The Year That Folk Moved In
Report by Keith Altham, NME Annual, 1966
BOB DYLAN – the undisputed King of Folk. He causes as much controversy personally as do his records. ...

Donovan: 'I Put Myself Into My Music'
Interview by Keith Altham, NME Summer Special, Summer 1968
Donovan is the gentle giant in the pop world. He is largely responsible for shattering the conventional image of the folk singer satirized so beautifully on ...

Swan Song of Folk Music
Essay by Happy Traum, Rolling Stone, May 1969
"FOLK MUSIC is dead." We've been hearing that for some time now. The clubs and coffee houses that sprang up all over the country in the ...

Judy Collins' Fans Greet Her Return at Hollywood Spot
Live Review by Stephen M H Braitman, Van Nuys News, June 1969
JUDY COLLINS returned Thursday to Doug Weston's Troubadour singing, or rather, celebrating the virtues of love and goodness for her ecstatic followers. ...

Incredible String Band: York University, York
Live Review by Michael Gray, Rolling Stone, August 1969
YORK IS A WALLED medieval city that belongs to Rowntrees Chocolate. You step off the train on some evenings and the scent of After Eight mints ...

Concerts, Not Clubs, For Sandy Denny's Fotheringay
Interview by uncredited writer, Beat Instrumental, April 1970
TAKE ONE PART Fairport Convention, two parts Eclection, and two parts Poet and One Man Band, put them in a bag, stir well and allow to ...

Crossing The Border: The Pentangle Interview
Interview by Rick McGrath, The Georgia Straight, May 1970
PENTANGLE? SURE. I knew Bert Jansch from my folkie days, and I knew he had an influence on Donovan... Given their dedication to "pure" celtic folk ...

The Incredible String Band
Interview by uncredited writer, Beat Instrumental, June 1970
SINCE THEIR first album in 1966, almost immediately acclaimed as the work of an important new talent, the Incredible String Band have released albums at fairly ...

Fairport Convention: Unhalfbricking/Liege and Lief
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, June 1970
UNHALFBRICKING AND Liege and Lief are the two last albums by the Fairport Convention with Sandy ...

Fotheringay, The Sea and Sandy Denny
Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, June 1970
A FEW months ago Fotheringay was a pretty name for a group of musicians who happened to play together. Today it is the name of a ...

Roy Harper: On-Off Genius?
Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, July 1970
ROY HARPER is a sort of Gerald Scarfe of music. Like the cartoonist, what he does isn't always pretty, it isn't always enjoyable, but by God ...

Steve Tilston's An Acoustic Confusion
Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, 1971
THERE IS SOMETHING very satisfying about listening to live music in small smoke-filled rooms. It creates an intimacy between artist and audience that cannot exist when ...

Incredible String Band
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, March 1971
"The Beatles are British I suppose," said Bob Dylan in the first of his two post-accident interviews, "but you can’t say they’ve carried on with their ...

Nick Drake: Bryter Layter
Review by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, March 1971
I GET THE FEELING that only a Joe Boyd-Paul Harris alliance could have produced such a superb album as this. And once again a great slice ...

Nick Drake: Bryter Later
Review by uncredited writer, Melody Maker, March 1971
THIS IS A particularly difficult album to come to any firm conclusion on. For one thing the reaction it produced depends very much on the mood ...

Phil Ochs: God Help The Troubadour
Profile and Interview by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, May 1971
Who was that fool
Threw the basket in the pool? ...

Stackridge: An Every Day Story Of Country Folk
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, June 1971
NEW BANDS emerging today seem to roughly divide into two categories. ...

Tir Na Nog
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, September 1971
HAVE YOU HEARD the one about the Englishman, the Irish Protestant and the Irish Catholic in a pub at lunch time? And – the first Englishman ...

Jet-Set Folkies: Not Us, Say Tom Jans and Mimi Fariña
Profile and Interview by uncredited writer, Beat Instrumental, October 1971
ON MAY 1, 1966, Richard Fariña, novelist, poet and folk singer was returning from a party celebrating the publication of his novel Been Down So Long ...

The Strawbs: From The Witchwood (A&M)
Review by Jonh Ingham, Rolling Stone, November 1971
THE STRAWBS started out as a bluegrass duo, went through incarnations with Sandy Denny in her pre-Fairport days and a cellist from Sadler's Wells Opera Company, ...

Pentangle: Reflection
Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, December 1971
THE APPEARANCE on the display wall of my favorite local record merchant of Pentangle's fifth album, Reflections, triggered a lightning search of my wallet, pockets, and ...

Nick Drake: Pink Moon
Review by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, March 1972
ISLAND APPEARED to have forgotten about Nick Drake until he ambled into the offices one day and presented them with this album. No one knew he'd ...

Fairport Convention: Babbacombe Lee
Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, April 1972
FOR THEIR SEVENTH album, Fairport Convention has presented us with a "concept" or "unified theme" LP (avoiding the oppro-briously-connotated term "rock opera"). ...

Fairport Convention: Babbacombe Lee
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, April 1972
"JOHN LEE, the jury has found you guilty of willful murder, and the sentence of the court upon you is that you be taken from this ...

