Doh! I knew that. Thanks for the correction.

I second the Richmond Fontaine. Have a listen to Post To Wire for one of the best Uncle Tupelo albums ever! It stands up well over time.

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:
Richmond Fontaine.

Old RF sounds like Uncle Tupelo/Son Volt.

Newer RF is more songwriter oriented (still twangy) but also excellent. Think Springsteen circa Nebraska. RF main man Willy Vlautin is a great, underrated songsmith.

If I were to start someone off (recommend them) who is interested in this genre I too would definite put Richmond Fontaine's Winnemucca and Post To Wire. These two albums are absolutely amazing. I'm not too hip to there older stuff beyond Winnemucca. There latest one 'The Fitzgerald' is decent but very stripped down and sparse, basically Vlautin and an acoustic guitar. It's basically Vlautin's beast - The Fitzgerald that is and not RF's even though it is an RF release.

If I were to make a Best albums of this decade list (2000-2009) Winnemucca would be Number ONE on that list, no question. That album has amazing legs, never gets old but only better. It's the one album that I regular listen to without skipping a beat. True greatness. Post To Wire would crack the top 10 of that list.

You can't go through life without ever listening to Winnemucca, that would be shameful.

I really don't get why RF isn't bigger than they are, hell, they don't even get much recognition here at Metacritic.

I've hit the jackpot lately with good americana albums, so I thought I'd recommend a couple of them here.

First is the Blanche record, but I've mentioned it a couple other places so I won't say any more, other than it's great.

Hayes Carll - Little Rock

This is a fantastic country record to me. Similar in a lot of ways to some of Todd Snider's better songwriting and definately takes a page from early Steve Earle, which is definatly a good thing. With albums like this out there, I have no idea why country radio is in the state that it is in.

Wrinkle Neck Mules - Pull the Break

Apparently an Atlanta band, this is a pretty good record, and sounds a lot like Viva Last Blues era Will Oldham (who sings on one track here).

Will Hoge - The man who killed love

This doesn't strike me as a great album, but it's still a fun set of Mellencamp-style heartland rock. Plus, it's good to see that Ken Coomer, who produces here, is still working after leaving Wilco.

I mentioned it the best of 2006 thread already, but I'm gonna go ahead and give another plug for Sera Cahoone. I think her self-titled album is really, really good. Great songwriting and I really like her band. Even though they don't do anything flashy, they know exactly how much to add to a song to fill out right. A little pedal steel here, a little banjo there.

Anybody here know anything about Souled American?

They are a decent band. They basically play typical alt-country music. If you like uncle tupelo, richmond fontaine, or especially Cracker in their more country moments, you would probably like them. There are some downloads here very near the bottom of the page:

http://www.tumult.net/sounds.html

A very nice alternative country/folk album is Amy Millan's Honey from the Tombs. Here you get what seems like typical, bittersweet country themes and tracks but Millan adds superb heartfelt emotion that makes this album very worthwhile.

My favorite folk album of the year, looking hard to beat at this point, is Bert Jansch's Black Swan. I always enjoyed his solo albums and most of the recordings I've heard of his time with Pentangle. The new record shows he hasn't lost anything with time- his voice is still sharp as ever and his songwriting here is perhaps his best in ages. Beth Orton does guest duty on vocals on two songs (one of those is a haunting traditional ballad, "Katie Cruel", where Devendra Banhart also appears on vocals) and sings a duet with Jansch on "Watch the Stars". But the star to watch and listen to here is clearly Jansch. Many great selections: the magnificent title track; the timeless "A Woman Like You"; and the humorous "Texas Cowboy Blues", as well as the handful of traditional tracks that Jansch breathes new life into, with new meaning for these times. Guess you can tell I highly recommend this album.

Picked up a great compilation recently, Black Diamond Express to Hell. This is a UK cd featuring songs about railroad trains- riding them, wrecking them, expecting someone to come and go on them, you name it. The set here is mostly old timey folk, jazz, country and blues with some '50s rock-n-roll tossed in. Here's the "track" list:

