Charlie Poole & the North Carolina Ramblers’ closest counterpart were the Skillet Lickers. Poole was also, by many accounts, an early influence on the pioneers of bluegrass music, like Bill Monroe and fellow banjo master Earl Scruggs.
Charlie Poole was born in Randolph County, NC. He picked up the banjo as a teenager, and it’s been speculated that his three-finger picking style was the result of a sports injury in his thumb.

As an adult, he spent much of his time working in textile factories and traveling the country as a musician. In 1918, he moved to Spray, NC. By this time, Poole and his fiddler brother Posey Rorer were playing together with a few other local musicians. Eventually a solid group of collaborators emerged in the form of the North Carolina Ramblers.

In 1925, Poole, Rorer and guitarist Norm Woodlieff traveled to New York City to audition for Columbia Records. After passing this audition, they recorded four songs for Columbia, including «Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down,» which soon became a country music standard. By the end of the decade, the Ramblers had recorded nearly 70 songs for the label, and were enjoying considerable success.

By 1930, though, the stock market had crashed an interest in luxuries like purchasing records. Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers’ popularity began to drop, as Poole’s propensity for drinking went on the rise. Before, in 1931, he was scheduled to appear in a movie, Charlie Poole died of heart failure. His brother and Woodlieff took the lead of the Ramblers and continued to perform for some time.

In 2005, Columbia Records released a 3-CD boxed set entitled, You Ain’t Talkin to Me: Charlie Poole and the Roots of Country Music. Since 1995, The Charlie Poole Music Festival has taken place in North Carolina to honor Poole’s legacy.

STARY OLSA is a band of mediaeval Belarusan music. It was founded in 1999 by its present leader Zmicier Sasnouski and now consists of six musicians. It takes its name from a brook in the west part of Mahilou Region (Belarus).

The band’s repertoire includes Belarusan folk balladry and martial songs, Belarusan national dances, works of Belarusan Renaissance composers, compositions from Belarusan aulic music collections (e.g. Polacak Adversaria, Vilnia Adversaria), Belarusan canticles of the 16th – early 17th centuries, as well as European popular melodies of the Middle Ages and Renascence.

STARY OLSA cooperates with many knightly clubs from Belarus and Europe, museums and research centres, masters of early instruments, bands of folk, aulic, sacred and city avital music, as well as with solo
performers using old instruments.

The band’s music makes it possible to restore sounds of many forgotten instruments. STARY OLSA uses for its performances maximally exact (in appearance, technology and materials) copies of age-old Belarusan instruments such as Belarusan bagpipe, lyre, husli (psaltery), svirel (reed pipe), jew’s-harp, ocarina, Belarusan trumpet, birch bark trumpet, hudok (Belarusan rebec) and drums.

The purpose is to reconstruct completely (whenever possible) musical traditions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania where Belarus was the basic cultural and geopolitical part in the 13th – 18th centuries, and where there was a unique synthesis of Belarusan folk and aulic music with European musical achievements of that time. In order to revive this cultural feature the band’s members mix early Belarusan instruments’ sounding with all-European mediaeval instruments such as lute, rebec and flute.

Besides its own theatricalized concerts, the band performs at mediaeval culture festivals, spear-runnings and folklore festivals.

The STARY OLSA band has recorded eight albums and one musical project. The band’s music is included into seven collections of old melodies performers.

Since 2003 the band’s dance collective has been working (the JAVARYNA band – the page Javaryna Theatre). During performances, it acquaints spectators with avital dance traditions.

Laura Gibson’s music makes perfect sense in the context of the wider Pacific Northwest folk and Americana culture – fellow Portlanders like Laura Veirs, Nick Jaina, and Loch Lomond could be suitable comparisons. Fans of the Fleet Foxes and Decemberists may also appreciate Gibson’s lush, imaginative, and literary approach to narrative songwriting. More old-school folkies who enjoy Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell may appreciate Gibson’s music, as well.