Nick Drake: Pink Moon
Review by uncredited writer, Melody Maker, May 1972
JOHN MARTYN told me about Nick Drake in ecstatic terms and so it seemed the natural thing to do, bag the album when it came in ...

Stackridge: Stackridge
Review and Interview by Andrew Tyler, Disc and Music Echo, May 1972
NOW JIM Walters has passed his bricklaying exams he's rejoined his old band Stackridge. If things don't work out, you see, he'll have something to fall ...

Stormcock in Heat, That's Roy Harper
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Rolling Stone, December 1972
ROY HARPER WAS holidaying in Norway when word of the movie reached his management. It was his first holiday in three years, and all they knew ...

Sandy Brings Out The Tears
Live Review by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 1973
"SANDY DENNY really draws ‘em out", exclaimed Al Stewart, surveying the sea of well-known faces who had assemble at the Howff to see Britain’s number one ...

Pentangle: The End
Report and Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, January 1973
1973’s NEW BROOM struck its first death blow last week when the on-off rumors of Pentangle’s long-pending split seemed finally to be ...

British Folk Rock: Robin Hood Rides A Chopper
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, January 1973
Plainsong: In Search of Amelia Earhart (Elektra)
Richard Thompson: Henry, the Human Fly (Warner Bros.)
Steeleye Span: Below the Salt (Chrysalis)
Incredible String Band: Earthspan (Reprise)
Pentangle: Solomon's Seal (Reprise)
Lindisfarne: ...

String Driven Thing: String Driven Thing (Buddah)
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Phonograph Record, February 1973
THIS HAS GOT TO be one of the strangest albums I've heard all year. String Driven Thing (some name, huh?) are a Fairport Convention-ish British folk ...

Steeleye Span Versus The Time Warp
Report and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, March 1973
SOUND TECHNIQUES studios in Chelsea is not exactly the most luxurious of settings for musical activity. Boards, speakers and tape reels are scattered fairly haphazardly around ...

Sandy Denny: Sandy
Review by Ken Barnes, Music World, April 1973
THE SINGER/SONGWRITER boom is still rolling merrily along, but some of the most brilliant artists in the genre have failed to break through thus far. ...

Steeleye Span: So Who ARE These Limeys Playing Folk Music?
Report and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, May 1973
IT TAKES approximately 11 hours to fly from London to Los Angeles. You get off the 'plane, and the heat fills your lungs like a clammy ...

Eric Weissberg: Dueling Banjos
Profile and Interview by Noe Gold, Crawdaddy!, June 1973
TWO SETS of calloused digits have been seen onscreen recently in movie houses large and small, strutting over the frets of a Yamaha guitar and a ...

Fairport Convention: The Banana Convention
Interview by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, June 1973
THE WAY DAVE PEGG sees it, what America needs is Fairport Convention's High Banana Content ...

Fairport Convention: Fairport And The Mysterious Lady
Interview by Tony Stewart, NME, July 1973
"FOTHERINGPORT CONFUSION", states Trevor Lucas with a wry smile. That's his pet description of the present Fairport Convention. After all, the band comprises part of the ...

Gryphon: The 13th Century Slade
Profile and Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, August 1973
"EARLY ENGLISH music? Gah – give us Slade and T. Rex!" Thus one can imagine the reactions of lads and maidens today as they dance, somewhat ...

Straight From The Heart
Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, September 1973
AJ WEBBER is neither to be confused with dustbin Dylanologist A.J. Webberman nor with British bumpkin Adge Cutler, although like the Adge she comes from the ...

Judy Collins: In Through The Other Door
Interview by Bob Woffinden, NME, September 1973
TRANSATLANTIC phone calls can be a precarious undertaking at the best of times. But on this grey Wednesday afternoon, as successive international operators tried vainly to ...

Fairport Convention: Nine (Island)
Review by Bob Woffinden, NME, October 1973
I'VE BEEN trying for some time not to like a Fairport Convention album. After the endless catalogue of disaster and misfortune, it seemed vaguely unnatural that ...

July Collins: Easy Times Come Hard
Interview by Bob Woffinden, NME, October 1973
JUDY COLLINS TALKS TO BOB WOFFINDEN ON MUSIC, FILMS, PEACE AND THE POSSIBILITY OF FURTHER POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT ...

Don McLean: Playin' Favourites
Review by Bob Woffinden, NME, October 1973
AN ALBUM of other people's songs from someone who's written a few celebrated ones of his own? Yes, this is Don McLean laying bare his musical ...

Pleased To See The Span: Steeleye Stateside
Report and Interview by Steven Rosen, LA Free Press, November 1973
THE EXPLOSIVE SUCCESS of Steeleye Span during the past year is in direct relationship to the in-herent malleability of its music. Fresh out of the folk ...

Home Thoughts Of Phil Ochs
Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, January 1974
ALTHOUGH I'M typing this in Greenwich Village, New York City, this story really begins 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles. ...

Richard and Linda Thompson: British Hokey Pokey
Profile and Interview by Dave Laing, Let It Rock, May 1974
ALTHOUGH the mid sixties was a golden era for British rock, very few of the best artists from that time have survived as significant parts of ...

