Folk is a broad musical genre that includes traditional songs—many of them transmitted orally, with unknown composers—from around the world. Perhaps the most popular form of folk music emerged in the United States during the revival of the 1950s and ‘60s, when performers like Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Joni Mitchell rose to prominence. Contemporary singer-songwriters and bands like Aoife O’Donovan, Allison Russell, and the Milk Carton Kids continue to take folk in new directions.
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Mariachi guitar is very special,” Eunice Aparicio says. She should know—she’s been playing mariachi music for 17 years. Aparicio is the guitarrón player in the Latin Grammy-nominated all-female mariachi band Flor de Toloache. But for several years she’s studied mariachi guitar with teachers from across Mexico, where the tradition is…
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Not long ago, Billy Bragg and Joe Henry took a long train ride, from Chicago to LA, stopping at stations to record great railroad songs. The resulting album, Shine a Light: Field Recordings from the Great American Railroad (Cooking Vinyl), features “Rock Island Line”—a durable song that’s been covered by…
Celtic guitar master John Doyle took some time out from the recent Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, Scotland, to offer tips on improving your Celtic guitar playing. Doyle will have a new solo album on Compass Records towards the end of the year. Different tunings “My advice is that you…
[Editor’s note] Peggy Seeger is no stranger to folklore. Her father was the famed folklorist Charles Seeger; her mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger, was a trailblazing avant-garde composer. Her folk musician brother, Mike Seeger, co-founded the New Lost City Ramblers, one of the most influential groups in the 1960s folk revival.…
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