OT Folk Thread

Hey all! Inspired by the OT metal thread, and after posting a link to a Pixies cover, I decided to make a thread for folk fans, or people interested. I don't see a lot of people on here talking about it, so I thought maybe it might be nice to discuss, recommend, or politely criticize.

Whether it be twangy folk full of banjo and hill-people instruments, more rock-like Americana, or even bluegrass and alt-country, there is a beautiful world of music in this genre waiting to explored.

It's a fairly new genre to me; I started listening to it after seeing some shows at my work and hearing coworkers and friends listening to it. Folk seems to be gaining in popularity as well, which is nice to see. It is a good alternative, imo at least, for those of us that want something twangy and wholesome (or crude and vulgar in some cases) but don't want to listen to country (which I can't stand).

Please use links, do not embed videos, to keep things a bit easier on the eyes (and bandwidth, I'd imagine).

Some of my favorites are:

Trampled by Turtles

Old Crow Medicine Show

The Devil Makes Three

The Avett Brothers

Deer Tick

Heartless Bastards

M. Ward

The Felice Brothers

William Elliot Whitmore

What are yours?

I grew up with my grandparents listening to to swing, big band and jazz on my fathers side and gospel and folk on my mothers. Still listen to swing and jazz, not really into folk but I do have an appreciation for it even if there's other things I'd rather hear. But being in Appalachia I can't really get away from it, so it's probably just fatigue.

Anyway, I remember my grandmother being real into Dock Boggs. It's real old stuff, the recordings are poor quality at best, but I'd present him as generally representative of the folk music around here.

I like a lot of folk, mainly American and British Folk songs recorded from the 1930s to 1970s. I'm especially fond of the folk revival Protest/struggle songs from guys like Woody Guthrie, and I like a lot of the 60s psychedelic/loner folk artists too.

Almanac Singers - I Don't Want Your Millions Mister

Buell Kazee - Rock Island

Sleepy John Estes - Liquor Store Blues

Woody Guthrie - I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore

Lead Belly - They Hung Him on A Cross

Bob Dylan - The Ballad of Hollis Brown

Johnny Cash - The Ballad of Ira Hayes

Pearls Before Swine - There Was a Man

Trader Horne - Jenny May

Gryphon - The Unquiet Grave

Damnit, I thought this was some sort of sexual parody of Animal Crossing: City Folk with OT people.

nope, though I must admit you have me curious, now

*rapidly searches Google*

oh....it's some stupid Wii game. That's disappointing, I was hoping we'd get into bestiality or something :(

also, why isn't "bestiality" spelled with an "a", like beastiality? You're not sexing up bests, you're sexing up beasts.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand thread derailed.

For the other two people that posted songs, thank you: I will look those up shortly, I only know new-ish folk, not too familiar with a lot of older folk music (especially British! That sounds interesting; I never really thought English music would be folksy but then again you see all those old movies about English and Irish people immigrating or whatever and they're playing upright basses, fiddles/violins, and cheap drums so I guess that makes sense.

Would the music you hear a lot of in Assassin's Creed: Syndicate count as English folk music?

I'm not sure, since I haven't played AC:S.. The last two songs I posted are examples of what I meant by British folk (recorded in the 60s and 70s. I'm not familiar with the British folk scene before those decades).

Hey those songs were pretty good. Funny how the album covers look a lot like metal band album covers :D

I know, lol. Gryphon's album cover looks like it could be a cover for an Iron Maiden album. The Trader Horne album cover looks like it could be a cover for some early Black Sabbath counterpart (either that, or some long forgotten bargain bin artifact of a band from the acid test days). Anyway, glad you liked those songs. Listen to the entire Morning Way album by Trader Horne for more medieval sounding British folk. You might like the music of other British and Irish bands too, such as Mellow Candle, Jethro Tull, and Dr. Strangely Strange (though they're more progressive rock, a lot of their songs sound pretty folksy).

Most of the folk I listen to is newer stuff. So not sure I'm the audience for this thread.

majority of my links in the original post were newer folk, even some folk-rock and "American" (not sure I enjoy that title, but thats the sub-genre I guess...).

Others have linked some older folk that is enjoyable as well.