Track Listing

1. Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) - Pete Seeger
2. Get Together - Hamilton Camp
3. Circle Game - Tom Rush
4. Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell
5. Other Side of This Life - Fred Neil
6. High Flying Bird - Judy Henske
7. Tear Down the Walls - Fred Neil
8. Who Knows Where the Time Goes? - Judy Collins
9. Ramblin' Boy - Tom Paxton
10. Winken, Blinken and Nod - Simon Sisters
11. Reason to Believe - Tim Hardin
12. There But for Fortune - Phil Ochs
13. Changes - Jim & Jean
14. Follow - Richie Havens
15. Take a Giant Step - Taj Mahal
16. 500 Miles - Hedy West
17. Don't You Leave Me Here - Jim Kweskin
18. Once I Was - Tim Buckley

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #102499 in Music
• Released on: 1992-04-21
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

great overview of folk in the 60's
Troubadours of the Folk Era is a great series. If I had to choose which volume was the best, it would between this one and 3. This one wins by a bit because it has more tracks of people you won't easily find on cd.
So they're the real surprises here like the Simon Sisters cute "Wlinken, Blinken, and Nod". The Simon Sisters was the group Carly and Lucy was in before Carly went on her own and it's pretty much unrecognizable from her later sound. Jim and Jean's take on Changes is fantastic. They're like an electric Ian and Sylvia. The picture of them in the linear notes is adorable. This cd introduced me to several artists. After hearing the introspective "Other Side of this Life", I was an instant Fred Neil fan.

Folk Music 101-There Are Many Rooms In That Mansion
The generic parts of this review, relating to the 1960's folk revival, have been used in other reviews of musicians from this period.

My musical tastes were formed, as were those of many of the Generation of 1968, by `Rock and Roll' music exemplified by the Rolling Stones and Beatles and by the blues revival, both Delta and Chicago style. However, those forms as much as they gave pleasure were only marginally political at best. In short, these were entertainers performing material that spoke to us at some other level. In the most general sense that is all one should expect of a performer. Thus, for the most part that music need not be reviewed here. Those who thought that a new musical sensibility laid the foundations for a cultural or political revolution have long ago been proven wrong.

That said, in the early 1960's there nevertheless was another form of musical sensibility that was directly tied to radical political expression- the folk revival. This entailed a search for roots and relevancy in musical expression. While not all forms of folk music lent themselves to radical politics it is hard to see the 1960's cultural rebellion without giving a nod to such figures as Dave Van Ronk, the early Bob Dylan, Utah Phillips, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and others. Whatever entertainment value these performers provided they also spoke to and prodded our political development. They did have a message and an agenda and we responded as such. That these musicians' respective agendas proved inadequate and/or short-lived does not negate their influence on the times.

My leftist political consciousness, painfully fought for in my troubled youth, coincided with an expansion of my musical tastes under the influence of the great blues and folk revivals of the 1960's. Unfortunately my exposure to the blues greats was mainly on records as many of them had been forgotten, retired or were dead. Not so with the folk revival which was created mainly by those who were close contemporaries. Alas, they too are now mainly forgotten, retired or dead. It therefore is with special pleasure that I review this two volume compilation of songs by the best musicians of the early folk period.

Many of the folksingers of the 1960's attempted to use their music to become troubadours for social change. The most famous example, the early Bob Dylan, can be fairly described as the voice of his generation at that time. However, he fairly quickly moved on to other concepts of himself and his music. The artists here, for the most part, stayed within the broad parameters of the term folk. There are, indeed, many rooms in that mansion as this compilation will demonstrate to the attentive listener. Some of the artists listed here, like Pete Seeger, I have reviewed previously elsewhere in this space. Others, like Eric Von Schmidt, I will do individual reviews of in the future. As a general observation the producers of this CD went out of their way, way out of their way to get the best renditions available of the songs by the individual artists represented and to provide the best range of what folk meant to those who wrote the songs, sang them and listened in. For those too young to have heard it then you have been given a reprieve- use it.

Highlights of Volume One are Joan Baez on "Silver Dagger"; Eric Andersen on "Violets of Dawn", the late Odetta on "John Henry"; Jesse Colin Young on "Four In The Morning": Donovan on "Catch The Wind" and an incredible rendition by the late Eric Von Schmidt of his "Wasn't That A Mighty Storm" (about a flood in Galveston, Texas in the early part of the 20th century).

Highlights on Volume Two are Tom Rush on "The Circle Game"; Judy Collins on " Who Knows Where The Time Goes"; Tom Paxton on "Ramblin' Boy"; and, Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band (that's with Geoff Muldaur and Maria Muldaur along with Jim, by the way) on a very well done version of the old blues classic "Don't You Leave Me Here".

Highlights on Volume Three, which is a little less worthwhile than the first two volumes and, frankly, reflects inclusions of some 'spacefillers', are Leadbelly's "Goodnight, Irene"; Woody Guthrie's "Hard, Ain't It Hard" and Sonny Terry's "Rider".