 | AboutÌýÌýFolk In spite of apparent differences, folk and folk-inspired music from the roots to the avant-garde is characterised by certain common features – simple, square rhythms, extended repetition, simple harmony and directness of melodic expression.
Find outÌýmore aboutÌýFolk
5 things you have to know | |
Want to get to know Folk? Mike Harding will get you up to speed...
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5 albums you have to own | |
Mike tells you the five folk albums you need in your collection...
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Key events inÌýÌýfolk
 Ìý Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie's first, legendary recording sessionwith Alan Lomax at the Library of Congress in March 1940. Songs included"So Long", "It's Been Good to Know You", "Dust Bowl Blues", and "I Ain't Got No Home". Ìý Liege And Lief
In 1969 Fairport Convention release Liege And Lief, the first British Folk Rock album. Most of the songsare adaptations of Old English Folk songs produced using a mixture of acoustic and electric sounds. Ìý Planxty
Planxty revolutionised traditional Irish Music in 1973. Their debut album, featuring Christy Moore, Donal Lunny and Andy Irvine, bought the music to a whole new audience with their fresh attitude and political edge.Ìý Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd release English/Scottish Popular Ballads, the first time many of the songs have been committed to record. This reintroduced a new generation to the folk heritage of the British Isles.Ìý Dylan Goes Electric
Bob Dylan swapped his acoustic guitar for an electric one at the Newport Festival in 1965 to the bewildement and disgust of die-hard folk festival fans.
KeyÌýÌýfolk Ìýsongwriters |  | ÌýEwan MacColl
Ewan MacColl can lay claim to being the driving force behind the revival of British folk in the 50s, not least for founding the first folk club in England. MacColl wasa poet, a playwright,a performer and, of course, a songwriter, whose songs include "Dirty Old Town" and "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", reinterpreted by a series of performers in popular music.
 ÌýDirty Old Town
ÌýThe Lag's Song
ÌýGo Down Ye Murderers
Ìý | | | |  | ÌýBob Dylan
Regarded as one of the most-important songwriters of his generation, both as a folk performer and in music in general. When people make a claim for song-lyrics as poetry, Dylan and Leonard Cohen are usually the lyricists quoted at length.
ÌýMr Tambourine Man
ÌýSubterranean Homesick Blues
ÌýThe Times The Are A-Changing Ìý | | | |  | ÌýJoan Baez
An iconic figure in the 1960s peace movement and in American folk, Baez was been writing her own songs, and interpreting others' songs, for decades, blazing a trail for subsequent female singer-songwriters.
ÌýLove Song to A Stranger
ÌýMr Tambourine Man
ÌýSweeter For MeÌý | | |
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