Laura Gibson grew up in a small town in southern Oregon called Coquille. Her family lived in the middle of the woods, as her father was a forest ranger and her mother a teacher.

Her introduction to music began early, listening to the folk albums her parents kept around the house and learning to love the intense imagery and narrative storytelling of folks like Bob Dylan. Gibson was inclined toward music while growing up, but too shy to perform live for people.

She moved to Portland to go to school (on a math scholarship) and continued to grad school, where she studied counseling. After college, she took to playing music at nursing homes and for hospice patients. Seeing the joy it brought to her audiences, Gibson developed the confidence to take her act to the clubs. She began performing around Portland’s burgeoning indie folk music scene in 2004, releasing a self-made album (produced by fellow Portlander Drew Grow, of the Pastor’s Wives) and eventually garnered the attention of local indie label Hush Records.

She recorded her debut full-length album, If You Come to Greet Me, for that label partly in Portland and partly in San Francisco. On it, she was backed by imaginative fellow Portlanders Norfolk & Western. The disc earned considerable local praise and Gibson went on tour – mostly on the West Coast – through Oregon, Washington, and California – in support of it. Since then, she’s toured Europe quite a bit and has released two more full-length albums (including 2012′s La Grande, on Barsuk Records). She also released two EPs – Amends (self, 2004) and Six White Horses: Blues and Traditionals Vol. 1 (Hush, 2006). The latter sees her covering traditional folk songs by artists like Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten and others.

Indeed, its these traditional artists of blues and folk music to which Gibson’s music is most frequently compared. Her voice can sound a bit like Billie Holiday, filtered through the lens of the mid-20th Century folk revival. With all the nuance and artistic grace of both.

Since releasing her debut EP in 2004, Gibson has collaborated again with Norfolk & Western as well as other Portland-based artists like Laura Veirs, the Portland Cello Project (with whom she has recorded and performed quite a bit), M. Ward, Horse Feathers, and more. She’s become a fixture at NW clubs and festivals like the Doug Fir Lounge, Tractor Tavern, Green Frog, and Pickathon Indie Roots Music Festival (held just outside of Portland at Pendarvis Farm).

In 2012, she released her latest album La Grande, followed by a tour through Europe, the United States East Coast, and then likely a summer of more festivals and club dates. For more information or a list of her tour stops, keep an eye on Laura Gibson’s website.

The most remarkable thing about protest music is that it helps people realize they’re not alone in feeling a spirit of dissent against certain injustices, whether on a personal or more overarching governmental level. Great protest songs by artists like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie are so infectious, you can’t help but sing along. This is hugely effective in creating a sense of community, helping groups organize to affect change.

Protest music has a very deeply rooted history in the United States, and reaches back as far as American history reaches. Every major movement in American history has been accompanied by its own collection of protest songs, from slave emancipation to women’s suffrage, the labor movement, civil rights, the ant-war movement, the feminist movement, the environmental movement, etc.

I remember the first time I saw the full original version of «This Land is Your Land,» when I really got what Woody Guthrie was going for. I had been touring for a while, and found myself in Phoenix, Arizona, staying with a friend of the promoter who booked me at a small coffeehouse on the edge of town. She had a Woody Guthrie songbook that had been handed down to her, and it had been autographed by Woody Guthrie himself. She kind of left me alone in her guest room with this gem as everyone else in the house went to bed.

I learned more than I could have ever imagined in that evening, just leafing through the pages of the book, thinking about what drove Woody Guthrie—then little older than I am now—to write a political response to «God Bless America» that would be not only poignant and purposeful, but timeless, as well.

Picking Up the Legacy
Of course, years after Woody wrote the song, another young songwriter named Bob Dylan would pick up his legacy and record two albums full of eloquent protest songs that would inspire his generation to take a look around, join the other protest singers, and get something positive done.

