Sam Amidon - Bright Sunny South
Clever re-inventor, overly ambitious re-animator, whiz-bang music folklorist, fusty archivist —call him what you'd like.
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Clever re-inventor, overly ambitious re-animator, whiz-bang music folklorist, fusty archivist —call him what you'd like.
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At home in a faded "Dan Dare- Pilot of the Future" t-shirt, Mick Farren is casting a rheumy eye over his illustrious past.
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In 2012, very few albums shone with the kaleidoscopic depth of Julia Holter's 'Ekstasis'.
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In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
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For a musical duo that have known each other since they were 3 years old, there's something extra special about landing a Grammy nomination for Best Children's Album.
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If you're missing Levon Helm (who hand-picked the selections for a new live set before passing), or just a few of your old Kiss singles (a box from their classic era on Casablanca is pending), New Music Monday is here for you.
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Despite having once written a song titled "The President's Dead," Okkervil River singer and songwriter Will Sheff says he hasn't really written any songs that he considers to be overtly political.
Read MoreThe union of political subject matter and music can surely make for a problematic, sometimes even dysfunctional relationship, but the occasions where the results actually work are cause for celebration.
Read More"Sugaring season is the season when you tap the trees for sugar that turns into maple syrup. I've married someone from Vermont, so it's an expression I kept hearing, and I'm like, 'What is that? That's just so beautiful.' I like the idea it's the very, very first murmurings of spring. And I liked also the idea that sometimes you can smell that spring in the air even though it's the dead of winter; you just get that vague glimpse of it, and there's that sense of hope that it brings. I just thought, all in all, it just creates this wonderful imagery of writing songs: For me, it takes a lot of experience to make a little bit of sugar. These songs are my little bit of sugar, I think."
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Bacal, a writer and teacher of writing, cannot remember a time when she did not know Cohen.
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John Lennon on October 24, 1974 on New York's West Side. "One of the truck drivers leaned over and asked me – 'Wasn't he one of those 'insects'?' - 'Insects!' laughed John, he thought that was just perfect! Their acceptance of John was total, a pleasure to witness ... I don't think John had ever been so relaxed or had so much fun on a photo shoot."
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It was a great evening in Nashville for Alison Krauss and Union Station on Wednesday as they received eight nominations for the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards.
Read MoreThe Guardian offers a "Olympic Games in literature" quiz.
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On April 14, 1935 a dust storm hit Pampa, leaving a cloud a mile high.
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Country Joe McDonald, how are you today?
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Bob Dylan and historians at PBS are in a dispute over the whereabouts of an electric guitar that the singer plugged in at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, quite possibly the most historic single instrument in rock 'n' roll.
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As we pass into July, it's time to put together our favorite albums list for the first half of the year.
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Born on 14th July 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma, Woody Guthrie was one of the most influential figures in popular music, inspiring Bob Dylan and a generation of topical singer-songwriters in the 1960s and even having an influence on punk--Joe Strummer modelled himself on Guthrie, asking friends to call him Woody as a teenager.
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Let's get into "I Am The One Who Will Remember" from your new album In The Time Of Gods. Dar Williams : Sure!
Read MoreAmong the CDs in my archives is an eight-disc Time/Life compilation called The Folk Years , released in 2002.
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On a fine spring day with trees in soft green bloom, I left Manhattan for Pete Seeger's place, near Beacon NY, courtesy of his longtime friend and noted videographer Jim Brown.
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What's an appropriate gift for the most influential folk artist of the 20th century?
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They gathered by the tens of thousands, aiming to face down terror with the power of music.
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Patriotism and protest -- inexorably bound and oftentimes indistinguishable -- have always had their say through music.
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Dar Williams might be one of the few singer-songwriters around who could take the age-old fables surrounding Zeus and Aphrodite, and smartly connect them to our current state of affairs.
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With all the media attention surrounding Axl Rose thumbing his nose at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this week, it's been a little sad to see the induction of 2012 fellow honoree Donovan Leitch become swallowed up in the hoopla.
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Kurt Wagner , the 53-year-old frontman of the inscrutable, genre-bending alt-country outfit Lambchop , has logged countless hours on the road with various shifting band lineups, all while putting out 11 albums over the last 18 years and collaborating with artists as sonically disparate as experimental country crooner Cortney Tidwell and downtempo electronica act Morcheeba.
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Under the invitation of Nora Guthrie, Jay Farrar, Will Johnson, Anders Parker, and Yim Yames were able to tour the Guthrie archives.
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On March 1, 2012, Harry Belafonte turned 85 years old.
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