Tag Archives: folk music

Smithfield Fair’s Burns Night Out!

Mike Stiles wrote this review. Hailing from Louisiana here in the States, Smithfield Fair is an innovative trad-based Scottish trio with an energetic pub style. For this CD they put on their best Broad Scots in homage to the immortal … Continue reading

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Chloe & Jason Roweth’s The Riderless Horse (An Australian Impression of World War 1)

This is a theme album based on songs and poems from the trenches and home front, 1914 – 1918. I have to say it is well worth listening to — in fact I think everyone should listen to this album, … Continue reading

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Tom Lehrer’s The Remains of Tom Lehrer

I have been waiting for this CD box for many years, in fact ever since I bought a CD player in 1987. It took 13 years but it was worth the wait. For those of you who are not aquainted … Continue reading

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Jeff Black’s Tin Lily

Jeff Black‘s fourth CD begins with a sort of retro-folk song, acoustic guitar and harmonica with Black’s rough-hewn vocals singing, “take it easy on me, take it easy on me now.” You might get the idea that he’s aiming for … Continue reading

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Jeff Black’s B-sides and Confessions Volume One

I am reliably told that Jeff Black is one of the finest Nashville songwriters working today. My friend Wayne Marshall (record producer and songwriter) saw Black play in a little club near Music Row, and was held spellbound. On this, … Continue reading

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Dick Gaughan’s Lucky For Some

Dick Gaughan comes with a huge reputation and following as a traditional singer and songwriter, so I was quite excited and expected to hear something good. Unfortunately, I can’t say this album set my pants on fire. Quite the opposite … Continue reading

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Slavyanochka Ensemble’s Molodoi Tud Wedding, and Vereya’s Soitua Maa

Here are two recent recordings by women’s vocal ensembles from different regions of Russia. In these reviews I compare them to other Eastern European women’s vocal groups. I offer the comparisons only as an aid for Western listeners. The comparisons … Continue reading

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Various artists’ Deep River of Song: Virginia and the Piedmont

Big Earl Sellar wrote this review. Another disc in the Alan Lomax series Deep River of Song, Virginia and the Piedmont has the fitting subtitle of “Minstrelsy, Work Songs, and Blues.” These great archival recordings are just the thing for … Continue reading

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Various artists’ Deep River of Song: Black Appalachia

Brendan Foreman wrote this for Folk Tales. In 1978 Alan Lomax, looking back at a decades-long career of field-recording, began to review the huge library of music that he and his father, John Lomax, had compiled in the 1930s and … Continue reading

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Various artists’ Deep River of Song: Big Brazos: Texas Prison Recordings, 1933 and 1934

Big Earl Sellar wrote this review. Another set of field recordings made by the Lomaxes, Big Brazos focuses on the songs of the black work gangs in the early 1930s. It’s an interesting disc, another one of those brief moments … Continue reading

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