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"New Folk refers to the music of folk artists who, partly inspired by Bob Dylan's shift away from political songwriting, moved away from the activist, draft-dodging set and started writing about personal experiences and daily life. This expansive category includes the likes of Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Billy Bragg, and the Roches; New Folk encompasses those who approach acoustic-oriented music as heartfelt personal expression. " -- Rhapsody
Many of these artists also appear under Rock/Pop > Adult Alternative
Big Yellow Taxi, Ron Sexsmith, Shawn Colvin, Laura Nyro, Dar Williams, Richard Schindell, John Prine, Jesse Winchester, John Gorka,
"Americana arose as both a category of music and as a country radio format in reaction to mainstream country radio stations that were over-enamored with "young country" stars like Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks and Shania Twain. The idea was to create a home for artists who had plenty of country in their music -- too much so for the average pop station -- but who were too eclectic and raw for the country mainstream. Americana is a broad category that encompasses Nashville fringe artists like Marty Brown, Allison Moorer and Jim Lauderdale, as well as stalwart Honky-Tonker Dale Watson and folk-inspired Singer-Songwriters like Fred Eaglesmith and Iris Dement. " -- Rhapsody
Robert Earl Keen, Jr.,
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I really like this guy.
An exile from Idi Amin's Uganda, Geoffrey Oryema settled in Paris and began to experiment with his native folkloric music. The result has been a unique mixture of African acoustic music that includes rock and ambient textures.
- Robert Leaver
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One of the most loved and influential singers in the history of the Spanish language, Beny Moré has attained the status of saint in his Cuban homeland. Possessed of a naturally pure tenor voice, he established himself as a singer in the 1940s with groups led by legendary figures Miguel Matamoros and Perez Prado in Mexico City. Later, he returned to Havana with his own large orchestra that featured a big, brash horn section and Cuban percussion he conducted with gregarious flare. Equally adept at singing either the slow Bolero or an up-tempo Mambo and son guajiro, he always cut a dapper figure in his zoot suits, large white hat, and black cane. Although musically uneducated, he demonstrated sophisticated techniques such as his trademark vocal sustain that slid up or down the scale as smoothly as rum flowed in the clubs of pre-revolutionary Cuba. Much like his famous song "Bonito y Sabroso," his music remains both beautiful and evocative of a different era.
- Robert Leaver
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Salif Keita, an albino, was born in Mali to nobility. That and his intense interest in music got him kicked -- literally -- into the street, where he had to sing for his supper. An amazingly gifted vocalist, he must not have gone hungry for long. Mali is a melting pot of various African, Arabic and European ethnic groups. Keita combined these with Cuban music and came to great prominence in the 1970s with his group Les Ambassadeurs. In the late '80s he moved to Paris, the center of World Music. His emotional, crystal clear voice soars over increasingly complex, but never overly dense, backdrops. Salif Keita sounds good fronting an Afro-Pop-Salsa group or an American style Country-Folk band. He's one of a kind.
- Nick Dedina
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A gentle, acoustic (nylon string) guitar sound.
Rhapsody on Cape Verde ...
Cape Verde lies 350 miles off the west coast of Africa. Colonized by the Portuguese in the 1400s, the islands became a key outpost in the slave trade and were the last many saw of Africa before being shipped off to the Americas. It's no wonder, then, that Portugal's fado morphed into Cape Verde's morna, a style that, like fado, is focused on "sodade," or longing. For such a small system of islands, Cape Verde has had a deep impact on the world music scene. Musicians there keep equally close ties with Lisbon and Paris, and many have exported their talents and become stars.
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The stories of Zakir Hussain's training are legendary: 40 days of fasting and sleep deprivation capped a childhood of routinely practicing 18 hours per day. His father and guru Alla Rahka (one of India's most distinguished performers himself) taught Hussain the techniques of memorizing ridiculously long strings of percussive permutations and translating them to the tablas. Hussain was extremely young when he began to accompany some of India's most famous musicians, such as Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, before leaving to team up with guitarist John McLaughlin to form Shakti. One of his greatest contributions has been successful attempts at blending North Indian Classical music with Western music. Collaborations with Bill Laswell and Mickey Hart (of the Grateful Dead) have produced multi-cultural percussive mixtures enhanced by top-notch musicians from around the world. Seeing Hussain perform is magical: his fingers fly faster than the eye, synchronized with an empathic understanding of his fellow musicians.
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Senegalese artist Baaba Maal is a giant of world music, blowing away audiences all over the globe and achieving legendary status on his home continent. His high, uplifting vocals, powerfully plaintive wails and twisting melodies can send shivers down your spine and raise the hair on the back of your neck. Often accompanied by a variety of African instruments such as the kora (a harp/lute hybrid), Maal takes advantage of sprawling backing ensembles sparked by tight rhythms, a bright chorus of singers, colorful brass and everything from Celtic pipes to Western dance beats. Not only is he an intense performer, but his compositions are righteous, standing up for oppressed people of the world, women in particular. There is a folkloric quality to the tales he weaves, best experienced during one of his intense live jams.
- Jessy Terry
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