Folk

KICK OUT THE JAMS, MOTHERFOLKER!

Dwayne Cannan – Spare Change

The first thing that came to mind when I saw this album was downtown. Dwayne is on the cover, carrying his guitar, coming out of an age-old telephone booth with the album name below him… Spare Change. You flip to the back-cover and see song titles like The Gutter Man, Lady, The Drifter, Cocaine Katie, […]

Canti Comunisti Italiani

“Songs of the Italian Communists” – now there’s a title crying out for the pop charts. There was a little sequence of revolutionary songs released on 7″ singles by the Italian label ‘i dischi del sole’ in the early sixties, of which this is one. Quite nicely packaged in a fold-out sleeve (would have been […]

Steve and Ed: Dream Song

A surprisingly good folk-pop lp on the vanity label Century that I picked up recently due to my “leave no stock cover behind” compulsion. The notes say it was recorded in a Los Angeles area church, and it has a sort of cavernous low-fi sound quality that I quite enjoy. Very soothing Simon & Garfunkel-esque […]

Country Comfort – We Are the Children

The kind folks at Friends of Sound here in Austin, TX recommended this to me as a two or three tracker from Hawaii. Fortunately, Country Comfort’s songs sound very similar and it’s more like a four to six tracker. They do a great cover of ‘Make It With You’ and an original called ‘To be […]

Rex Holman – Here in the Land of Victory

“Victory” was the inital release on the obscure Pentagram label (a subsidiary of Jubilee). In between a busy acting scheduling, Holman recorded this interesting mix of country, blues, and eastern influenced psych-folk. His voice is heavy on the vibrato, reminding me slightly of Tim Buckley. Copper Kettles is one of my favorites from this album […]

Larry Conklin and Jochen Blum – Jackdaw

Here’s hands down one of my favorite Seattle private press lp’s. About half of the album is instrumental with Larry Conklin on guitar and Jochen Blum playing violin and 12 string guitar. Definitely brings to mind Fahey/Basho/Hecht etc. The tracks with vocals have a haunting, sparse feel to them, the loner folk tag fits the […]

Crow Johnson – S/T

I got this along w/ 99 other records for 10$ in a bulk box deal that a book store often offers here in town. Her signature drew me in, reading her little comment. She seems really cool; ‘Crow’ still plays and is well-known within modern folk circles. Check out the first two tunes to get […]

Om Shanti – We Are Home

In life we have all been moving Towards love as our centre blooming Let’s dance to that loving feeling Let’s dance with our hearts revealing Those four phrases circulate the back-side of the cover on this private spiritual folk album headed by Oman Deal and Shanti Ess Rae, released in 1977 on the Solace Records […]

L Cpl Charles E Scott (USMC) – From Vietnam With Love

Still a mystery to me, found a stack of these in Richmond VA (the label’s hometown) almost a decade ago, many years of questions and research has yielded nada. The label is known for some hard 60’s garage rockers, this spoken recitation with folky guitar strumming & humming of the Stone’s “As Tears Go By” […]

Abner Jay – Swaunee Water And Cocaine Blues

I’ve been blown away by this record for over 20 years, one of my favorites, few others come close to matching the reality found on here. Abner was an old school one man band, sort of a next level Leadbelly meets Dylan. I’m envious of friends who caught his live performance in the south east […]

Pax Quartet – Merveilles

Christian records of interest are not that common in France, but this one has something special. This is the second Pax Quartet LP to be reviewed on Waxidermy and just like the first one, this LP has one vocal and one instrumental side but Pop/Folk oriented instead of Jazz. The “Folk” tracks are not really […]

Peter La Farge – Sings Of The Cowboys

Well if you are like me and consider yourself a bedroom cowboy, then you’re gonna need a helpful record such as this to get your cattle calls up to scratch.  Luckily this record comes will everything you need to get your cowpoke game down. This was released on Folkways in 1964 and in true Folkways […]

Linda Rich: There’s More To Living Than I Know So Far

Linda Rich’s first lp on the Chicago based IVR label from 1969 is an amazingly beautiful set of original xian folk-pop. Outstanding sparse production, excellent songwriting, and Linda’s understated, yet confident vocals make this a record that reaches way beyond any kind of novelty factor often used to “handicap” Christian records. In fact, like many […]

Frank Lynch: A New Look At Life

Records with low budget duo-tone covers pressed by high schools with Christian kids sporting acoustic guitars pretty much haunt me in my dreams now. So, yeah, I got a full on boner when when I found this. I even like green. And it’s from Canada so it kinda has that lure of “the exotic other”. […]

John Jacob Niles – American Folk And Gambling Songs

This folk record is definitely borderlining country, which is a rarity for me, even though I find myself knee deep in bluegrass 78s on a regular basis. As an admirer and collector of folk himself, John Jacob Niles took his Kentucky way of life and transformed it into a countless amount of recordings that are […]

Crossroads – Get Together

I really try to avoid using the word ‘haunting’ when describing music. Alas, there is nothing else I can use to describe this one-tracker campfire folk record recorded in Edmonton, Alberta by some high-school kids from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The song Poet, which features flute, guitar and piano has put me in a curious state of […]

Marj Snyder – A Time of Peace

Marj Snyder is seventeen years old and a junior at San Lorenzo Highschool in Felton, California. She lives in the beautiful community of Mt. Hermon, which is located in the Santa Cruz mountains. She has sung extensively for Young life week-end camps and clubs, numerous churches in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Mt. Hermon […]

Collie Ryan – Indian Harvest

No apology is offered for the depth of silence required to hear these songs. Larry Creech, New Age Farms “Prairie Day Lady”

Laura-Beth Cinquini – The Mystery of His Love

Laura-Beth desires to honor and glorify God by singing of His infinite love. Simple and pure are these songs which speak of His plan and promises. As a believer in them, Laura-Beth considers the verses from Isaiah 12 to be the focus of life. “Be My Side”

Ric Masten: Windows

I had no idea who Ric Masten was when I found this a few months ago at some dank little Christain thrift shop. Brought it home with a big pile of Jesus folk records I bought that day and was completely impressed by it. Anyhow, I looked him up on the net (Ric has his […]

Chevrolet Sings of Safe Driving and You

Chevrolet’s hilarious attempt at promoting safety for young drivers by singing about the laws of motion and centrifugal force, among many other automobile-related things. If you ever wondered what it would sound like if Belle & Sebastian were around in the 60s making music about driving, well then today is your lucky day. Sure it’s […]

Paul Ott / A Message to Mankind

“Paul Ott Carruth has captured the sheer music of nature in a blend of song and sound with the simplicity of a single guitar, a soft voice and natural sounds heard only in the great outdoors.” (liner notes, A Message to Mankind, circa 1972) “To thousands of wildlife conservationists in all fifty states, the name […]

Elizabeth Cotten: Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar

This will make you toss out your yawnfest Folkways LPs of bug sounds and jugbands or whatever and force you to rethink your intentions as a record collector. Miss Cotten is the real Folkways deal and this is probably one of the best records they ever put out (up there with the Anthologies of American […]

The Khalsa String Band – S/T

This is a really nice, mellow hippie/folk album. Information on the internet was scarce, so I’d be happy to learn more. From what I could gather, the Khalsa String Band was comprised of Sikh’s living in America and Americans won over to the Yogi craze in the 70’s. Almost everyone in the band has the […]

Bob Hurd: Bless the Lord

Good private press singer songwriter Jesus man lp from 1976. Low key and acoustic with a sparse, introspective feel on the best cuts. The Christian lyrics do come close to being overbearing at times though. One thing I found funny about this record though is that he goes on a tirade against home taping in […]