Tag: folk

Holly Near | I Am Willing

“Holly Near has had an amazing, exemplary life of artistry, performance, songwriting, and activism,” (The Progressive). “The arc of her professional life has spanned more than five decades in a most unique fashion, singing for a more peaceful, equitable, just, and feminist world. Through her music, she has been an insightful storyteller, consistently committed to keeping her work rooted in contemporary activism. Respected around the world for her music and activism, Near has released more than thirty albums and performed in many countries.

Near was born in 1949 in Ukiah, California, into a family that encouraged creativity. At age twenty-three, a half-century ago, she wrote her first feminist song, ‘It’s More Important To Me.’ About the same time, she started Redwood Records to support the release of her first album, Hang In There. Near was one of the first women to create an independent record company, paving the way for others in what had been a completely male-dominated industry … Near been recognized many times for her lifelong work promoting social change, including with honors from the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Organization for Women, and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Ms. magazine, and the Legends of Women’s Music Award.”

“I Am Willing,” released on Near’s 2006 album Show Up, draws on an elegantly simple melody and chord progression. Its gradually burgeoning power and anthemic, gospel-influenced contemporary folk sound carry the day, particularly after its whole-step key change (1:44). Many thanks to Amy C. for this submission (her second)!

Bellowhead | Gosport Nancy

“Bellowhead formed in 2004 and after 12 amazing years, they called it a day in 2016,” (bellowhead.co.uk). “In their active years they played to thousands of people at festivals and on tour, recorded five studio albums (selling over a quarter of a million copies), were the proud recipients of two silver discs and won a staggering eight BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. 

During lockdown in 2020, the 11 members of Bellowhead first re-connected online to remotely record ‘New York Girls – At Home’. That led to re-uniting in person for a one-off performance … one of the biggest online streams of 2020, confirming that Bellowhead are still one of the biggest and most in demand UK folk acts, despite not performing for nearly five years. The stream led to pleas from fans for more and the stars aligned for a mammoth reunion tour in November 2022 to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of their fourth album, Broadside.“

Released in 2016, “Gosport Nancy” is unusual for its horn section. Contributor JB adds: “It’s rare for an English trad band to include horns at all, and yet rarer to feature such a funky horns arrangement.” Adding to the intrigue, the tune also includes plenty of syncopation and a few compound chords. Starting in D major, the tune modulates up a whole step to E major at 2:49, layering more shifts in the subsequent measures before landing back in D major.

Serendipity Singers | Don’t Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)

“The folk boom of the early 1960s spawned numerous purveyors of well-scrubbed folk pop, and one of the most popular ensembles to emerge was The Serendipity Singers, founded at the University of Colorado … (they) signed with Philips Records in 1964 and released their debut single, ‘Don’t Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man),’ which reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated at the 7th Grammy Awards in 1965 for Best Performance by a Chorus,” (Colorado Music Hall of Fame).

“… The group had numerous appearances on popular TV shows like The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dean Martin Show, The Tonight Show, Shindig! and Hullabaloo. One of the most notable performances was at the White House in front of President Lyndon B. Johnson during the 1964 Democratic National Convention … The Serendipity Singers came onto the nationwide music scene right before the longstanding reign of The Beatles and the British Invasion exploded onto U.S. soil.” The college newspaper The Missouri Miner wrote in a 1969 review: ‘They’re not hippies and they don’t wear flowers, but the sound of The Serendipity Singers is as contemporary as Pop Art … ‘”

The whimsical track “Don’t Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)” shifts up a whole-step at the 2:22 mark. Many thanks to our regular contributor Rob P. for sending in this tune!

Tamsin Elliott | Emerging/Full Squirrel

“Tamsin is a folk musician, composer and film-maker based in Bristol, UK,” (TamsinElliott.co.uk). “With roots in the dance tunes of the British Isles, her interests and playing styles extend to European and Middle Eastern musics as well as experimental and ambient sounds. Her ‘beautiful, filmic compositions for accordion, harp, whistle, and voice’ (The Guardian) are rooted in tradition, whilst pushing boundaries and exploring minimalist, neo-classical, sound art and other non-traditional formats. 

Her debut solo album Frey (2022), which features the playing of Sid Goldsmith and Rowan Rheingans … explores themes of limbo, pain, healing and acceptance, reflecting on the microcosm of her personal experience of chronic illness alongside wider themes of societal disconnection and environmental grief. ‘One of the most accomplished debut albums we’ve heard in a long time… the influence of tradition pulses through every track,’ (Tradfolk).”

After an extended rubato intro in A minor, an accelerated waltz section begins at 1:48. A shift to A major begins at 2:08, returning to A minor at 2:25. More transitions continue from there.

Jim Scott | Song for Rainbow Bridge

Massachusetts-based composer, guitarist, and vocalist Jim Scott co-wrote “Missa Gaia / Earth Mass” and other pieces with the Paul Winter Consort (JimScottMusic.com). He has recorded many albums of original music and is the curator and arranger of The Earth and Spirit Songbook, an anthology of 110 songs of earth and peace by contemporary songwriters. Scott has performed in all 50 states, much of Europe, Australia, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Canada and in venues from Carnegie Hall to the Newport Jazz Festival.