1. Intro: Black Diamond Express To Hell - Rev. A.W. Nix
2. Hell Bound Train - Frank Hutchinson
3. Flying Crow Blues - Washboard Sam
4. Beyond Black Smoke - The Dixon Brothers
5. When The Train Comes Along - Norfolk Jubilee Quartet
6. Railroad Boogie - Pee Wee King
7. Wreck Of The Old 97 - Vernon Dalhart
8. Pullman Porter - Cousin Joe Pleasant
9. Traveling Blues - Ma Rainey
10. Orange Blossom Special - Drifting Cowboys
11. Train 45 - Grayson & Whitter
12. One Way Ticket - Bobby Crown
13. Southern Casey Jones - Jesse James
14. Daybreak Express - Duke Ellington
15. C C And O Blues - Pink Anderson & Simmie Dooley
16. Night Train - Jimmy Forrest
17. Lonesome Frisco Line - Darby & Tarlton
18. Johnny B Goode - Al White
19. Gone Dead Train - King Solomon Hill
20. Engine 143 - Carter Family
21. Box Car Shorty And Peter Blue - Sammy Price
22. Life's Railway To Heaven - Blue Sky Boys
23. Late Freight - Sonny Thompson
24. Brave Engineer - Carver Boys
25. Sun Beam Blues - Billiken Johnson & Fred Adams
26. Waiting At The Station - Cousin Leroy
27. Cannonball - Nora Lee King
28. Sinner's Dream - Eugene Fox
29. Outro: Black Diamond Express To Hell - Rev. A.W. Nix

Great stuff!

I couple of my favorite artists that I guess fall into this category are Dar Williams and Todd Snider.

Dar is a female singer-songwriter whose style is folk with a pop tinge. Picture Joan Baez meets Sarah McLaughlin. She is very funny and insightful, with a beautiful voice. Try: The Honesty Room, The End of Summer, The Green World, or The Beauty of the Rain.

Todd has been described as alternative, alt-country, folk, americana, so he's hard to pigeon-hole. Like Dar Williams, he is extremely funny and insightful. Try: Near Truths and Hotels (live album), East Nashville Skyline, and The Devil You Know.

I saw Dar Williams perform about 4 years back when I was at college in Vermont. It was right before I started getting into music a lot. I remember thinking she was pretty decent.

Some of my favorites:

Neko Case - Blacklisted
Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Lori Mckenna - Bittertown
Gillian Welch - Revival
Jay Farrar (Uncle Tupelo) - Solo stuff
Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball & Red Dirt Girl
Patty Griffen - Flaming Red
Drive-By Truckers - Decoration Day
Rosanne Cash - Rules of Traveling & Black Cadilac
Blanche -
Giant Sand
Golden Smog (featuring Jeff Tweedy) - Another Fine Day
Laura Viers (her early stuff) - Troubled by the Fire or The Triumphs & Travails of Orphan Mae

quote:

Originally posted by kid_modular:
Some of my favorites:

Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

I second that! Car Wheels is a great album.

Maybe I'm crazy on this, but if you listen to the entire album, it seems like the songs follow the progression of a failed relationship. It starts with the giddy anticipation of "Right in Time". The first half of the album is mostly upbeat (if you ignore "Drunken Angel"). It goes through the loss of the relationship in "I lost it." The longing for lost love in "Still I Long for Your Kiss." To the anger in "Joy". Then to finally getting over it in "Jackson", where she sings "I don't think I'll miss you much."

Mark Bauer - Nandina

Man, I've been burning through a lot of mediocre and bad folk/alt-country music lately, but occasionally you find a gem amongst the rubble, and Matt Bauer is one such find. Dude has got a classic rough voice and plays a sick banjo. Uses strings occasionally, though banjo is the primary instrument throughout. This stuff just hits all my sweet spots.

You're probaly familiar with some of these already, but there could be a few you haven't checked out yet. The * albums fall roughly into a folk category and the rest Americana:

Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker
Arbouretum - Rites of uncovering
* Augie March - Sunset Studies
Sibylle Baier - colour green
The Band - The Band
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Howl
* Born Heller - Born Heller
* Bonnie Prince Billy - The Letting Go
Richard Buckner - Dents and Shells
* Vashti Bunyan - Lookaftering
Calexico - Feast Of Wire
Centro-Matic -All the falsest hearts might try
* Charalambides - A Vintage Burden
* The Children's Hour - SOS JFK
Clem Snide - Your Favourite Music
Kathleen Edwards - Back To Me
* Espers - ii (No.2)
Grand Drive - True Love and High Adventure
Grant Lee Buffalo - Mighty Joe Moon
* Hayden - Elk Lake Serenade
* The Instruments - Cast A Half Shadow
Damien Jurado - On My Way To Absence
* Sachiko Kanenobu - Misora
* Jack Ladder - Not worth waiting for
Magnolia Electric Co. - Fading trails
* Nina Nastasia - On Leaving
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
Gram Parsons - GP/Grievous Angel
* Alasdair Roberts - The Amber Gatherers
Songs:Ohia - Magnolia Electric Co. Sparklehorse -Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot
Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the great highway
Jesse Sykes - Like, Love, Lust & The Open Halls Of The Soul