Whenever a cynical audience member corners me after a show to ask why I write protest songs when the love songs are so pretty, I have to think about all the songwriters who came before me: Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, not to mention the slew of unknown artists like myself that I’ve met along my travels. These people started within their communities, singing songs about the simplest of truths—that the one common thing we can all agree on is we wish the world was more full of peace. No matter where I’ve gone in my travels, no matter what out-of-the-way small town I’ve landed in, I’ve never met a single person who wouldn’t agree.

Sing-Alongs and Sermons
Somehow, whether your mode of protest song is a sing-along or more of a lesson, focusing on that simplest of commonalities is something very few politicians, preachers, or teachers can exemplify quite as well as a songwriter. Why is that? I don’t know that many people have cracked that code, but I don’t think that’s quite as important a question to answer, as much as «How can we continue?» Or, even more importantly, «How can we not continue?»

Ever since George W. Bush’s initial «election» into the presidency in 2000, there have been protest songs pointedly singling him out as the source of all the calamity and disappointment, destruction and mismanagement that has ensued. Famously, Neil Young’s 2006 release Living With War sang the line, «Let’s impeach the President for lying.» But GWB is not the first politician to inspire such musical editorial, and he most certainly won’t be the last.

A New Generation of Protest Singers
Where our parents’ generation seemed to scroll through history, soundtracked by an endless array of political songs and protest singers, my generation has gotten sidetracked by reality television, the Internet, the blogosphere, and electronic music. Despite the overwhelmingly shared opinion among singer/songwriters that the time for change is near, there seems to be a stark absence of protest song available in comparison to the similar events of 40 years ago.

Nonetheless, a few artists perservere, and I say good for them.

While some will remark that protest singers only preach to the choir, as Dan Bern has said, «Sometimes the choir needs a little preaching.» Protest songs are important for reminding us that we don’t exist in a bubble, that there are entire communities out there who feel the same way we do, who are trying, as the song says, to «keep [their] eyes on the prize and hold on.»

Protest music has never directly resulted in legislation that changed the world, but it’s hard to believe Civil Rights would have been won without folks like Pete Seeger heading to the south and teaching people to sing together, «We Shall Overcome.» Songs that can make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, because of the degree to which they resonate with your personal will to beat the odds, can be extraordinary motivators. It is in that way that protest music affects change.

The annual Merlfest bluegrass and acoustic music festival has been taking place in Wilkesboro,NC, since 1988. Celebrating 25 years in 2012, the festival will welcome some of the biggest stars to have graced its stages – including Doc Watson, Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Vince Gill, Tedeschi Trucks Band, and countless others. It goes almost without saying that you don’t want to miss most of what’s happening on the mainstage, not to mention the hillside album hour and other reliable features. But when it comes to newer artists – those whose names may still be unfamiliar to you, here’s a look at five up-and-coming artists you don’t want to miss at Merlefest 2012.

I first saw the Deep Dark Woods, appropriately, in the middle of the woods at Pickathon. I was so stirred by their performance there that I named them one of the bands to watch for 2010. Since then, the Saskatoon, SK, quintet has wowed critics and fans across the US with their stunning 2009 debut aptly titled Winter Hours. They made a solid showing at the Americana Music Association’s conference and festival last year and now their follow-up album, The Place I Left Behind (out last fall) is sitting well with fans. All of this points to the fact they’re sure to be one of the biggest up-and-coming buzz acts of this Merlefest. You don’t want to miss it.

I included the Lost Bayou Ramblers in my Merlefest preview last year, and have decided to include them again this year because frankly they’re a fantastic band. Any buzz they receive is well-deserved. The energy with which they deliver their particular brand of gritty Cajun music is completely infectious. You almost feel as though you also just crawled out of the dank Louisiana swamp with a fiddle in your hand.

Until Merlefest 2011, Blind Boy Chocolate & the Milk Sheiks were known mostly as darlings of the robust and burgeoning Asheville, NC, busking scene. But, by day three of the festival, they were drawing large and enthusiastic crowds at last-minute-added extra sets. By all accounts, they were probably the best surprise of the whole weekend, selling out of their CDs and earning a sure spot at Merlefest 25. This year they’ll be back with at least two days of scheduled sets and are sure to deliver once again.