Loudon Wainwright III: Loudon Alone
Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, June 1974
THE PR MAN in the coffee lounge of the Hotel Russell was anxious about the Loudon Wainwright's appearance. "Is he cleanshaven or bearded." he wanted to ...

Richard and Linda Thompson: Life without Fairport
Interview by Bob Woffinden, NME, June 1974
RICHARD THOMPSON wrote 'Meet On The Ledge', in case you'd forgotten. On that basis alone the man would be due a certain portion of immortality. But ...

Loudon Wainwright: I Like To Be Laughed At
Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, September 1974
...which is as good a reason as any for Loudon Wainwright to play a role in the weekly comedy TV series, Mash. He spoke to Chris ...

Steeleye Span: How a Goon Came To Play Ukelele
Report and Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, October 1974
IT WAS like the coming of a new Messiah. Everyone sat around nervously awaiting the arrival of HIM, the man who was gonna make this recording ...

Phil Ochs
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
FOR A LONG PERIOD of time in Greenwich Village, Phil Ochs served as a sort of town crier. Each month at the Sunday Songwriters Workshop held ...

Donovan: 7-Tease
Review by Chris Salewicz, NME, January 1975
NOW THE FACTS are these: 7-Tease is a concept album; 7-Tease is a massive made-in-Nashville production; 7-Tease is also The Album Of The Stage ...

Dave Cartwright: And Now, Half An Hour Of Masochism
Interview by Fred Dellar, NME, January 1975
BY THE TIME this article gets into print, Dave Cartwright will have bitten his fingers down to the knuckle or gone prematurely grey. He worries, y'see. ...

Steeleye Span: Commoner's Crown
Review by Bob Woffinden, NME, February 1975
STEELEYE SPAN ALWAYS deliver on time. Commoner's Crown is the fourth offering from the Mk. III line-up in a little over three years, and they've come ...

Nick Drake: Requiem For A Solitary Man
Obituary by Nick Kent, NME, February 1975
ON OCTOBER 25th, 1974, at approximately six in the morning Nick Drake, a 26-yearold singer/songwriter, died from an overdose of Typtasol, an antidepressant, in the bedroom ...

Richard and Linda Thompson: Do You Wanna Be A Star?
Interview by Bob Woffinden, NME, March 1975
IT WAS ONE of those large Edwardian houses in London's Hampstead, just off the main road. Like most of the others, it had been converted into ...

The Chieftains: How to record 4 albums in 18 years, and still sell out the Albert Hall
Interview by Fred Dellar, NME, March 1975
"HE'S LIKE ONE of the little folk – a lovely, lively leprachaun, with an enormous musical talent and sense of humour to ...

Tom Paxton
Interview by Fred Dellar, NME, April 1975
"WHAT DO YOU think of the new album then?" ...

Loudon Wainwright III - Unrequited
Review by Max Bell, NME, April 1975
THE WORST THING that ever happened to Loudon Wainwright III was being branded The New Dylan, kiss of death to any self-respecting artist who hopes to ...

Emmylou Harris: Pieces of the Sky
Review by Bob Woffinden, NME, May 1975
THIS IS AN album that has been quite eagerly anticipated, mainly because of the reputation Emmylou Harris built for herself with her participation as co-vocalist on ...

Loudon Wainwright III - at Victoria Palace, London
Live Review by Max Bell, NME, June 1975
YOU MIGHT HAVE noticed that Loudon Wainwright III has been in Great Britain recently, completing the second lap of his tour; you might have noticed but ...

Joan Baez - Diamonds and Rust
Review by Bob Woffinden, NME, June 1975
THIS ALBUM REPRESENTS Joan Baez's volte-face; after the years of diatribe and tireless dissemination of political views by every available channel, her records included, she's now ...

Pete Seeger: Together In Concert
Review by Mick Farren, NME, June 1975
PETE SEEGER HAS just about every credential it's possible for a folk singer to have without actually being ...

Moonrider: Moonrider
Review by Mick Farren, NME, July 1975
MENTION THE name Keith West to anyone and odds on they'll say "Teenage Opera" and not much ...

The Chieftains: Montreux Music Festival, Switzerland
Live Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, July 1975
THE CHIEFTAINS MADE much of contemporary rock music sound a shallow fraud, when they took the stage of the Montreux Music Festival in Switzerland last week. ...

Leo Kottke
Report and Interview by Fred Dellar, NME, August 1975
LEO KOTTKE'S come a long way from St. Louis – now he's got more stories to tell than British Rail has stale rolls... ...

Richard & Linda Thompson: Hokey Pokey
Review by Jerry Gilbert, ZigZag, September 1975
THE SINGULAR most remarkable aspect of this album is its manifestation of Richard Thompson's capacity to absorb. And if that sounds a long winded way to ...

Fungus: Vlaardingen, Holland
Live Review by Fred Dellar, NME, September 1975
ONSTAGE ARE FUNGUS, five beards in search, of folk-rock fame... and they're singing in ...

'Bert Jansch? Not Still Going, Is He?'
Interview by Fred Dellar, NME, October 1975
Certainly he is, still alive and well and producing records; rumours of his retirement have been exaggerated. ...