Bit of a reccomendation overkill I realise, but folk/americana is my favourite genre and this is my first post in this section, so it's hard not to get a bit carried way. Hope you enjoy

This is response to a post by RavingLunatic in the Top 5 List of Anything Music thread. I went on a total tangent and figured not everyone would be interested in me spamming the Top 5 thread so here it is.

quote:

Originally posted by RavingLunatic:
That's awesome that there's another J. Tillman fan here.

i've seen a couple of posts here and there on this forum about him. come to think of it, maybe it was you. someone had said that they'd included one of his albums in one of their end of the year lists or something of the sort....and also he'd been mentioned in some thread about acoustic music i think. so i knew about him but had never heard him until i went to see Jesse Sykes in concert and lo and behold there he is opening for her. except i never go to see the opening bands so i only got to hear the last three songs and right off the bat i absolutely loved it. someone told me it was J.Tillman and i was like "oh sweeeeet! damn it if i had known! grrrrr". anyway, towards the end, he asked if there were any requests and no one said anything and then he asked "does anyone know any of my work?" and i felt really really bad cuz no one answered. i wanted to tell him that i knew about him but arf! i felt bad. anyway, afterwards i bought a double cd of his (his european label packaged I Will Return and Long May You Run into one double album). And afterwards he was signing stuff talking to people and stuff. he looked really cool. And ever since i love his stuff. this was in february of this year i think) i downloaded the other albums and as soon as i can find them here i'll buy them (it's mission impossible to find Cancer and Delirium here, which is my favorite). Anyway, that's my (little) story about J. Tillman. sorta went on a tangent there. sorry.

quote:

Elephant Micah plays unbelievably beautiful folk music. He's got this great soothing voice. I'll upload my favorite album of his, Elephant Micah and the Agrarian Malaise, and give you a link. It's out of print, and when I talked to him the only time I saw him in concert (I was a fan long before), he said he's just telling people to download his out-of-print stuff until he gets a chance to re-release it.

Will Johnson does solo stuff but is probably better known for his work in Centro-matic and South San Gabriel. Centro is more rock oriented, though there are also some slow songs. SSG is generally slower, more acoustically based folkish stuff. His solo stuff is just him, his rough voice, and guitar. I love all 3. Last year's Centro-matic album, Fort Recovery, was I think my #3 album of the year. The South San Gabriel album The Carlton Chronicles was one of my favorites from 2005. It's a concept album about a cat that gets cancer and runs away from home. Great stuff.

thanx a mill' for EM, that's real cool of you. i'll let you know how i feel about it.

i'll try to see if i can find some SSG. thanx for the recommendation.


also, yesterday, someone on an other messageboard (a french one i read daily) introduced me to Sparrow House. It's the side project of Jared Van Fleet of Voxtrot. I don't know anything about Voxtrot (other than they do some kind of pop-ish indie rock i think). Anyway, Sparrow House is entirely folk-ish and soft. He's only got one EP out as far as i can tell. You can check out a few songs on his mySpace page and there's a Daytrotter session with 4 songs available for download; and a short "take away" concert (scroll down to the second video on the page) and an other

This message has been edited. Last edited by: brainofp,

I really love Sparrow House's Falls EP. It's pretty stunning, and I can't wait for him to come out with the other 3 promised seasonal EP's. Thanks for those links. I'll be sure to check them out, especially that one with live stuff.

Cancer and Delirium can be bought at Yer Bird Records. I know the guy who singlehandedly runs that label from another message board. He's a really cool dude. I pre-ordered Cancer & Delirium, so I've had it for a while. For Minor Works, you have to go to Sonic Boom Records. Fargo sells it in Europe, but there's no sense in paying for shipping when you can get it cheap from Sonic Boom. That's where I bought his first 3 albums from (counting that double album as 2). They've arrived pretty quickly in the mail after I ordered them.

sweet, i'll make sure to check that out. thanx again

J. Tillman take away concert