Red June is another local favorite to watch for. Like Blind Boy Chocolate, this trio is based in Asheville, NC, and is a staple in the local acoustic roots music scene. The guitar-fiddle-dobro lineup builds its sound from a firm foundation of three-part harmonies. After making the rounds of some of the Southeast’s biggest and most well-respected roots music venues (Music City Roots, Bristol Rhythm & Roots, etc.), the band is gearing up to drop a new album in June 2012. No doubt they’ll be pulling heavily from that recording, as well as dipping into their rich well of covers and originals.

If you’re looking for a little break from the norm at Merlefest this year, duck on over to catch the Jonathan Scales Fourchestra. Also based in Asheville, NC, Scales and his crew take a creative approach to contemporary acoustic jazz, via the steel drums of all things. It may sound like something that would be out of place at a bluegrass festival, but it’s hard to imagine any music fans – of any genre – denying Scale’s inimitable gift.

Justin Townes Earle’s fifth studio album is an inarguably solid collection of soul songs, eschewing his country upbringing and the rootsy Americana sound which spawned him over the past few albums. Sonically, it’s a bit of a departure, but the themes of the songs and the lyrical content continues along the same path he’s always pursued – that of intensely personal, honest lyricism. These are songs so honest they hurt sometimes. Earle has never shied from writing about some of the most difficult-to-confess emotions like loneliness and shame, and these songs are no exception. But, as usual, he does so with absolute artistry and thoughtful consideration.
An Ear for Soulful Instrumentation
In interviews about this album, Earle has hinted at the fact that he’s never been a country songwriter or an Americana songwriter, but just a singer-songwriter. As such, he reserves the right to create any style of music, and this time around he decided to pursue a more soulful approach. That’s clear particularly in the instrumentation. The horns are ever-present, as are a solid and steady rhythm section headed up by upright bass player Bryn Davies. The addition of parlor piano on a lot of these tunes makes perfect easy sense with Earle’s overall aesthetic.
But, as lush as the horns and rhythm section appear, Earle’s vocals tend to fall a little short on this disc, veering often toward poor intonation and wavering emotion. This works strongly on more upbeat tunes like «Baby’s Got a Bad Idea», «Memphis in the Rain» , etc., where the blues is front and center and the grit of the pace seems to call for the tone of Earle’s shaky and raw vocals.
On slower songs, however (and the album kicks off with one), his voice comes off like a lanky, stretched-out frame dragging around in a too-big suit. It’s hard to listen in those moments, as the pain seems all too real and at the fore, as if he just lost sleep about all this last night. Maybe that’s the point – after all, the disc’s title (Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now) hints at a certain level of hopeless resignation. But, for more sensitive ears, it causes the disc to come off a bit less listenable than his previous efforts. Long-time fans who have championed his old school country, polished appeal will no doubt bristle at this rawness.
The Bottom Line
It seems Earle is entering a new realm of musicality. His performance here is certainly – and probably necessarily – raw and unfettered. But, the result isn’t really the kind of album you crank for a road trip or turn on in the background while you’re making dinner. This disc hurts – and you can hear it in Earle’s unabashed delivery. You can see it in the coverart and it’s a blaring, unignorable truth within the first few notes of the opening song. That the disc ends with a somewhat more optimistic tune called «Movin’ On», doesn’t come close to the amount of heartache displayed until that point.
It’s not a sunny record, neither in lyrics nor instrumentation, and it will no doubt be an adjustment for those who cottoned to his work through The Good Life, Midnight at the Movies, or even Harlem River Blues (the latter two were, of course, also no frolic in the park).
That said, though, Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now is a strong artistic statement from a man who seems to be finding his rather strong artistic voice, away from the traditions which raised him and the unavoidable comparisons to the remarkable work of his father Steve Earle. You may not have this one in heavy rotation this year (or ever), but it’ll be a great disc to take out and spin when you need to be reminded of the depths to which music can take you, and from which it can rescue your heart.

