Basic Folk

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...

Welcome to the third preview of Basic Folk: Backstage!  For this episode, we're taking you inside a very special moment that happened one night at Miles of Music Camp in 2019. It was a late night music hang where a guitar was being passed around. I had my mic with me and my friend Christopher Pappas asked me to start recording. He has been working on a song, "Lighting Myself on Fire,"...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at basicfolk.com/donate It’s hard to put into words why I love MC Taylor so much, but I know when it started. His band, Durham’s Hiss Golden Messenger , stopped by to play live at WYEP in Jan of 2017. They were the first band I interviewed after Tr*mp was inaugurated. Like a lot of people (and like the white liberal woman that I am), the state of things had...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at  basicfolk.com/donate Once Baltimore claw-hammer banjoist, radio host and community organizer Brad Kolodner got a banjo in his hands, it was game over. Brad had previously played the cello in the school orchestra and had held a strong interest in sports, but his true passion for old time was realized at Meadowlark Music camp in Maine. He signed up for the...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at basicfolk.com/donate   Miko Marks’ story starts in Flint, MI where she was immersed in music, specifically country music (Loretta Lynn and Kenny Rogers were in heavy rotation) and in the music found in Black church at the Church of God in Christ. As a young girl, she first sang live in that church and found the experience to be overwhelming when she notic...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at basicfolk.com/donate ! Dori Freeman is an Appalachian woman using her music to break the stereotype of her region, which specifically is her town of Galax, VA - where she was born and still lives. Dori's new album, Ten Thousand Roses, is a celebration of layered sound, beautiful drums and lyrics from an evolving songwriter. Her voice came to us fully...

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at  basicfolk.com/donate Editor's note: Lizzie No interviews Valerie June on Basic Folk! Be sure to got back and listen to Lizzie's previous guest host spots on the pod and subscribe , so you never miss Lizzie! Today’s guest, Valerie June , grew up as country as country gets in Jackson, Tennessee. She remembers writing songs at an early age with frog...

Welcome to the second preview of Basic Folk: Backstage!  For this episode, I wanted to share a very special interview I did with my favorite person to talk to: KT Tunstall . We discuss 2013's Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon , which is one of my favorite LPs. Born out of two difficult personal shifts, the death of her father and the end of her first marriage, IE // CM was recorded in Tucson a...