Reading Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan & the Night that Split the Sixties (Dey Street/Harper-Collins Publishers, 2015) reproduces in wonderful, eye-opening detail the environment of the Newport Folk Festival during July of 1965, when Bob Dylan appeared onstage on […]
Last weekend I went to what we might have once called a folk festival and was blown away by the power and majesty of a pure kick-ass electric set. It seems to be an affliction when you dwell in this […]
Yesterday was Pete Seeger’s birthday. He would have been 96 years old*. I don’t really need to tell you what Seeger did in his life. His accomplishments, as well as his setbacks, are well-documented – from his early days with […]
Though many music fans still do not recognize his name, Chris Hillman has had a monumental impact on American music and may have one of the most impressive resumes of any contemporary musician. He’s probably most famous for being a […]
One of the unique features of bluegrass is the importance of jamming to the growth and development of the genre, as well as continuing its traditional nature. Go to large or small festivals. Take a walk through the campground, and […]
Baby, lift your window high do you hear That sound It’s the troubadours with their Freedom song -Van Morrison, 1979 The interview, and the show, was very nearly cancelled. I was sitting by the laptop waiting for the venue to […]
In a letter written for Sing magazine in 1955, Pete Seeger wrote about his friend — and one of his biggest personal and professional influences — Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly: “Looking back, I think that the most important thing I learned from […]
For the last couple of years, we have been living on my family’s farm, which dates back to 1791, in a house mostly built by my grandfather, where he lived for 40 or so years; and in fact, where he died. […]
As history continues to repeat itself in the race-plagued streets of the United States, and on the war-weary battlefields of the Middle East, people are again turning toward music to voice feelings that cannot be spoken, to comfort hearts that cannot […]
We sat down in a grimy corner on the main floor of Grand Central Station. A few other late night Saturday travelers straggled through, but it was as empty as I’d ever seen it. I was in my 20s with […]