Brewer and Shipley: Welcome to Riddle Bridge
Review by Chas de Whalley, NME, November 1975
MIKE BREWER AND Tom Shipley are just plain lads at heart, from Oklahoma and ...

Steeleye Span: Steeleye Sold Out?
Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, November 1975
WHEREFORE art thou, Span? The cry persists: "They've sold out." The denials continue. But Steeleye Span's drift towards "commercialism," especially on the new album, All Around ...

Spud
Interview by Fred Dellar, NME, November 1975
FRESHERS' WEEK IS a great time to visit Dublin's Trinity ...

Emmylou Harris: New Victoria, London
Live Review by Bob Woffinden, NME, November 1975
THE OTHER ROLLING thunder revue stole into town last ...

Joan Baez: Slack Time For The Revolution
Interview by Penny Valentine, Let It Rock, December 1975
JOAN BAEZ PUTS it bluntly: "If I'd done another political album at this point, I'd have been bankrupt. I had no money left. So I went ...

The Band: Northern Lights — Southern Cross
Review by Ian MacDonald, NME, December 1975
I'M UP AGAINST a deadline on this one, having to hurry – which is bad enough without having to respond fairly to a group operating exclusively ...

Steeleye Span: The Folk Who Plugged In
Retrospective and Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, December 1975
NOW WE are six was a title conveniently borrowed from A. A. Milne to acknowledge that in 1973 Steeleye Span had finally decided to add a ...

Paul Simon: Palladium, London
Live Review by Bob Woffinden, NME, December 1975
LAST TIME PAUL Simon toured in Summer '73, he used a South American group, Urubamba, and an American gospel quartet, the Jessy Dixon Singers (Jessy plus ...

Steeleye Span: Making Sense Of Original Sin...
Report and Interview by Bob Woffinden, NME, December 1975
IN BRITAIN we voted to stay in. In Eire and Denmark they voted to go in. In Norway the public answered the call to European economic ...

Fungus: Dutch Folk Go Dutch
Profile by Fred Dellar, NME, December 1975
THERE WAS A time when the Dutch folk scene just mirror-imaged that of Britain. For every traddie rendering 'Lord Randall' or 'Twa Corbies' at Loughborough or ...

Decameron: Greenwich Borough Hall, London
Live Review by Miles, NME, January 1976
THE GREENWICH BOROUGH Hall is on Peyton Place, and inside Decameron, have a ...

Joan Baez: From Every Stage
Review by Bob Woffinden, NME, February 1976
LAST AUTUMN, IN a move that marked a complete departure from previous practice, Joan Baez went out on the road in the States with a backing ...

Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Sisters In Song
Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, April 1976
UNTIL DEMAND forced them to issue that classic Maria Muldaur album two years ago Warner Bros. had always shown a marked reluctance to promote its fine ...

Leonard Cohen: Cohen Down the Road
Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, May 1976
GOD'S IN his heaven, all's right with the world. The words, surprisingly enough, came from Leonard Cohen, and he was making the first of several efforts ...

Goin' Back With Ian Matthews, part 1
Retrospective and Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, September 1976
IT CAME AS no great surprise to me that Ian Matthews should come quite so high in the recent poll concerning who you'd like to read ...

Ian Matthews: Goin' Back With Ian Matthews, part 2
Retrospective and Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, October 1976
LAST MONTH WE left Ian moaning and groaning about the Best Of Ian Matthews' Southern Comfort album, which MCA chose to thrust upon an unsuspecting public ...

The Universalisation Of Steeleye Span
Report and Interview by Bob Woffinden, NME, November 1976
SALLY JEAN IS DARK, demure and very attractive. Though well-dressed, well-spoken and well-meaning, she is alas also well dull. For over two hours now she has ...

Al Stewart: Coasting With Al
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, November 1976
AL STEWART, who plays London's New Victoria Theatre on December 2, is now enjoying greater success in America. ...

Steeleye Span: Family of Span
Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, December 1976
"HAVE WE ever come close to splitting? My God, HAVE we! It's very incestuous, our band, y'see. We're all interdependent and to work out your problems ...

Ralph McTell: The Anti-Star…
Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, December 1976
SILVER DISCS paper the walls of Ralph McTell's new eight-roomed Putney castle. There's going to be a studio upstairs, he says, directly above where the grand ...

John Martyn: Blood, Sweat And Cheers
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, March 1977
JOHN MARTYN rivets attention performing. You'd be wrong in assuming that just because he's one-man-with-a-guitar he doesn't make every crevice of the stage swing. ...

Tom Jans: Dark Blonde
Review by Peter Makowski, Sounds, June 1977
SOMETIMES I feel so good I can feel my body growing... YEAHHH!!! Y'know CBS were really surprised (in fact speechless) when I enquired about this guy. ...

Joanie returns as Bobby: Joan Baez at the Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Miles, NME, January 1978
JOANIE BROUGHT the audience right up on stage with her at the Odeon – two rows of them, mostly her guests, sitting rather self-consciously behind her, ...

Richard Thompson: The Guitar Hero as Mystic Recluse
Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, October 1978
Richard Thompson is one of the world's finest guitarists, but a few years ago he "got cheesed off" and packed it all in. Now he's back ...

