Basic Folk

Lizzie No interviews Ken Yates! Ken Yates grew up in the college town of London, Ontario and he is truly Canada’s Next Top Model, by which I mean he is wonderfully talented, disarmingly nice, and from Canada, obviously. Ken is a Berklee College of Music graduate, and I took the opportunity to talk with him about that experience. Why would somebody choose to go to music school, what were you hoping...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Kyshona  is an artist with a literal mission statement: “To be a voice and a vessel for those who feel lost, forgotten, silenced and are hurting.” She’s found that having this tool at her disposal gives her work meaning, especially on those nights when she’s felt like she hasn’t sold enough tickets, merch or gotten enough app...

Lauren Balthrop's Mobile, AL upbringing saw her soaking in the music of The Andrews Sisters, Steve Sondheim, R.E.M., Elliott Smith and Neil Young. As a child, she was involved in activities that varied from sports, to drama, to music and beyond. She never really settled on a passion, until she found acting and theatre. She pursued that dream from fourth grade until after college, moving to New...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Lizzie No  interviews  Molly Tuttle  on Basic Folk! Growing up in Palo Alto. California,  Molly Tuttle  was surrounded by music. Her dad was a teacher at Gryphon Stringed instruments, which is not-so-coincidentally where I got the pickups installed on my mini harp. Molly took to the guitar early and intensely, eventually earn...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Milwaukee-born Peter Mulvey has, along with classical duo SistaStrings , made an anti-fascist record. According to Peter, “to make an anti - fascist record, you must keep kindness and compassion in the foreground.” Love is the Only Thing goes from family, to politics, to family, racism and then back to family. It's as opt...

Editor’s note:  Lizzie No  interviews  Adia Victoria  on Basic Folk! Be sure to go back and listen to Lizzie’s previous guest host spots on the pod and  subscribe , so you never miss Lizzie! For  Adia Victoria , the blues are not just a genre of music or a set of formal elements. She lives the blues. In her life and work the blues are a mode of creating, a river-tradition into which she steps with...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ I have been wanting to talk to Scotland-born fiddler and current New Yorker,  Hannah Read  on the pod, for longer than Basic Folk has existed. I met her at the very fun camp, Miles of Music in New Hampshire. We laughed our faces off all week and I was truly blown out of the water by her fiddling and singing. She’s just releas...

We go track by track on Canadian-born New Zealand feminist trouble maker and country music superstar, Tami Neilson ’s 5th album, Kingmaker. Recorded at Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studios, the songs of Kingmaker expose industry systems, exploding patriarchal structures of the industry, society, and family. It’s definitely not new territory for Tami, her previous two albums called attention to misogyny a...

This preview of Backstage (Basic Folk's bonus episodes) features Willi Carlisle ( who was on BF episode 171 this past week), talking about learning the traditional song "The Riddle Song (I Gave My Love a Cherry)". Check out the full episode and a performance from Willi, by contributing to Basic Folk. Links below! Hear Field Music with Willi in it's entirety:  http://basicfolk.com/B...

It's hard to not fall a little in love with Willi Carlisle . The former high school football captain is irresistible on stage and on record. He grew up an outsider and the feeling remains in his adult life. In writing about his intense life, he's found an outlet and in his music we, the others, feel seen. His history is filled with complex experiences like having a musician father, singing...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Editor’s note:  Lizzie No  interviews  Leon Timbo  on Basic Folk! Be sure to go back and listen to Lizzie’s previous guest host spots on the pod and  subscribe , so you never miss Lizzie! When Leon Timbo was a teenager, he prayed for a singing voice. As a young poet and the child of a preacher, he was a born storyteller, but...

