#folk-revival

#folk-revival

The first weeks were a roller coaster of pleasure and perplexity. Touching the strings, my fingers started to remember things that I had long forgotten.

The growing Aadam Jacobs Collection is an internet treasure trove for music lovers, especially for fans of indie and punk rock during the 1980s through the early 2000s.

Fia Backström describes her experience of West Virginia as akin to being called by aliens, framing the region in a way that echoes a long history of it being seen as strange and backward.

Dan Shaw's approach to landscape architecture involves balancing aesthetic goals with community needs and budget constraints, ensuring that every design choice considers potential trade-offs.

Dylan's choice of Patreon over Substack is puzzling, as many major artists have opted for the latter to connect with fans and share their thoughts.

Gangstagrass occupies a lane that sounds unlikely on paper and surprisingly natural in practice. The collective blends bluegrass instrumentation with hip-hop rhythms, pairing banjo rolls and fiddle runs with sharp lyricism and boom-bap backbone.

Volti and Left Coast meet in a bold and dramatic new work by Chris Castro for storyteller and musicians, which delves into the ancient and universal human explanations for our beginnings. The human relationship to our environment forms a through-line from romantic to experimental musical sensibilities.

Keepers of the Steps, the living archive and cultural program at the United Irish Cultural Center dedicated to preserving generations of Bay Area Irish dancers, teachers, and families. Through stories, images, and lived experience, we'll reflect on how dance carries lineage, identity, and community forward.

Abingdon is easy to access just off Interstate 81. This little town has many charms-from its 20-block historic district to the 34-mile Virginia Creeper Trail. Add to that a thriving creative community, exceptional dining at The Tavern (the state's oldest bar), and homey accommodations, and you have a pretty darn close to perfect Blue Ridge Mountain getaway destination.

It makes me feel proud, simply because of the specific time we're in right now. It definitely takes a lot of courage for kids my age to represent their culture. Anthony Benitez, an 18-year-old violin student born in the United States to Mexican immigrants, expressed how the academy provides a meaningful outlet for cultural expression amid punitive immigration enforcement affecting Latino and immigrant families across the country.

If you were getting pot in the late '70s or early '80s in this part of the country, there's a good chance it may have been coming from these guys. You've got these guys who served decades in prison for marijuana, and now they're getting out into a world where it's legal everywhere.

In frightening times, it makes a huge difference not to feel alone. Creating art with others in community enhances agency and strengthens self. Creativity requires an open heart; love enhances hope and diminishes fear.

R&B in the 21st century has been in a constant state of flux, tugged between safe traditionalism and blurry attempts at progression. For the last decade-plus that "progression" has seen R&B music become more indebted to trap records and the moody atmospherics of alternative bands like Radiohead, Coldplay, or My Bloody Valentine.

When Norman Sylvester was 12, long before he garnered the nickname "The Boogie Cat" or shared a stage with B.B. King, he boarded a train in Louisiana and headed west, toward the distant city of Portland, Oregon. He'd lived all his life in the rural South, eating wild muscadine grapes from his family's farm, fishing in the bayou and churning butter at the kitchen table to the tune of his grandmother's gospel singing.

The mixture of old world and new inside a pub that also features a dark, polished wood bar, feels just right for Corrib Theatre's variety show An Scéal (The Story), which combines traditional storytelling and music with modern movement to celebrate the Celtic feast day Imbolc and the return of the sun as well as the Irish National holiday St. Bridgid's Day, both of which are on February 1.

Taj Mahal looked out at his fans and stated the obvious: This is off the charts. Indeed, it was a very special night for the legendary Berkeley-based blues musician, who was being honored by an numerous high-profile musicians in concert at The Masonic in San Francisco on Saturday (Feb. 21). The role call featured a number of other Bay Area greats including Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Joan Baez and Van Morrison as well as many other notable artists

Jeff Hanna, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founder and de facto leader, is tucked into a nondescript booth at El Palenque, a 30-years-plus local restaurant in a Nashville strip mall, talking about "Nashville Skyline," a pensive track from their EP, "Night After Night." The family-owned Mexican restaurant is the kind of place he's gravitated toward since starting a jug band with friends in Long Beach before migrating to Los Angeles' folk/rock scene.

I've just given a keynote presentation at Lines of Flight: Improvisation, Hope and Refuge, a conference hosted by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation. I'd been invited to talk about my performance research with D&aacutelava, a cross-genre project that is influenced by animist, Slavic cosmology and a land-based folk song tradition that has been in my family for generations.

He sings the names of the dead haltingly, as though he is reading them off a screen-which, judging from the recording-studio footage in the song's lyric video, he probably is. The song is about the news, but it is also, perhaps unintentionally, about the moment of lag when we absorb the names and images, when we try to assimilate atrocity into narrative.

Originally from Illinois and now based in Maine, where he has lived for the past four years, Pokey LaFarge brings a lived-in perspective to American roots music. Drawing from early jazz, blues, swing and folk traditions, his songwriting balances warmth, rhythm and emotional clarity without slipping into nostalgia for its own sake. Over the years, LaFarge has grown into a confident bandleader, known for performances that feel loose but intentional, with space for both musicianship and connection.

Raised in Scotland's remote and sparsely populated Outer Hebrides, folk singer Jule Fowlis was immersed in Scottish Gaelic language and traditions.

My Morning Jacket have released a new album, Peacelands, which is out now via their Bandcamp. Frontman Jim James describes it as "an album of mostly unreleased, acoustic peaceful protest songs - some covers and some of my own" and includes songs by Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Buck Owens and more. Proceeds will benefit " ACLU fighting for our safety and freedoms here at home, as well as Doctors Without Borders and International Rescue - organizations working hard to help heal the horrors of war and terror around the globe... working around the clock to help move us all towards 'Peacelands.'"

He was playing a little piano, then trumpet, and even bongos. He even had a bongo solo!

49 Winchester will release their new album Change of Plans on May 15 via Lucille Records / MCA. It's their first record for a major label after two on New West, and they made it with producer Dave Cobb (Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson). The album includes their cover of Black Sabbath's "Changes," which was released back in November, and the new single from the album is the anthemic rocker "Pardon Me." Watch the video below.