John Martyn: London School of Economics, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, November 1978
YOU DON'T need me at all – you know what happened, what will happen. ...

Horslips: Sham-Rock 1979
Interview by Jim Green, Trouser Press, July 1979
HORSLIPS AND the new wave? An unlikely topic on the face of it, but Horslips, recently touring here in support of their latest album, The Man ...

The Roches: The Whisky, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, July 1979
THE ROCHES. Pronounced as in bugs. Maggie and Terre and Suzzy, three sisters somewhere in their ...

Richard And Linda Thompson: Sunnyvista (Chrysalis)
Review by Penny Valentine, Melody Maker, September 1979
THIS THOMPSONS package tour is a fine irony. Its visuals signal a break from the couple's traditional melancholy, replacing it with a sarcastic, partially threatening, jollity; ...

John Martyn: Martyn's Identity Papers
Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, December 1980
ACCORDING to the official biog, John Martyn was born in New Malden, Surrey, but was brought up for the first 15 years of his life in ...

The Kingston Trio
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, from the book 'When Rock Was Young', 1981
IN THE PARKING LOT of the high school, the ageing greasers stood by their late model gas guzzlers, trading sips of blackberry brandy washed down with ...

Ramblin' Jack Elliott: Elliott is Still Rambling
Profile and Interview by Steven X Rea, LA Herald Examiner, July 1981
30 years of storytelling and Elliott is still ramblin' ...

Joan Baez: The Folk Heroine Mellows With Age
Interview by Mary Harron, The Guardian, June 1984
In 1959 Joan Baez walked out on stage at the Newport Folk Festival and touched off a wave of adulation that was to reach almost religious ...

The Men They Couldn't Hang: Noose On The Loose
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, NME, March 1985
A FEW YEARS BACK if someone had told me that an English pop group would record Eric Bogie's 'The Green Fields Of France', That it would ...

Linda and Richard Find There’s Life After Divorce
Interview by Charles Bermant, The Globe and Mail, April 1985
LINDA THOMPSON’S memories of touring the United States with her soon-to-be ex-husband Richard are filtered through an alcoholic haze and a skewed sense of delight. The ...

Christy Moore: Ireland In An Acid Bath
Interview by Gavin Martin, NME, November 1986
The magic of old Ireland meets burning political insight in the music of CHRISTY MOORE, former Planxty/Moving Heart mainstay turned extraordinary solo man. GAVIN MARTIN reflects ...

The Oyster Band: Wide Blue Yonder (Cooking Vinyl)
Review by Len Brown, NME, September 1987
ONCE UPON a time, admitting to a fondness for English folk was akin to confessing a savage case of crabs. Then came The Oyster Band, the ...

The Oyster Band and The Dinner Ladies: A Total Oyster Time?
Interview by Len Brown, NME, July 1988
Is the New Wave of British Folk going anywhere, or is it just the old stuff tanked up and recut? ...

New Folk: Folk You
Report and Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, November 1988
IT'S ANOTHER sweaty, late June New York City Friday evening, and Michelle Shocked is walking eastward across Chinatown's busy Canal Street. ...

AUDIO: Richard Thompson, part 1 (1988)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, December 1988
Richard Thompson talks to Mat Snow about growing up in North London, learning guitar and forming Fairport Convention. Along the way he meets Sandy Denny and ...

AUDIO: Richard Thompson, part 2 (1988)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, December 1988
Richard Thompson on Islam, divorce, songwriting, Fairport reunions... and his problem with The Pogues! ...

Joan Baez: Speaking Of Her Dreams
Interview by Mark Leviton, Village View, December 1989
NO DOUBT the desk clerk at the Registry Hotel in Universal City who gave Joan Baez her suite number was unaware that 1961 was a pretty ...

Dick Gaughan: Handful Of Earth
Review by Mark Cooper, Q, March 1990
FIRST RELEASED BACK in 1981, Handful Of Earth survived the '80s so well that it was voted Album Of The Decade in Folk Roots magazine's recent ...

The Dubliners: The Dubliners
Review by Penny Reel, Select, September 1990
IT IS an irony that The Dubliners should have come to prominence with ‘Seven Drunken Nights’ in 1967, the same year that Dermot O’Brien’s IRA rallying ...

Bob Dylan: Under The Red Sky
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Q, October 1990
ONE EASY WAY of telling who the record industry considers to be this year's hot producer is to check the credits of the latest Dylan album. ...

Davey Graham: A Terrascopic Interview
Interview by Phil McMullen, Ptolemaic Terrascope, 1991
THERE ARE VERY few people who can genuinely be accredited with changing the face of a certain field of music. Most of that rare breed become ...

Woody Guthrie: Glory Days
Retrospective by Len Brown, Record Hunter, January 1991
Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan may never have strummed a note had it not been for the influence of the folk pioneer, Woody Guthrie. So why ...

Where Are They Now? Pentangle
Interview by Martin Aston, Q, May 1991
EVEN BEFORE Fairport Convention had set their wheels in motion, Pentangle were attempting to contemporise and explore British folk music. ...

Van Morrison: Hymns To The Silence
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1991
QUINTESSENTIALLY SQUARE MAYBE, but Van Morrison is certainly a worker. His third new album within 27 months weighs in at 95 minutes. For Van addicts it ...