Scott has shared the stage with Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow, Paul Horn, Holly Near, John Denver, Tracy Chapman, Joan Baez, 10,000 Maniacs, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Dan Fogelberg, Odetta, Steve Gadd, Tony Levin, Nelson Rangell, and many other artists. His compositions would be familiar to anyone who’s spent time with a Unitarian Universalist congregation, starting with the contemporary hymn “Gather the Spirit.”

Of the instrumental piece “Song for Rainbow Bridge,” originally released on the 1981 album Hands On, Scott writes: “It’s just 40 years since I went into a studio and recorded a bunch of instrumental guitar pieces. I had recorded before. I’d been on recordings for other people, particularly with the Winter Consort, but this felt different. I’d always been hired to do a job; this time I was paying for it myself … My repertoire of vocal songs was small at that point, only a few. I thought of myself as a guitar player who sometimes sang. In the ensuing years, as I wrote more songs and so many went in an activist direction, I found my identity to grow into … I’d gone from classical guitarist to jazz (and any style music in bars) electric guitar, and then evolved to use the classical guitar on gigs, and then of course with the Winter Consort. This was my statement on the nylon string classical guitar that, ‘I’m here.'”

Built in E major overall, the tune features a bridge (1:51 – 2:25) in E minor.

Darren Criss | Not Alone

Originally written for A Very Potter Musical, a parody of the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling, “Not Alone” is the final track on the debut EP by American singer/songwriter/actor Darren Criss. Criss, who co-wrote the score for the musical, also produced the EP and plays guitar for the song.

The tune begins in Bb and shifts up to C at 2:55.

Aimee Mann | Knock It Off

“Mental Illness (2017) is Aimee Mann’s quintessential statement, tempering the discord of life with elegant chamber folk,” (Pitchfork). ” … Mann doing an album called Mental Illness is a concept so fitting it took her a lifetime to find it. Having already delivered a new wave smash, scored an Academy Award nomination, recorded eight stylistically diverse solo records as well a fiesty collaboration with punk’s Ted Leo, Mann is rightfully pissed that she’s nevertheless pigeonholed as a dreary fabricator of slow, sad-sack songs. So she’s answered her critics with her slowest, sad-sack-iest album yet, one populated by ordinary people struggling against operatic levels of existential pain at odds with their humdrum lives.

Mann has long been an expert of articulating this tension. Originally written about her attraction to a woman on the down low, her 1985 ‘Til Tuesday single ‘Voices Carry’ found its defining shape when record company meddling forced Mann to recast it as a heterosexual melodrama that became a feminist anthem about overcoming male dominance. Yet no one would’ve predicted then that Mann would rank among the few new wave survivors who’d achieve both consistent sales and artistic credibility well into the 21st century … A rocker at heart if not always in practice, Mann has sometimes been muted but never mellow; her new wave training and constitutional angst haven’t allowed it. To prepare for her latest, she studied the gentle craftsmanship of Bread, Dan Fogelberg, and other unhip smoothies that punk tossed on the anti-establishment bonfire with Yes and ELP. Mental Illness is accordingly made of skeletal strings, coolly regulated commentary, and minimal drums. Juxtaposing elegant chamber folk against the discord of lives out of balance, it’s musically more delicate than even her soft rock models.”

After a start in Bb major overall, “Knock It Off” features a soft-spoken breezy bridge between 1:46 – 2:02, shifting us into Db major. Returning to Bb major for the balance of the tune, Mann decisively closes with a simple plagal cadence.

Yusuf / Cat Stevens | Land of Free Love + Goodbye

One of the most prominent singer/songwriters of the 1970s, UK native Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf) had many hits in the first half of that decade, releasing more than one album a year during a brief period. Just as his popularity started to wane a bit, Stevens released Numbers” … subtitled A Pythagorean Theory Tale … based on a fictional planet in a far-off galaxy named Polygor,” (from the liner notes).

“Numbers (1975) sits in a peculiar position in Cat’s back catalogue – the last real attempt at making something ‘new’ and different’ in his ‘first’ career, the last album started from scratch before his conversion to Islam and, most interestingly of all, the only real half-concept/story album in his back catalogue,” (AlansAlbumArchives). “Even when concept albums were all the range at Cat’s peak (1970-73) Cat never made an album like this one, based on one rounded theme (his songs almost always share the same theme but are separate discussions of each topic and sub-topic – he never again takes us on a half-hour journey somewhere like this again).”

After an intro in F# major, the verse tumbles into D major (0:16). At 2:25, an instrumental outro turns around a few times before landing us in B major.

Peter Mayer | John’s Garden

“Mountains and motorcycles; pigs, pubs, and planets; insight, hope and humor — such are the ingredients one finds in the songs of Peter Mayer,” (VolumeMusic). “Earthy and intimate, Mayer’s songs invite the listener to consider the deeper aspects of life. The standard lyrical dish of love lost and found is not on his menu; rather, it consists of an eclectic blend of thoughtful songs about the collective human journey. His welcoming voice and inventive guitar work along with his honest delivery provide the perfect vehicle for his down-home wisdom. Million Year Mind (2001) … offers an eclectic blend of thoughtful songs about the collective human journey.”

“John’s Garden” begins in F# minor, shifts to F# major for the chorus at 0:46, then reverts back into F# minor for the intro to the next verse. From 2:31 – 2:54, the bridge’s harmonic polarity flips over to A major before returning back to original key. As the tune unfolds, we learn that a different species entirely — not Farmer John — drives the narrative.