folk Archive
27 Oct 2019
Joan Baez: Consistently on the Right Side of History
Joan Baez is American folk royalty. Her name would be an important one within the folk idiom even if she had never sung a note; as an early and prominent […]
05 Oct 2019
Hope Griffin: A Shining Light of a Singer-songwriter
Hope Griffin is a Western North Carolina-based singer-songwriter. She sings and plays acoustic guitar in a soulful, rootsy style. But she arrived at that singular style via a somewhat unconventional […]
19 Sep 2019
Hundred-word Reviews for September 2019, Part 1
Once again, it’s time for a passel of quick reviews. Twenty in all – ten today, as many tomorrow. All deserve a listen. Titles on vinyl are noted as such […]
15 Sep 2019
Alexa Rose: No Contest
Though she can attribute at least some of her success to doing well in songwriting contests, Asheville-based singer-songwriter Alexa Rose has mixed feelings about competition. But as she put the […]
04 Sep 2019
Béla Fleck in the Blue Ridge
One from the archives. Ahead of his 2018 residency at the Brevard Music Center, I interviewed Béla Fleck. Here’s the conversation. A 16-time Grammy Award winner, Béla Fleck is the […]
01 Sep 2019
Album Review: Moonlight Street Folk — Collective Will
There’s no shortage of acoustic-based, folky bands in Western North Carolina. Standing out from the crowd is thus more of a challenge than it would be for musicians operating in […]
24 Aug 2019
For Nikki Talley, Home is Where the Muse Lives
Based since 1996 in Western North Carolina, singer-songwriter-guitarist Nikki Talley took to the road about six years ago. With husband and multi-instrumentalist Jason Sharp, she toured constantly, traveling across the […]
03 Jul 2019
Rising Appalachia: Water is Life
Though it’s easy to take water for granted – just turn on the tap and there it is – for hundreds of millions of the Earth’s people, access to clean […]
24 Jun 2019
Live from Laurel Canyon: Songs and Stories of American Folk Rock
In the Hollywood Hills West district of Los Angeles, a mere two miles from Hollywood Boulevard, there exists a relatively secluded region called Laurel Canyon. Beginning in the middle 1960s […]
21 Jun 2019
Gordon Lightfoot: 80 Years Strong
In some ways a reaction to the hard rock and psychedelic excesses of late 1960s pop music, the early 1970s ushered in the era of the singer-songwriter. Led by a […]