«It’s a lonely, lonely world for a yellow-headed girl and a young man,» sings Anais Mitchell in the middle of the title track, the second song on her latest effort, Young Man in America. It’s a statement as simple as it is true, and it sets the theme for the rest of the album. Indeed, much like the entire album, this title track is a lush and sonically surprising tune which tells a story so believable and universal, it’s darn near heartbreaking.

Folk Music, by Definition
Defying every stereotype of contemporary folk music, Anais Mitchell’s compositions manage – at the same time – to do everything folk music is there to do. Her songs are stories; and their stories are universal, stirring, arresting, often so honest it’s shocking. Her command of traditional mythology and rural imagery is so astute you almost don’t realize you’re listening to a story which has been told and retold throughout history. Somehow, through tales and characters as old as the bible and Greek mythology, you believe it’s fresh and surprising and, perhaps more stunningly, that it’s personal. In other words, she has a grip on the history of storytelling which defies her 30 years, bridging the seemingly wide gulf between the entirety of human history and whatever’s happening around now.

Granted, Mitchell herself has been known to note that her music is less topical and political than it is simply a presentation of the human experience. But, the way her stories unfold – tackling the issues facing farmers and poor people across America, the male-female dynamic, etc. – it’s nearly impossible to not consider these as topical statements about some kind of social condition.

For example, that opening track again. «Young Man in America» – the song – begins with a portrayal of birth which is honest, yes, but also more information than you’d share in mixed company. The portrayal of birth as an event where «My mother gave a mighty shot / opened her legs and let me out… I come out like a cannon ball…» is likely to give sensitive listeners pause. And yet, the story itself is so universal, it’s hard to argue with the imagery.

Highlights
While there are a couple of moments where the sequencing is less than perfectly smooth, it’s hard to fault Mitchell too much for such a stumble. The songs themselves are entirely solid, well-imagined and imaginative. Her arrangements are impressively simple, yet they come across here as wickedly thick. Listen closely, though, and it’s easy to pick out each voice and instrument – a couple guitars, a violin, maybe a banjo or some slight and distant cymbals. It’s spare and accessible, but not lacking anything.

In addition to the title track, an early highlight is «Dyin’ Day» – a testament to the day-to-day reality of a floundering economy, paired with a certain American pride and work ethic («every day a dying day»).

Less topical is the subtly clever «Tailor» – a love song of sorts which toys with various cliched images, successfully turning them into the rather sincere musings of a woman wronged. Less than a blushing tale of puppy love, this one is a much more ruminative and nearly self-deprecating (albeit realistic), complete picture of how it feels to be at first in the throes of newfound love and then at its inconsiderate mercy.

But, if there’s a song which runs away with the whole album, it’s «Shepherd» . There’s a definite biblical tone to the imagery (the shepherd, the hay, the barn). Yet, it becomes clear very quickly this isn’t a bible verse; this is a very modern American story about rural people. Again with that pride and work ethic theme, the heartbreak and loss. If not for the happy love songs, this album – much like life in America – would almost be too much to bear. Instead, it turns out to be an intensely emotional, beautiful window on humanity’s many realities.

Born in North Carolina in 1924, Earl Scruggs was surrounded by music growing up. His mother played organ, his father played fiddle and banjo, and his four siblings played banjo and guitar. After his father’s death when Earl was only four years old, Earl picked up the banjo and started playing with a two-finger picking style. He developed the three-finger style that would become known as Scruggs Style when he was ten.

At the age of 15, he joined up with his first musical group, the Morris Brothers, but only played with them for a few months before leaving to take care of his mother.

