Oct 012024
 
Andrew Bird & Madison Cunningham – Crying In The Night (Buckingham/Nicks cover)

Armored Saint — One Chain (Don’t Make No Prison) (The Four Tops cover)

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Oct 012024
 
how i long for peace

It has been a big year for democracy. Some of the most important and populous nations in the world have voted, and there are obviously more exercises in people-power to come. Crys Matthews, Rhiannon Giddens, and the Resistance Revival Chorus are urging people to make their voice heard with a cover of Peggy Seeger’s “How I Long For Peace” in a new video, released to coincide with US Voter Registration deadlines, and in conjunction with the Joy to the Polls organization. Continue reading »

Jul 032023
 

FolkocracyRufus Wainwright’s Folkocracy is a reminder of how different a context is the word folk, when there is that Atlantic Ocean dividing America and Europe. This album feels a very North American version, where, broadly, anything much with an acoustic guitar, and on the softer side of rock, fits the bill, with often a fair old slice of the older social commentators, Seeger, Guthrie et al, chucked in for good measure. In the UK, folk tends more to the trad. arr., in style if not necessarily sacrosanct in content, and of a devoutly Celtic or Anglo hue. Wainwright doesn’t totally ignore any particular aul’ country, but Folkocracy is full of nods, sometimes eccentric, to an early 60’s heyday of Kingston Trios, Peter Paul and Mary and that ilk, if with a few left field lurches into Broadway and Hollywood. At times it is astonishing, in a beguiling way, sometimes bewildering and sometimes just plain odd. But, overall, this album is impressive, if more on the side of to be admired more than loved, with a slew of guests adding their varied (and variable) flavors at several stages along the way.
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