“Breathe” is living proof that a great duet doesn’t have to be a co-write.  The Bird and The Bear combine harmonious vocals with simple yet splendid guitar work for some worthy Americana on this track penned by Garry Wood (we think he’s “The Bear”).  For fans of the Civil Wars, this combo will hit home. [...]

The Carter Family: Don’t Forget This Song Frank M. Young and David Lasky Abrams Between 1927 and 1944, the A.P., Maybelle, and Sara Carter made hundreds of recordings and sold millions of records, catapulting them into country music superstardom. Their recordings of “Keep on the Sunny Side” and “Can the Circle Be Unbroken” have become [...]

Aaron Embry Tiny Prayers (Community Music) Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars Aaron Embry’s name hasn’t yet breached ubiquitous recognition, but his résumé boasts performances and collaborations with an astonishing stack of headline acts, including Elliott Smith, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson and, more recently, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. When removed from the headlining [...]

Skip Matheny— currently a songwriter in the band Roman Candle and former bartender in a retirement community — was recently able to ask music legend Doc Watson some questions with David Holt. Doc and David won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album, with their three-disc set, Legacy. Commonly called a “National Treasure,” Doc [...]

Megafaun “These Words” by Hometapes The North Carolina group Megafaun has announced the release of their new album, Megafaun, which will arrive via the Portland, Oregon-based label Hometapes on September 20, 2011. Known for an eclectic mix of instrumentation – keys, guitars, banjos, samples – Megafaun’s music never feels like, well, a mix of random [...]

Jim James at Newport Folk Festival in 2008, photo by Laura Brown “My whole dedication now is Newport… I want both those festivals to go on after I’m gone,” said George Wein, who founded the Newport Jazz and Folk festivals in the 1950s. Asked what the legacy of Newport meant to him, Jay Sweet, the [...]

Photo: Chloe Aftel On April 5, Rough Trade Records (Dylan LeBlanc, Warpaint) released Portland by-way-of Nevada City songwriter Alela Diane’s second proper record, Alela Diane & Wild Divine. The album finds Diane with a family band, exploring a jammier sound than the minimal folk of 2009′s To Be Still. On “To Begin,” Diane drops into [...]

Trainsong: Guitar Compositions 1967-2010 is a contemporary exploration by the English guitarist and singer-songwriter Michael Chapman of his oeuvre since he came onto the folk scene in the mid-’60s. At two discs and 26 cuts, it’s a daunting enterprise to undertake in order to fully come to know the eclectic Chapman, but the songs, recorded [...]

[Photo Credit: Joshua Black Wilkins] “I am my father’s son. I’ve never known when to shut up,” sang Justin Townes Earle on Thursday night at Chicago’s historic Metro venue. Earle inauspiciously wrote those lyrics, for a song called “Mama’s Eyes” from his second album, Midnight At The Movies, before his recent troubles in Indianapolis, after [...]

Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded The World By Jon Swzed Penguin Group New biography puts the life and work of Alan Lomax in the spotlight. In his quest for distinctive American folk music, Alan Lomax brought the songs of Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Muddy Waters and Leadbelly to a larger audience, and it’s no [...]

For this shortened week’s blog, we look at one record. Photo: Rebecca Gillespie STREAM: It’s hard to glean a lot off the internet about the man who, in Nashville, they call Willy T. (Good luck finding his MySpace page, though if you want a hint, try “historyismystery”.) But despite the set of common names, William [...]

The 2009 Folk Alliance: What the Folk is Going On?