Basic Folk

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survivor in many ways: she manages and confronts several chronic illnesses, she survived having her Berklee scholarship rescinded due to a systematic error and lived through being struck by a city bus in 2015.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...

This preview of Backstage (Basic Folk's bonus episodes) features Amy Helm ( who was on BF episode 138 , Oct. 2021), the daughter of Levon Helm, legendary drummer and vocalist for The Band. Amy talks about her affinity for hymns: their impact and where they still show up for her today. Check out the full episode by contributing to Basic Folk. Links below! Hear the entire Backstage with Amy Helm...

Mason Jennings has the most interesting songwriting process I've come across. Since he was around 13 years old, the Minneapolis songwriter has had songs just come to him while randomly playing guitar and singing. He gets in touch with his subconscious and discovers his songs there very naturally. He also never writes the songs down. That's right, he commits each song to memory and only wri...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ When  Tatiana Hargreaves  was younger, she was a shit-hot fiddle player; recording her debut album at age 14, a first prize winner at the Clifftop Appalachian Stringband Festival Fiddle Contest that same year and gaining all sorts of accolades before even graduating high school. After some thought, she went after a degree in...

Julian Saporiti is the brilliant mind behind No No Boy, a recording project that tells the incredible stories of historical triumphs of Asian Americans making their way in the United States. Julian, an Italian American and Vietnamese American, has always been drawn to history and music and has used his two passions to elevate these stories. He was truly inspired by his doctoral research at Brown U...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at basicfolk.com/donate Editor’s note:  Lizzie No  interviews  Brent Cobb  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! Georgia-born  Brent Cobb  is a true blue southern Gospel country artist. His music career kicked off when he shared a demo tape with Dave Cobb, one...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at basicfolk.com/donate Enter to win the Basic Folk/BGS Sweet Prize Pack: https://woobox.com/2mythq or http://basicfolk.com/news Suz Slezak is one-half of the extremely talented and thoughtful band David Wax Museum . Suz, along with her husband David, has been touring and performing their Mexican-inspired, Americana folk act since 2009. Along the way, the t...

Maya De Vitry, who just appeared in our main feed (ep. 155), hangs with Cindy and Lizzie: talking about music, dogs and being a horse girl. Today we'll check out a preview of this fun and insightful hang with the former Stray Birds member. Hear the entire Friend Hang with Maya:  http://basicfolk.com/Backstage Contribute and gain Backstage access:  http://basicfolk.com/donate Advertising Inquir...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/ Enter to win the Basic Folk/BGS Sweet Prize Pack: https://woobox.com/2mythq or https://basicfolk.com/news/ Maya De Vitry released her third solo record, Violet Light, earlier this year and I, for one, am happy that my fiancée has a new Maya record to play endlessly in our house. Lol j/k. I love Maya and this album is perfect....

Editor's note: Lizzie No interviews Joy Oladokun 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! The Arizona-born Joy Oladokun grew up listening to her dad’s extensive record collection and falling in love with the wide and wondrous world of rock and roll. You can hear these diverse sonic influences, fr...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at basicfolk.com/donate Editor’s note: Basic Folk is pleased to introduce our listeners to one of our favorite podcasts by sharing an episode in our feed! American Songcatcher with Nicholas Edward Williams , is an independent audio documentary-style podcast hosted by the folk musician and music history enthusiast. Each episode has five stories: starting with...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at basicfolk.com/donate. Fruit Bats have been on the indie rock radar since the early 00's, so I'd say that calls for a double album compilation documenting their 20 years of music! However, the brains behind FBs and it's only regular member, Eric D. Johnson, is a man who tends to solely look forward. Thankfully for us, he rolled up his sleeves,...

Anaïs Mitchell, who just appeared in our main feed for a track by track (ep. 152), joins us Backstage for an Extended Lightning Round (XLR). Today we'll check out a preview of this fun light hearted Q&A with the genius behind the Tony award wining musical Hadestown, Bonny Light Horseman and her new self-titled album. Hear the entire Extended Lightning Round with Anaïs: http://basicfolk.com...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at basicfolk.com/donate Anaïs Mitchell goes track by track through her new self titled release (out now!) and holy smokes what a volcano of an album! It’s been a decade since she last released an album’s worth of new material and since then, Mitchell’s been keeping very busy with the game-changing Tony Awards winning Broadway sensation, Hadestown. She starte...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at basicfolk.com/donate Editor's note: Lizzie No interviews Erin Rae 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! Singer-songwriter Erin Rae grew up in Jackson, Tennessee, which might ring a bell for our listeners because Valerie June is from the same town. The...

BASIC FOLK 150 EPISODES WOO!!! Ok ok ok... for our 150th episode, we are so pleased to welcome Aoife O'Donovan to the pod. Aoife's new album Age of Apathy is out now! This is her third solo record after years of performing with her bands I'm With Her (along with Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz), Crooked Still, Sometymes Why (Kristin Andreassen and Ruth Merenda) and The Wayfaring Stranger...

Welcome to a preview of BACKSTAGE: special bonus content for Basic Folk. You can gain access by contributing at http://basicfolk.com/Donate . This month we’re celebrating our 150th episode with an in-depth interview with Aoife O’Donovan on Basic Folk! Recently, I’ve been spinning her records non-stop, especially her new album Age of Apathy: which is out now! It’s a great album, so go buy it and li...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at basicfolk.com/donate When Tré Burt was signed to John Prine’s Oh Boy Records in 2019, he was one of only two artists—including label-mate Kelsey Waldon, to join the label in the past 15 years. The Sacramento-born singer/songwriter had released his debut album independently, catching the attention of Prine’s son Jody Whelan, who sent Tré a message on socia...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at basicfolk.com/donate Eliza Gilkyson is a middle child, a constant reinventor of herself and a surprise teacher of songwriting. Her father, the acclaimed folk singer/songwriter Terry Gilkyson, moved his family to California in the late 1940's to pursue a career in folk music. He found success with his group The Easy Riders and as a staff songwriter for...