Folk

The first album by the trad folk duo of Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, Folk Songs of Olde England, Vol. 1, is as interesting for what came of it as for what it is. This album, recorded in 1968, led directly to the formation of Steeleye Span, whose early albums were an electrified variation on this album's traditional acoustic British folk-rock. It could also be argued that Hart and Prior's example was influential in Fairport Convention's decision to move from a California-style folk-rock sound into something more uniquely British. In light of what came after, Folk Songs of Olde England, Vol. 1 sounds a bit tentative and at times slightly twee (Prior's voice has not quite matured into the rich, expressive instrument it would soon become), but on their own merits, these sensitive renditions of traditional British folk favorites like "Maid That's Deep in Love" or "A Wager a Wager" are respectful of tradition but not bound to it, performed with an infectious enthusiasm quite similar to what the Young Tradition were doing around the same period.

Paul Lansky - Folk Images (1995) {Bridge Records BCD 9060}
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© 1995 Bridge Records | BRIDGE 9060
Folk / Classical / Post-Modern / Electronic / Traditional / Computer Music / Experimental

The instruments are guitar, violin, computer, occasional voice; the music, some settings and arrangements of well-known folk songs as well as several original folk-like pieces. Folk music lovers will undoubtedly say it's not really folk music (they're right); computer music aficionados and cyberspace cadets may not think of it as computer music (maybe they're right too); and guitar freaks will say our guitar is not nearly as good as Leo Kottke's (oh boy are they right). Though it's not a bad thing to defy description, the best way to understand the music is probably found in the title, Folk Images.

Waters' The Real Folk Blues and More Real Folk Blues, combined here onto one CD, were not exactly random collections of tracks – the quality was too consistently high for them to just have been picked out of a hat. Still, it was a pretty arbitrary grouping of items that he recorded between 1947 and 1964. In fact, they hail from throughout his whole stint at Chess, virtually; at the time these albums were first issued, though, all of the material on More Real Folk Blues was from the late '40s and early '50s. They didn't exactly concentrate on his most well-known songs, but they didn't entirely neglect them either, including "Mannish Boy," "Walking Thru the Park," "The Same Thing," "Rollin' & Tumblin' Part One," "She's Alright," and "Honey Bee," amongst somewhat more obscure selections. So ultimately, this disc's usefulness depends on your fussiness as a collector – if it's the only Waters you ever pick up, you'll still have a good idea of his greatness, and if you don't mind getting some tracks you might already have on more avowedly best-of sets, you'll probably hear some stuff you don't already have in your collection.

Various Artists - Gathered from Coincidence: The British Folk-Pop Sound of 1965-1966 (2018) {3CD Set, Grapefruit CRSEGBOX043}
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© 1965-66, 2018 Grapefruit Records / Cherry Records | CRSEGBOX043
Rock / Pop / Folk Pop / Folk Rock / Psychedelic Rock

Prior to the early Sixties, folk and pop musicians inhabited largely different worlds. There were folk records that had become crossover pop hits, but in essence there was little or no common ground in terms of instrumentation or ideologies. But in the wake of the British beat/R&B boom (or, if you were in America, the British Invasion) and the emergence of Bob Dylan, such barriers were broken down for good. With British acts making music that, for the first time in nascent pop history, matched the quality of their American counterparts, suddenly everything was grist to the mill and musical cross-pollination was almost de rigueur.

An early entry in Bernard Haitink’s Shostakovich cycle, this winning performance of the Fifteenth Symphony promised much for what was eventually to become a series greatly varied in quality and inspiration. It may be asking too much for a Western conductor to perform all of these symphonies with the same intensity and passion as might be shown by any of several Soviet counterparts, who were, after all, living and working under the same system that had so oppressed and threatened the composer. As for Symphony No. 15, its lesser degree of brutality than most of its predecessors makes it a good match for Haitink’s tidy conducting style.