Only a Henske: The Judy Henske Story
Interview by Paul Zollo, SongTalk, Spring 1991
SHE GIVES A raucous interview. Known for being wildly entertaining and energetic on stage, Judy Henske brings as much punch to a conversation as to a ...

CSN: CSN Box-Set
Review by Mat Snow, Q, February 1992
DAVID CROSBY, STEPHEN STILLS AND Graham Nash: respectively refugees from The Byrds (fired by Roger McGuinn), Buffalo Springfield (broke up) and Manchester's very own Hollies (who ...

Eddi Reader: Mirmama
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1992
FAIRGROUND ATTRACTION SPLIT after one platinum album, The First Of A Million Kisses; 'Perfect', the sound of summer '88, was soundaliked and killed by an Asda ...

Bob Dylan: Acoustic/Good As I Been To You
Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1992
PERHAPS AN EVEN BIGGER shock than his 1965 electrification, in 1992 Dylan goes acoustic. ...

Roy Harper
Profile and Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, December 1992
FROM SOMEWHERE within the packed and sweaty audience at Whelan's, small and quaint and antique club in a Dublin back street, a projectile comes, wings its ...

Johnny Too Bad: John Martyn
Book Excerpt by Mark Cooper, 'Love is the Drug' (Penguin), 1994
HE'S A JAZZ MAN, he's a folkie and he's been a drinker. Singer songwriter John Martyn has been most things, apart from commercially acceptable. Now in ...

Bert Jansch: Album reissues
Review by David Cavanagh, Mojo, January 1994
BENEATH THE STAGGERED, quadruple-decker title of It Don’t Bother Me, midway down an album cover that suggests Blue Note going folk, sits Bert Jansch in 1966, ...

Fairport Convention
Interview by Johnny Black, Mojo, August 1994
I'M MARTIN," SAYS THE ONE WITH THE CURLY HAIR. "D'you know Ken Dodd's dad's dog died?" ...

Hanging On A Star: In Memory of Nick Drake
Retrospective by Gerrie Lim, Big O, November 1994
HIS MUSIC IS as evocative and haunting as ever, though much of his life remains mysterious. Nick Drake died 20 years ago this month, on November ...

A Simple Song That Lives Beyond Time: Leadbelly via Kurt Cobain
Essay by Eric Weisbard, New York Times, November 1994
IMMEDIATELY after the suicide of Kurt Cobain, lead singer of the rock band Nirvana, last April, MTV broadcasted almost continuously an hourlong Unplugged special that the ...

Fairport Convention: Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Mark Cooper, Mojo, April 1995
TWO FAIRPORTS STILL STICK IN my mind from the late '60s, early '70s. The first was London's answer to Jefferson Airplane, furiously eclectic and frequently daring, ...

AUDIO: Fairport Convention's Dave Pegg (1995)
Interview by Johnny Black, Rock's Backpages Audio, June 1995
Dave Pegg talks about Liege & Lief, Unhalfbricking, the departure of Richard Thompson and the death of Sandy ...

Robin Williamson and Mike Heron: London, Bloomsbury Theatre
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Mojo, 1996
Set List: Everything’s Fine Right Now/ Lonely Exile/ Tom & Alexei/ Scotland Yet/ Red Hair/ October Song-Maya/ Favourite Sins/ Killing The Dragon/ Fathers/ Love Letter To ...

Watcher Of The Dark: Richard Thompson, Guitar God From Planet Eureka
Book Excerpt by Gerrie Lim, 'Inside the Outsider' (BigO Books) , 1997
IT'S NIGH HIGH impossible to summarize Richard Thompson's vast repertoire and immense talent, not to mention demented humor, but one particular sentence from Thompson himself might ...

Industry: A Tale of Two Thompsons
Review by Geoffrey Himes, The Washington Post, July 1997
DANNY THOMPSON grew up in the world described in the movie Brassed Off--the northern British villages where men scrub off the soot of the coal ...

Angel Of Avalon: Sandy Denny
Retrospective by Jim Irvin, Mojo, 1998
ON THE AFTERNOON of Monday, April 18th, 1978, a young London-based musician named Jon Cole left his flat in Barnes, climbed into his Datsun Cherry and ...

Bert Jansch Conundrum: Thirteen Down (Fantasy/Kicking Mule)
Sleevenotes by Bill Wasserzieher, Fantasy/Kicking Mule Records, 1998
MUSIC COMMENTATOR Colin Harper once wrote that Bert Jansch, on a scale of one to 10 in terms of popular notoriety, probably would come in at ...

Shane MacGowan: It's A Long Way From Tipperary
Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, Vox, January 1998
AS PUNK PASSION dissipated and died, choking on its own irrelevance, a generation of serial venters were suddenly deprived of its primal, therapeutic effect. The weekenders ...

Paddy Moloney: The Abundant Life of The Chieftains
Interview by Chris Smith, The Performing Songwriter, March 1998
IF YOU'VE EVER visited Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, one of the most memorable legs of the tour (not quite as touching as the meditation garden but ...

