Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook: Volume 1
The Songbook contains 23 archetypal songs performed by a wide range of artists.
These songs have thrived in the folk traditions of America for a reason. They are tough and long lasting but malleable enough to be adapted and re-invented easily.
These kids today with their sequencers, samplers, loops, USB interfaces, pitch controllers and iPods holding 50,000 songs. They think music was invented yesterday by them and their buddies and tunes are spit out at the push of a button in patterns of Zeroes and Ones. Ain’t it time we all unplugged, slowed down and got our folk back on? To wrap our hands around the cool maple neck of an actual guitar and our brains around actual songs passed down for generations?
The Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook: Volume One provides such a service with this topnotch overview of songs that have thrived in the centuries-old oral traditions of American folk cultures. All your song styles are represented: ballads and narratives, lyricals, blues, work songs, sacred songs, protest songs and even some folkified Tin Pan Alley compositions. This CD also proves that something good can be good for you as well. Yes, it is a valuable learning tool for anyone interested in traditional songs, but it’s also a bang up good listen.
The Songbook contains 23 archetypal songs performed by a wide range of artists. Some are nationally known like Jon Langford (Mekons, Pine Valley Cosmonauts, Waco Bros), Dan Zanes, John Stirrat (Wilco), Janet Bean (Freakwater, Eleventh Dream Day), Alice Peacock, Robbie Fulks, and Danny Barnes (Bad Livers), and some are instructors from the School—performers themselves with decades of teaching experience.
* Denotes songs performed by an Old Town School instructor
Included is a hefty booklet written by folklorist Paul Tyler that gives a detailed history of each song.