This preview of Backstage (Basic Folk's bonus episodes) features Dietrich Strause. Dietrich, who just appeared in our main feed (ep. 171), hangs with Cindy and Lizzie: talking about music at weddings, what it's like to play a wedding and the main difference between Baz Luhrmann and Tchaikovsky Hear the entire Friend Hang with Dietrich:  http://basicfolk.com/Backstage Contribute and gain Ba...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Dietrich Strause , raised in Lancaster, PA, was classically trained on trumpet growing up, but the allure of songwriting and performing his own music pulled him into the Americana world. He found his way to the Boston area and into the super collaborative and supportive community found there. On his new album,  You And I Must...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Edie Carey 's last solo full length album was in 2010 (holy smokes!), so we are more than ready to dig into her new record  The Veil , encompassing themes like motherhood, infertility, love, being a lady while raising a girl and all the things that make you cry in your cereal. Edie first appeared on Basic Folk on episode...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Editor’s note:  Lizzie No  interviews  Cristina Vane  on Basic Folk! Be sure to go back and listen to Lizzie’s previous guest host spots on the pod and  subscribe , so you never miss Lizzie! Blues musician Cristina Vane has lived many lives. She grew up in Europe listening to an eclectic mix of emo, pop, and rock. She came to...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Former Grant Lee Buffalo frontman, Grant-Lee Phillips ' latest solo album,  All That You Can Dream , is -quite- dreamy. During the pandemic, Grant's been contemplating many things and figuring out how to spend his time away from the road. One interest he's been cultivating is painting. He's been sharing his pa...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Editor’s note:  Lizzie No  interviews  S.G. Goodman  on Basic Folk! Be sure to go back and listen to Lizzie’s previous guest host spots on the pod and  subscribe , so you never miss Lizzie! S.G. Goodman ’s Kentucky upbringing is front and center in a lot of her songwriting. She is an artist concerned not just with her roots,...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Richard Thompson's memoir, Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967 - 1975 (now out in paperback) is a page-turner of a read about a legend at the dawn of British folk rock. Thompson details his early days with Fairport Convention, one of the most influential folk bands of all time. He writes how they strived to...

John Doe's career has gone from poetry to punk to country to acting to punk to folk and back again several times. Frontman for the extremely influential LA punk band X, John was there at the dawn of West Coast punk and has written about it (twice) in his books Under the Big Black Sun and More Fun in the New World . He actually sourced out most of the books’ chapters and had his friends and oth...

This preview of Backstage (Basic Folk's bonus episodes) features the premiere of a new song from Jean Rohe  (also of the duo Robinson & Rohe ) called "Animal," which tells of her experience with abortion. After the song, I'm joined by Jean and Abby Minor , board member at Abortion Conversation Projects . Check out the full episode by contributing to Basic Folk. Links below! Hea...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Steve Forbert is not a dramatic person. His stories are fairly straight forward even though he's lived a pretty incredible life, which began in Meridian, MS as a young musician. In the hometown of Jimmie Rodgers, Steve found a great guitar teacher in Virginia Shine Harvey, who claimed she was a relation to the famous sing...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Fiddler and singer/songwriter Lily Henley's latest album, Oras Dezaoradas, is a full-on celebration of her Sephardic Jewish Heritage. The lineage of Sephardic people can be traced back to the Iberian Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492. For Jewish people, there are many diasporas and lots of different ethnic her...

Grace Givertz, born and raised in South Florida, began writing and performing at age eleven when she got a guitar and learned to play off YouTube videos. Grace is a survivor in many ways: she manages and confronts several chronic illnesses, she survived having her Berklee scholarship rescinded due to a systematic error and lived through being struck by a city bus in 2015. The accident left her una...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ LA-based singer/songwriter  Amy Correia  will tell you that she is not a prolific writer, which… okay maybe she doesn’t write a million songs in one year, but holy crap, those songs and that voice will wallop you. Originally from Lakeville, Massachusetts, Amy’s musical roots lay in New York City’s lower east side in a scene t...

Editor’s note: Basic Folk is pleased to introduce our listeners to one of our favorite podcasts by sharing an episode in our feed! Why We Write features conversations between folk music reporter Kim Ruehl and a hand-picked array of great songwriters, presented by Folk Alley . So much goes into a song—the songwriter’s intimate life, their upbringing, their worldview, what they see going on in the w...