Peter, Paul & Mary: What Makes A Song Endure
Interview by Chris Smith, The Performing Songwriter, May 1998
IT'S APRIL, 2048, the year of the cockroach. The lines curve out the door of Radio City Music Hall, around the block, and down Sixth Avenue ...

How to Buy Greenwich Village Folk
Guide by Fred Dellar, Mojo, November 1998
TOM PAXTON recalls that he, along with Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, David Blue, Eric Andersen, Pat Sky and Phil Ochs, once called the Village ...

Eddi Reader
Interview by Debbie Kruger, Performing Songwriter, March 2000
EDDI READER ready to do it alone. After a decade of drawing heavily on collaborations with other writers, she realizes it's okay – in fact it's ...

Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, Volume 4
Review by Dave DiMartino, Mojo, August 2000
Billed as Smith’s ‘secret’ volume, the line-up was intended as the fourth in this celebrated series but never made it to the starting ...

Sandals Out, Piercing In: The New Folk Sirens
Overview by Lucy O'Brien, The Guardian, August 2000
LIVERPUDLIAN ARTIST Kathryn Williams is among the nominees for this year’s Mercury music prize – and hotly tipped to win. Last year Kate Rusby was nominated ...

The Best of Broadside 1962–1988
Review by Ira Robbins, salon.com, September 2000
BROADSIDE PUBLISHED SONGS by writers who wanted to change the world – including a young Bob Dylan. A five-CD set marches through the great folk mag's ...

Eliza Carthy: Angel of Rebellion
Interview by Charles Bermant, Rolling Stone Online, February 2001
ELIZA CARTHY IS in the midst of playing a fluid passage when her feet stop moving. She rolls her eyes, exhales and scowls before attacking her ...

Phil Ochs: One-Way Ticket Home
Retrospective by Phil Mershon, Perfect Sound Forever, September 2001
AROUND 1980, my friend Julia invited me over to listen to a compilation album by a singer named Phil Ochs. I was a college senior, trying ...

Odetta: Lookin’ For A Home
Review by Andria Lisle, Living Blues, November 2001
IN 1949, THE year that Leadbelly died, Odetta made her first appearance on stage – in a Los Angeles production of Finian’s Rainbow. ...

Robin Williamson
Interview by Richie Unterberger, Perfect Sound Forever, Fall 2001
IN THE 1960s, Scotland's Incredible String Band put together elements of folk and world music into something that was called folk-rock, in part, because it couldn't ...

Various Artists: The Folk Years – Yesterday's Gone
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Time-Life Music, 2002
THE 18 TRACKS on this album whisk us back to the hopeful, happy days of America's Hootenanny boom. From the Caribbean lilt of Harry Belafonte's 'Banana ...

Various Artists: The Folk Years – Blowin' in the Wind
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Time-Life Music, 2002
THERE WAS A TIME when the notion of the "folk singer-songwriter" was all but a contradiction in terms. "Folk" music was the ür-sound of the people ...

Chris Smither: Don't It Drag On
Sleevenotes by Bill Wasserzieher, Tomato Records, 2002
WHETHER A digital stream encoded on a silver disc or deep grooves on vintage black vinyl, an album is a record of a time in a ...

David Hajdu: Positively Fourth Street (Bloomsbury)
Review by Tim Clifford, Rock's Backpages, April 2002
NOW OUT in paperback, this engrossing account of the intertwined lives of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña from the late '50s ...

Spirit Of Eden: Shirley Collins
Retrospective and Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, May 2002
"The main body of [folk music] is just based on myth and the Bible and plague and famine and all kinds of things like that which ...

Alan Lomax: A Life Less Ordinary
Obituary by Chris Smith, The Performing Songwriter, September 2002
SUMMING UP ALAN LOMAX'S contributions to folk music in a single magazine article is like trying to list everyone you've ever met on a single sheet ...

Richard Thompson: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, March 2003
WHITE, MIDDLE-AGED English men dominate a crowd who have packed this venue to bursting for a man barely known outside their ...

Queen Joni Approximately
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, January 2004
Raised in Canada, Joni Mitchell found her way to California in 1968. Barney Hoskyns on the crowning of a canyon ...

Reflections on Kate Rusby at the Derby Assembly Rooms
Essay by Craig W. Thomas, unpublished, March 2004
ALEX FERGUSON was interviewed immediately after his team snatched an improbable victory from the back of the throat of defeat in the 1999 Champions League final. ...

Nick Drake: Stranger To The World
Retrospective and Interview by Pete Paphides, Observer Music Monthly, April 2004
Nick Drake's rare talent was almost ignored in his brief lifetime. Since his suicide 30 years ago, his legend has grown and now the discovery of ...

Brighter Very Much Later: Nick Drake
Retrospective by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, May 2004
POSTHUMOUS ACCLAIM is not uncommon in rock - "death sells" and all that - but the clamour surrounding the English singer-songwriter Nick Drake gets more intense, ...

Nick Drake: Bryter Later (Island, 1970)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Observer, June 2004
THE CULT OF Nick Drake, posh Lost Boy of post-folk singer-songwriting, shows little sign of abating. That’s because his mellow, Colin Blunstone-ish burr of a voice ...