Then, in 1945, he was invited to play with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. He made his first recording with them in 1946, and remained with the legendary group for two more years before leaving to take care of his sick mother. Soon after he left the group, guitarist Lester Flatt followed, and together they became known as Flatt and Scruggs & the Foggy Mountain Boys.

The Foggy Mountain Boys would stick together for twenty years, becoming one of the most legendary and influential bluegrass groups of all time, and winning a Grammy Award in 1969, before disbanding for artistic differences.

Earl went on to perform with his two sons as the Earl Scruggs Revue, won several Grammy Awards, was inducted in to the Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He died in a Nashville hospital on Mar. 28, 2012, at the age of 88.

Considering Earl Scruggs pioneered the three-finger picking style now known as Scruggs’ Style banjo picking, it’s not really fair to make a clear comparison. Still, other great banjo players fans of Scruggs may be interested in checking out include Tony Trischka, Béla Fleck, J.D. Crowe, and Pete Seeger.

Bob Dylan has always been one of the most perplexing artists of our age – a guitar-slinging cryptogram as elusive as the meaning of his finest songs, and the best doorway into Dylan has always been a good, solid book. From standard music biographies to books hamming him up as a cultural messiah, there are dozens of volumes aimed at cracking Dylan’s impenetrable shroud of obscurity. Sweeping the bulk aside, though, what follows are the crème of what’s out there, geared for anyone from the new fan to the seasoned aficionado to the academic.

Wrote Greil Marcus in 1978: “Who is this man? you ask. Where did he come from? He’s a visitation, not a singer.” No other American writer has followed Dylan as closely, extensively, and for as long as Marcus, whose new anthology contains his finest Dylan writing covering four decades, including reviews and essays written for Rolling Stone, Creem, the Village Voice, and the New York Times. With his thoughtful style anchored in personal reflections and rich analysis, Marcus peels back the layers, revealing Dylan, and incidentally himself, at critical junctures of their ever-evolving careers.
With all the media hype, you’d think they just released Dylan’s Dead Sea Scrolls. While a book putting Dylan in the context of American cultural history—his influences and legacy—is one that needed written, Wilentz hasn’t necessarily delivered it. At least not the way he may have initially intended. The book is disjointed, and the author connects Dylan to purported key influences with the vaguest of threads. However, there are moments of greatness throughout (along with the very real danger of slipping into a morass of nostalgia). Giving readers a fresh frame of reference, Wilentz’s examination of Dylan as a torch-bearer of the Beat Generation is especially thorough. Overall, excellent reading.
More than Dylan’s lover, Joan Baez was also his biggest promoter. As the author points out, a smitten Joan would bring a still-unkown Dylan onstage for duets, even sacrificing her time for him to showcase his music. Without the Queen of Folk’s initial support, Hadju claims, Dylan may have likely never enjoyed his early rise to fame. Also explored is the story of Mimi Fariña (Baez’s sister) and her husband Richard, author of Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me. Prominent folk musicians in their own right, the Fariñas were on the fast track to fame when Richard died in a motorcycle crash just after this debut novel was published. One of the most important, obscure chapters in Beat and folk revival history. Note: Read with caution.
Heylin is the go-to guy on all matters Dylan, and he’s carved out a fine career focusing on one man and his music. Revolution in the Air is the first volume in a two-part encyclopedia-style series that examines the first half of Dylan’s massive 600-plus song catalog. Often criticized for his abrasive tone, Heylin’s cutting wit is sometimes taken as arrogance. If you can groove on it, though, Heylin will have you cackling from cover to cover. A mammoth undertaking, this book is as biographical as it is analytical, and a necessary companion for any serious fan who wants to understand Dylan’s songs more than skin deep.
While it took Dylan 13 years to write the first half of his 600-song catalog, it would take him 33 years to write the second half. Although the lyrics didn’t come as easily as they did during his 1960s high-flying youthful peak, the second 300 of songs were more sophisticated as Dylan took bigger risks. In this sequel to Revolution in the Air, Heylin begins with the 1974 album Blood on the Tracks and ends with 2006′s Modern Times, exploring Dylan’s artistic reinventions and pivotal breakthroughs that cover the latter part of his ongoing and prolific career. The combined books total 1,000-plus pages of pure adulterated Dylan.
Named after a University of Minnesota Bob Dylan convention with the same title, this anthology takes on many aspects of Dylan from an academic perspective. Several essays deal with race, tracing Dylan’s immersion into black American folk and blues traditions. Meanwhile, essays on Dylan in relation to the Beat literary movement, Johnny Cash, even Andy Warhol give this reader a pop culture edge that blurs the lines of academic writing. Although this kind of upper-division writing isn’t for everyone, this anthology culls out many interesting perspectives on Dylan for scholars and critical thinkers.
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The author of Million Dollar Bash: Bob Dylan, The Band, and the Basement Tapes now takes on the cumulative peak of Dylan’s long journey home: the 1975-76 Rolling Thunder Revue. With a cast of characters that included Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Bobby Neuwirth, Jacques Levy, poet Allen Ginsberg, playwright Sam Shepard, Rolling Stone magazine’s Larry Sloman, et alia, Dylan’s gypsy road show was one of those seminal 1970s events that defined an age. Beginning in Greenwich Village in 1975, Griffin chronicles the tour from inception to finale, leaping from bus to stage, state to state, while fully exploring Dylan’s rarely seen four-hour film spawned from the tour, Renaldo and Clara.
Cambridge University has published profiles on every dead white philosophical and literary great from time immemorial, from Hume and Plato to Nietzsche and Mark Twain. Breaking with tradition, this Dylan anthology marks the first time the honorable Companion series profiled a living pop culture figure (the Beatles got theirs six moons later). This is a solid primer for any scholar wishing to dig a little deeper into America’s most complex singer-songwriter. Very accessible in comparison to most academic writing, this thin volume comes in at an easy 190 pages, concentrating on Dylan’s magpie songwriting and minstrel performance styles. The final third of the book examines eight key albums that demonstrate Dylan’s nonstop artistic growth.

