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Newport Folk Festival
The Newport Folk Festival is an annual American folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the Newport Jazz Festival. The festival was founded by music promoter and Jazz Festival founder George Wein, music manager Albert Grossman, and folk singers Pete Seeger, Theodore Bikel, and Oscar Brand. It was one of the first modern music festivals in America and remains a focal point in the expanding genre of folk music. The festival was held in Newport annually from 1959 to 1969, except in 1961 and 1962, first at Freebody Park and then at Festival Field. In 1985, Wein revived the festival in Newport, where it has been held at Fort Adams State Park ever since. History Founding The Newport Folk Festival was started in 1959 by George Wein George Wein (October 3, 1925 – September 13, 2021) was an American jazz promoter, pianist, and producer. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
My Morning Jacket
My Morning Jacket is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1998. The band consists of vocalist/guitarist Jim James, bassist Tom Blankenship, drummer Patrick Hallahan, guitarist Carl Broemel, and keyboardist Bo Koster. The band's sound, rooted in rock and country, is often experimental and psychedelic. The group amassed a following beginning in the 2000s in part due to their live performances. The group first found success in Europe after the release of its debut album, ''The Tennessee Fire'' (1999). Its next release, ''At Dawn'' (2001), led to a large stateside following and preceded several lineup changes. After signing to major label ATO Records, the group released two albums, ''It Still Moves'' (2003) and ''Z (My Morning Jacket album), Z'' (2005), with the latter representing a critical breakthrough. The group's next release, ''Evil Urges'' (2008), was more polarizing for fans and critics, while ''Circuital'' (2011), its sixth album, saw a more ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds. It rose to international popularity fueled by unprecedented sales of LP records and helped alter the direction of popular music in the U.S. The Kingston Trio was one of the most prominent groups of the era's folk-pop boom, which they kick-started in 1958 with the release of the Trio's eponymous first album and its hit recording of " Tom Dooley", which became a number one hit and sold over three million copies as a single. The Trio released nineteen albums that made ''Billboard''s Top 100, fourteen of which ranked in the top 10, and five of which hit the number 1 spot. Four of the group's LPs charted among the 10 top-selling albums for five weeks in November and December 1959, a record unmatched for more than 50 years, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freedom Singers
The Freedom Singers originated as a quartet formed in 1962 at Albany State College in Albany, Georgia. After folk singer Pete Seeger witnessed the power of their congregational-style of singing, which fused black Baptist ''a cappella'' church singing with popular music at the time, as well as protest songs and chants. Churches were considered to be safe spaces, acting as a shelter from the racism of the outside world. As a result, churches paved the way for the creation of the freedom song. After witnessing the influence of freedom songs, Seeger suggested The Freedom Singers as a touring group to the SNCC executive secretary James Forman as a way to fuel future campaigns. Intrinsically connected, their performances drew aid and support to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the emerging civil rights movement. As a result, communal song became essential to empowering and educating audiences about civil rights issues and a powerful social weapon of influence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and later, the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee, the Committee sought to coordinate and assist direct-action challenges to the civic segregation and political exclusion of African Americans. From 1962, with the support of the Voter Education Project, SNCC committed to the registration and mobilization of black voters in the Deep South. Affiliates such as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in Alabama also worked to increase the pressure on federal and state government to enforce constitutional protections. By the mid-1960s the measured nature of the gains made, and the violence with which they were resisted, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tommy Makem
Thomas Makem (4 November 1932 – 1 August 2007) was an Irish folk music, folk musician, artist, poet and storyteller. He was best known as a member of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. He played the long-necked 5-string banjo, tin whistle, low whistle, guitar, bodhrán and bagpipes, and sang in a distinctive baritone. He was sometimes known as "The Bard of Armagh" (taken from a traditional song of the same name) and "The Godfather of Irish Music". Biography Makem was born and raised in Keady, County Armagh (the "Hub of the Universe" as Makem always said), in Northern Ireland. His mother, Sarah Makem, was an important source of traditional Irish music, who was visited and recorded by, among others, Diane Hamilton, Diane Guggenheim Hamilton, Jean Ritchie, Peter Kennedy (folklorist), Peter Kennedy and Sean O'Boyle. His father, Peter Makem, was a fiddler who also played the bass drum in a local pipe band named "Oliver Plunkett", after a Roman Catholic martyr of the reign of Charl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cisco Houston