The Incredible String Band/The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, September 2004
THE FIRST ISB albums in a two-fer-one release. The ISB (1966) is a more-or-less conventional Scots-trad folk effort by the original trio of Robin Williamson, Mike ...

Judy Collins: Judy Collins 3/In Concert
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, September 2004
ARGUABLY THE best female folk voice of the age, Judy Collins brought a fresh commercial edge to the early ‘60s East Coast folk revival. Her third ...

Bob Dylan: Chronicles: Volume One
Book Review by Toby Creswell, Sydney Morning Herald, November 2004
THERE'S NO WAY that Bob Dylan, after all this time, is going to spill the beans on his life. The high priest of protest makes Greta ...

Odetta: Gonna Let It Shine – A Concert for the Holidays
Press Release by Bill Wasserzieher, M.C. Records, 2005
"If only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and a soul like Odetta's would come along, the centuries would pass so quickly ...

Sandy Denny: The North Star Grassman and the Ravens
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, March 2005
TO BILLY CONNOLLY she was "one of the angriest women I ever met", while Island press officer David Sandison recalled her as a "belligerent and argumentative" ...

Sandy Denny: Sandy
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, March 2005
DENNY'S SECOND solo set, produced by boyfriend and Fotheringay graduate Trevor Lucas, was a decided improvement on her great but scattered debut. Evenly balanced between trad-folk ...

Sandy Denny: Like an Old-Fashioned Waltz
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, March 2005
BEGUN IN LA and finished in London, Like an Old-Fashioned Waltz may be Denny's finest hour. Kicking off with 'Solo', one of her trademark piano brooders, ...

Sandy Denny: Rendezvous
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, March 2005
FOLLOWING the Fairport Convention reunion that produced 1975's Rising For The Moon, Rendezvous was Denny's last LP before her death from a brain haemorrhage in 1978. ...

Dorris Henderson: US Folk Singer Who Settled In London
Obituary by Colin Irwin, The Independent, March 2005
DORRIS HENDERSON cut an unforgettable figure on the emergent British folk-music scene of the mid-1960s. ...

Fairport Convention: Chronicles
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, May 2005
FAIRPORT'S ANNUAL reunion festival at Cropredy in Oxfordshire celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, long since established as one of the primo dates on the world ...

Sandy Denny: Taken Too Early
Retrospective by Mark Hudson, Daily Telegraph, November 2005
Mark Hudson reveals the tragic tale of the British Joni Mitchell; Sandy Denny ...

Beth Orton: Comfort of Strangers (EMI)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, February 2006
HAS EMPTY become the new full? Every month we read of another singer-songstress who's stripped down her sound, kept things "spare and minimal". Now it's Beth ...

Bruce Blew My Cover: Pete Seeger
Report and Interview by Edward Helmore, The Guardian, February 2007
ON THE FIRST Friday of the month, in fine weather and sometimes foul, you will find Pete Seeger, the folk-singing legend and pioneering environmentalist, in a ...

Pentangle: Britain's Grateful Dead
Profile and Interview by Nick Coleman, The Guardian, March 2007
Folk pioneers Pentangle recently played together for the first time in 30 years. This is the perfect time for them to reform for good, says Nick ...

Arlo Guthrie: 'Alice' is Back on the Menu
Report and Interview by Charles Bermant, What's Up, March 2007
'ALICE'S RESTAURANT' is back on the menu. First released in 1967 as the title track of Arlo Guthrie's debut album, the 18-minute talking blues narrative became ...

Linda Thompson
Interview by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, September 2007
Linda and Richard Thompson's marriage was fiery – so much so that Nick Hornby began a script about the legendary folk rockers. Here, on the eve ...

The Legend Of John Fahey & Blind Joe Death
Retrospective by Kris Needs, Record Collector, October 2007
John Fahey was the maverick genius of the acoustic guitar, but that's only part of it. As another classic reissue appears, Kris Needs tries to unravel ...

Up From the Ashes: Ed Pearl's Art and Activism
Profile and Interview by Kirk Silsbee, Jewish Journal, April 2008
IT'S ELEVEN A.M. and Ed Pearl is the first customer at Masa, his restaurant of choice in Echo Park. The owner, Tom, greets him warmly, and ...

In Her Own Time and Ours: The Cult of Karen Dalton
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, May 2008
THERE ARE VOICES and then there are voices. Sometimes the ones that move us most are those most on the edge: the ones racked with pain, ...

Eric Andersen
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Rock'n'Reel, June 2008
ONE THING Eric Anderson likes to make very clear is that he is not a folk ...

John Martyn
Interview by Johnny Black, Rock'n'Reel, August 2008
All my life I've thought of you as Scottish but you were actually born in England weren't you? ...

A Goat of Many Colours: The Incredible String Band
Retrospective and Interview by Pete Paphides, Rock's Backpages, October 2008
Forty years ago this month, The Incredible String Band released their benchmark double album Wee Tam & The Big Huge, just one of many milestones in ...

Pioneers: Phil Ochs
Retrospective by Mark Kemp, Texas Music, Spring 2009
WHEN CONVERSATION turns to the great lyricists of the '60s and '70s, Bob Dylan's name invariably comes first. Then maybe John Lennon, Neil Young, Bob Marley, ...