The Sacred Garden Listening Post 131. For an age of battered facts, closing doors and short attention spans, the folksinger-songwriter Carrie Newcomer is blessed with a superpower: Many talented singers can engage us and touch our heartstrings, but she has the...
Teach, Play, Walk Listening Post 130. Seneca was the first to observe that the best way to master a subject is to teach it, so perhaps it’s no coincidence that the members of Gatehouse are all music teachers. John Wynne and John McEvoy are Irish trad veterans who have...
Kalahari Dreamin' Listening Post 111. Elemotho’s Beautiful World is a jewel with facets that reflect topographical and human landscapes. The Namibian singer-composer traces his songwriting to childhood memories of storytelling around campfires in the Kalahari Desert...
Songs for Troubled Times Listening Post 105. Bob Dylan warned the Establishment that a raging battle would “soon shake your windows and rattle your walls/For the times they are a-changin'.” Five decades later, If I Was President, the signature protest track from Las...
Sing It Forward Listening Post 103. With his smooth and generous voice, Seydu is poignant in singing about the impact of war, incisive in warning of corruption, reverent about the beauty of African women and upbeat regarding the power of a smile. Such themes animate...
Nature and Nurture Listening Post 99. Daoirí (pronounced “Derry”) Farrell is a performer and scholar of Irish music. Two of the songs on True Born Irishman, his award-winning second album, are compositions by the late folk singer Liam Weldon, who was not only a role...
A Monument of Songs Listening Post 93. World War I hostilities began in Europe on August 4, 1914—and 976 days later the United States joined the conflict. On August 4, 2014, the English a cappella trio Coope Boyes and Simpson released a sweeping 50-track homage to the...
Floating Village Listening Post 92. The Berlin-based world/folk group 17 Hippies emerged in an open-minded Europe that valued diversity. Operating less like a band than a village in which each resident carries instruments and tastes acquired on foreign adventures, the...
Bluegrass on Ice Listening Post 82. Among Claire Lynch’s many talents is an uncanny ability to embody a man’s song—her angelic voice not imitating the opposite sex but simply erasing the importance of gender. She memorably personified a Civil War soldier in Kennesaw...
Feel the Burns Listening Post 72. No single album can capture the entire arc of Scotland’s musical culture, but there is a breathtaking sweep to what Claire Hastings accomplishes in the 10 tracks of her debut effort. She gambols across time and space (from...
Double Down Payoff Listening Post 67. Francesca Blanchard’s debut album is rich in the contrasts on which art thrives—connection/solitude, wisdom/experience, anxiety/uplift. As for the form/content duality that animates critics, she offers a soft and stunning voice...
Country Sharp Listening Post 54. Kacey Musgraves is a traditional country singer driven by a honeyed voice with a Texas twang. She’s also a progressive in a conservative world, penning lyrics about marijuana, acceptance of homosexuality and questioning of religion....
Master Stroke for Bygone Folk Listening Post 31. The English Folk Dance and Song Society commissioned the singer-scholar Fay Hield to gather an ensemble of musicians to explore the society’s newly launched web archive in 2013 and produce a concert of some of the...