Gilbert Vandine "Cisco" Houston (August 18, 1918 – April 29, 1961) was an American folk singer and songwriter, who is closely associated with Woody Guthrie due to their extensive history of traveling and recording together. Houston was a regular recording artist for Moses Asch's Folkways recording studio. He performed with folk/blues musicians Lead Belly, Sonny Terry, the Almanac Singers, Cynthia Gooding and others. Biography Early life Gilbert Vandine Houston was born in Wilmington, Delaware, United States, on August 18, 1918, the second of four children. His father, Adrian Moncure Houston, was a sheet-metal worker. The family moved to California while Houston was still young, and he attended school in Eagle Rock, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. During his school years, Houston began to play the guitar, having picked up an assortment of folk songs from his family. It is reported that Houston was regarded as highly intelligent during his time at school, despite t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues that he developed in Detroit. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie. Hooker was ranked 35 in ''Rolling Stone''s 2015 list of 100 greatest guitarists, and has been cited as one of the greatest male blues vocalists of all time. Some of his best known songs include " Boogie Chillen'" (1948), " Crawling King Snake" (1949), " Dimples" (1956), " Boom Boom" (1962), and " One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" (1966). Several of his later albums, including '' The Healer'' (1989), '' Mr. Lucky'' (1991), '' Chill Out'' (1995), and '' Don't Look Back'' (1997), were album chart succe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ewan McColl
James Henry Miller (25 January 1915 – 22 October 1989), better known by his stage name Ewan MacColl, was a British folk singer-songwriter, folk song collector, labour activist and actor. Born in England to Scottish parents, he is known as one of the instigators of the 1960s folk revival as well as for writing such songs as "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and " Dirty Old Town". MacColl collected hundreds of traditional folk songs, including the version of " Scarborough Fair" later popularised by Simon & Garfunkel, and released dozens of albums with A.L. Lloyd, Peggy Seeger and others, mostly of traditional folk songs. He also wrote many left-wing political songs, remaining a steadfast communist throughout his life and actively engaging in political activism. Early life and early career MacColl was born as James Henry Miller at 4 Andrew Street, in Broughton, Salford, England, on 25 January 1915 to Scottish parents, William Miller and Betsy (née Henry), both socia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Gibson (musician)
Samuel Robert Gibson (November 16, 1931 – September 28, 1996) was an American folk singer and a key figure in the folk music revival in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His principal instruments were banjo and 12-string guitar. He introduced a then-unknown Joan Baez at the Newport Folk Festival of 1959. He produced a number of LPs in the decade from 1956 to 1965. His best known album, ''Gibson & Camp at the Gate of Horn'', was released in 1961. His songs have been recorded by, among others, The Limeliters, Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon & Garfunkel ('You Can Tell The World'), The Seekers, The Byrds, The Smothers Brothers, Phil Ochs, The Kingston Trio and Bob Dylan. His career was interrupted by his addiction to drugs and alcohol. After getting sober he attempted a comeback in 1978, but the musical scene had changed and his traditional style of folk music was out of favor with young audiences. He did, however, continue his artistic career with albums, musicals, plays, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez (, ; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more than 30 albums. Baez is generally regarded as a folk singer, but her music has diversified since the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture era of the 1960s and encompasses genres such as folk rock, pop, Country music, country, and gospel music. She began her recording career in 1960 and achieved immediate success. Her first three albums, ''Joan Baez (album), Joan Baez'', ''Joan Baez, Vol. 2'' and ''Joan Baez in Concert'', all achieved Music recording sales certification, gold record status. Although a songwriter herself, Baez generally interprets others' work, having recorded many traditional songs and songs written by the Allman Brothers Band, the Beatles, Jackson Browne, Leonard Cohen, Woody Guthrie, Violeta Parra, the Rolling S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Lost City Ramblers
The New Lost City Ramblers, or NLCR, was an American contemporary old-time string band that formed in New York City in 1958 during the folk revival. Mike Seeger, John Cohen and Tom Paley were its founding members. Tracy Schwarz replaced Paley, who left the group in 1962. Seeger died of cancer in 2009, Paley died in 2017, Cohen died in 2019, and Schwarz died in 2025. NLCR participated in the old-time music revival, and directly influenced many later musicians. Career The Ramblers distinguished themselves by focusing on the traditional playing styles they heard on old 78rpm records of musicians recorded during the 1920s and 1930s, many of whom had earlier appeared on the ''Anthology of American Folk Music''. The New Lost City Ramblers refused to "sanitize" these southern sounds as did other folk groups of the time, such as the Weavers or Kingston Trio. Instead, the Ramblers have always strived for an ''authentic'' sound. However, the Ramblers did not merely copy the old re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brownie McGhee
Walter Brown "Brownie" McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was an American folk and Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica player Sonny Terry. Life and career McGhee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee. At about the age of four he contracted polio, which incapacitated his right leg. His brother Granville "Stick" McGhee, who also later became a musician and composed the song " Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee", was nicknamed for pushing young Brownie around in a cart. Their father, George McGhee, was a factory worker, known around University Avenue for playing guitar and singing. Brownie's uncle made him a guitar from a tin marshmallow box and a piece of board. McGhee spent much of his youth immersed in music, singing with a local harmony group, the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet, and teaching himself to play guitar. He also played the five-string banjo and ukulele and studied pian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
