Folk music recommendations

April 16, 2009 2:41 PM

Via this awesome FPP I've recently discovered Connie Converse. Can you recommend similar music?

I'm looking for stripped down person-(or persons)-with-a-guitar-type folk. The more it sounds like it was recorded in one take in someone's kitchen the better. The other two artists I've found that sound a bit like what I'm looking for are Kimya Dawson and Nick Drake. Cheers!

posted by supercrayon to media & arts (15 comments total)

How about The Mountain Goats?
posted by agropyron at 2:59 PM on April 16

Anders Walker is great stuff.
Satan and Adam have some good stuff too, though it's a bit more bluesy than folksy.
posted by nomisxid at 3:56 PM on April 16

will oldham is the master at it. iron and wine's first album is pretty lo-fi (that's the term for this sound, right?).

for a bit more mainstream, wasn't springsteen's 'nebraska' literally recorded in his kitchen?

sorry, no real unknowns from me
posted by Think_Long at 4:14 PM on April 16

Faun Fables have a sound, albeit not a solo person, that I think you'd like if you like Connie's sound. Dawn McCarthy, the main vehicle for Faun Fables was the first person I saw perform music live. It 'may' have influenced all my later musical tastes...
posted by ZaneJ. at 4:18 PM on April 16

a few:
Will Oldham/Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Damien Jurado
Elliot Smith (early albums)
Iron & Wine
Nina Nastasia
Mark Kozelek/Sun Kil Moon/Red House Painters
Josh Ritter (first couple of albums)
Tallest Man on Earth
posted by camcgee at 4:36 PM on April 16

Cat Power came to mind if that under-produced sound is your primary criterion.

Although edgier that Converse, J. Mascis' Martin + Me shares some of the same qualities. In the words of one customer:

On Martin and Me, J Mascis sings terribly, plays sloppily, showcases no new material, and covers the horrible, atavistic Lynard Skynard. This album is so much fun!

I have to agree.

Joni Mitchell's first two albums Song to a Seagull and Clouds are weakly engineered but her exceptional artistry pushes through anyway.

Finally, it isn't folk, it's jazz, it isn't particularly lo-fidelity, and it has a complete arrangement but something reminded me of Blossom Dearie came to mind for reasons I can't articulate.
posted by fydfyd at 4:45 PM on April 16

Shelagh McDonald who even has a similar story
posted by Lanark at 5:11 PM on April 16

Yes, Will Oldham.

Chris Pureka?
These Pages, Compass Rose, 3 AM
posted by hippugeek at 5:18 PM on April 16

(erp, meant to add that that "3 AM" video is self-linky)
posted by hippugeek at 5:19 PM on April 16

Woody Guthrie
Royal City
Townes Van Zandt
Jeffrey Lewis
Richard Buckner
Hayden
Leonard Cohen
Mason Jennings (Download a great live show here)
The Moldy Peaches (Kimya Dawson and Adam Green's band)
Adam Green
Sarah Harmer
posted by backwards guitar at 6:14 PM on April 16

Karen Dalton.
posted by cowboy_sally at 6:28 PM on April 16

Marissa Nadler sounds very similar to Connie Converse.
posted by scruss at 6:37 PM on April 16

Check out Meg Baird.
posted by arianell at 7:44 PM on April 16

Tom Brosseau. Here he is singing "Darling Corey" in a New York barbershop.

Vashti Bunyan often has more involved arrangements, but you'll find a few songs where it's just her and a guitar.
posted by hydrophonic at 10:15 PM on April 16

Yeah Will Oldham in his various incarnations, especially as Palace Brothers on two amazingly intense, spare, achingly beautiful recordings: Days in the Wake and There is No One What Will Take Care of You.

Equally good in the lo-fi stripped-down person with a guitar genre is Bill Callahan, aka Smog:

An under-recognized pioneer of the lo-fi revolution, Smog was essentially the alias of one Bill Callahan, an enigmatic singer/songwriter whose odd, fractured music neatly epitomized the tenets and excesses of the home-recording boom. Melancholy, poignant, and self-obsessed, Callahan's four-track output offered a peepshow view into an insular world of alienation and inner turmoil, his painfully intimate songs ping-ponging wildly through a scrapbook of childhood recollections, failed relationships, bizarre fetishes, and dashed hopes.

He tosses in some oddball rock and chamber pop, too, but anything from Julius Caesar on will have some of what you're looking for (check the samples for "Chosen One" or "37 Push Ups"), but Red Apple Falls probably has more, with gorgeous, spare, lyrical stuff like "To Be of Use" and "Finer Days." Very Pink Moon-era Nick Drake.
posted by mediareport at 5:41 AM on April 17