
  12. Barachois was one of the wildest bands around. Hailing from Prince Edward Island, the band unfortunately has retired.
  13. Lou and Peter Berryman make everyone laugh. Who else would end a marriage (to each other) in order to start a career touring the world together?
  14. Bob Franke is a quirky, occasionally metaphysical, singer-songwriter and blues musician from Marblehead. Oh, yeah, and he now has a blog.
  15. Perhaps merely a figment of Rosalie Sorrell's imagination, U. Utah Phillips is an ornery folksinger/humorist/labor-organizer/storyteller who has that good wholesome cussedness about him.
  16. You might want to blunder on over to Arlo's Web site.
  17. Chris Smither isn't just your ordinary blues revivalist/guitarist/singer-songwriter who abandoned his parents' comfortable home in academia in the 1960s for a blue guitar and an (until the 1990s) unheralded life on the coffee house and club circuit.
  18. John Hartford -- the steamboats will now be whistling in a minor key. John died June 4th, 2001, but his music will live on for as long as recorded music can be played. I heard him live three times, twice at the Skyline Bluegrass Festival, in Roncevert, West Virginia, and the last time, in the early 90s, at an outdoor concert in Rochester, NY.
  19. Doc Watson -- not just a remarkable guitar picker.
  20. Hazel Dickens is only performer on this list whom I have not heard in concert.

Favorite Festivals

For more comprehensive lists of festivals, try Festival Finder -- Folk. You can search or browse, or switch to a different type of music.

Listed by calendar order