Folk We Listen To

      ------ Other artists we like ------

(Clicking on the name (or banner if the artist has provided one) will take you direct to their official websites - or the closest thing to it if no official website exists for the artist.)

Lucinda Williams is one of our favorite artists we still haven't caught at a live show.  We missed her during her "Essence" tour, but hope to correct that for the "World Without Tears" tour. She is considered "alternative country" which seems to mean that she is a country artist who writes and sings excellent songs that commercial country radio avoids playing.  She has a great, slightly rough, voice for folk/country music.  She also does a great job with country blues songs.  Our favorite CD (so far) is the absolutely superlative "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" but we also love "Sweet Old World," "Essence," "World Without Tears," and "Lucinda Williams."

Mr. Waits has one of the most distinctive sandpaper voices in popular music and is a great songwriter.  Unfortunately he rarely tours these days, but his albums "Mule Variations," "Blood Money," "Alice," and "Rain Dogs" come with our highest recommendations.  You can't go too far wrong with just about anything Waits has recorded.

Cohen is a great songwriter who has a low voice and a very low-key vocal style.  Our favorite CDs of his are the live albums "Cohen Live" and "Field Commander Cohen: Tour of Life 1979."

Guy Davis sings old country blues songs and writes songs that sound like old country blues.  He has a fabulous voice to go along with a great ear for good songs written by others and a talent for songwriting too.  Our favorite album is "Butt Naked Free" but all his albums are consistantly fine.  His newest album "Chocolate to the Bone" was released in 2003 and keeps his good streak alive.

The "Be Good Tanyas" are a relatively new group.  They are a trio of Canadian women who play guitar, banjo, and fiddle and are adept at writing songs that sound hundreds of years old.  Their first album is called "Blue Horses" and is excellent.  Their second album "Chinatown" is also very enjoyable.

Although she is her own unique creature, to someone who has never heard her the best description we can think of for Kasey Chambers is an Australian Lucinda Williams.  It is hard to believe when you listen to her that she didn't come from the U.S. southland.  Both of her albums ("The Captain" and "Barricade and Brickwalls") are great.

In the late 60s American Levon Helm and Canadians Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson were both Bob Dylan's back up band and the greatest folk-rock group of all time.  They called themselves simply The Band and their first two studio albums ("Music From Big Pink" and "The Band") are classics of the genre.  "Rock of Ages" is one of the best live albums ever recorded while their farewell concert is immortalized by Martin Scorsese in his movie "The Last Waltz."

Like the "Be Good Tanyas" Gillian Welch and her partner David Rawlings write songs that sound traditional.  They gained additional fame by appearing on the "O Brother Where Art Thou" soundtrack but Ms. Welch's own albums "Revival," "Hell Among the Yearlings," and "Time (The Revelator)" are all very good.  Her newest is "Soul Journey" (2003) and it is a very fine CD.

Joan Osborne is a great singer best known for her album "Relish" and the hit "One of Us."  There is a lot more to Joan than "Relish."  Her newest album is "How Sweet It Is" and she appears in the new movie about Motown "Standing in the Shadows of Motown."  For Dylan fans among you, Joan duets with Dylan on a version of his "Chimes of Freedom" on the soundtrack to the TV show "The 60's."