They add abundant star power, but the locals prove themselves worthy company with stellar guitar-picking, banjo-plucking, fiddling, and singing. In addition to Watson, who’s featured on eight songs, the big names from back East include blues giant Mississippi Fred McDowell, fingerpicking icon Reverend Gary Davis, the New Lost City Ramblers (Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tracy Schwarz), and singer-songwriter Mark Spoelstra (who relocated to California after success in New York and Cambridge). But “The Village Out West”-a California sprawl that ranged from Berkeley (home to the influential Berkeley Folk Music Festival, 1958–1971) to Fresno-was (and still is) a hotbed of vernacular music in its own right, appreciation of which is deepened in this 51-track sampler from the lost tapes of civil engineer, folk music aficionado, and amateur audio engineer Alan Oakes.

The environs of NYC’s Bleecker and MacDougal streets gave us such beloved icons as Dave Van Ronk and Fred Neil, and such future celebrities as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Peter, Paul & Mary. But the Village back East was not the only epicenter of passion for traditional and old-time acoustic music in the United States, as amply evidenced in a new two-CD set of recordings captured at festivals, concerts, music workshops, and house parties in Northern and Central California. The centrality of New York’s Greenwich Village in the folk music revival-aka “the great folk scare”-of the 1950s and ’60s cannot be denied. So we're asking you to give just $1 (or whatever you can afford) right now.įrom the January/February 2022 issue of Acoustic Guitar | By Derk Richardson Hey, fellow guitarist! Did you know 99.9% of visitors to this site will scroll past this message without making a contribution? Many plan to pledge later, but then forget.

Alan lomax recordings