Patty Griffin is one of a slew of woman singer/songwriters who rose to relative fame in the 1990s contemporary folk scene. Other comparable women include Shawn Colvin, Dar Williams, Nanci Griffith. Griffin can also easily be compared to other artists who cover her work, like Emmylou Harris and the Dixie Chicks.

Patricia Jeanne (Patty) Griffin was born in March, 1964, in upper Maine near the Canadian border. The youngest of seven children, Griffin’s childhood was full of music, as her mother and grandmother were both fond of singing. Griffin bought her first guitar at the age of 16, began writing songs while still in high school and soon started playing with a cover band called Patty & the Executives.

After spending two years in Florida, Griffin moved to Boston in 1985, where she got married and took on odd jobs. She took guitar lessons, but only began playing music gigs after getting divorced in 1992.

Soon after she began playing shows around Boston, Griffin recorded a series of demos in her apartment and soon attracted the attention of A&M Records. She recorded Living With Ghosts for A&M at Kingsway Studios in New Orleans, and the record was well recieved in singer/songwriter circles. In response, Griffin moved to Nashville, started touring with Lilith Fair, and impressed contemporary folk fans around the country.

In 1998, she released Flaming Red, which caught the raised the interest of artists like the Dixie Chicks, who recorded «Let Him Fly» for their critically acclaimed album Fly.

Two years later, after her record company was sold and shuffled, Griffin signed a contract with Dave Matthews’ label ATO Records. 1000 Kisses was the first album Patty Griffin made for ATO Records, and won the artist a Grammy nomination, although she lost the award to Nickel Creek.

Since then, Griffin has released two more records, appeared in film and on collaborative tours, and received another Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 2004. In addition to various covers by the Dixie Chicks, Griffin’s music has been recorded by several artists, including Emmylou Harris and Bette Midler. She now resides in Austin, TX. Her next album is due in February, 2007.