Ace Records’ ongoing Black America Sings series gets a second helping of classic tunes by Bob Dylan on a new compilation available this week. Highway of Diamonds: Black America Sings Bob Dylan, available January 30 in Ace’s native U.K. (and a week later in America), offers 20 compositions from the Nobel Prize-winning songwriter recast for soul, blues and gospel acts including The Staple Singers, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte, Billy Preston, Natalie Cole, Solomon Burke, Merry Clayton, Sarah Vaughan, Aaron Neville and more. The collection, available on CD or two LPs, includes informative song/track…
My Eyes Have Seen: Odetta, The Weavers, Joan Baez, More Featured on Vinyl Me, Please’s “Anthology: The Story of Vanguard”
A vanguard is, by definition, a position at the forefront of new ideas or developments. And in the fertile musical stomping ground of the early 1960s, some of the newest, most avant-garde ideas were being espoused on the Vanguard Records label. Yet these so-called radical, even “dangerous” thoughts were being espoused in forms so traditional, they might have seemed as old as time. Vanguard was formed in 1950 by Maynard and Seymour Solomon as a classical label and later moved into jazz. The Solomons dived headfirst into the flourishing folk music scene…
The Times They Are A-Changin’: Shout! Factory Brings Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Newport 1963-65” to CD, DVD
The Newport Folk Festival was created in 1959 in Newport, Rhode Island as a response to the rising prominence of folk music in America. In 1961, one of the great groups of the genre was formed when Peter Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey, and Mary Travers lifted their voices in song as Peter, Paul and Mary. The trio frequently took the stage at Newport with many of their classic songs, and now, Shout! Factory is collecting eighteen such performances on a new set coming to CD, DVD, and digital formats tomorrow, August 16….
Pastures of Plenty: Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, and More Feature in Previously Unreleased “Woody Guthrie All-Star Tribute Concert 1970” DVD
Woody Guthrie remains one of the most significant figures in folk music. His legendary songs of freedom and struggle laid the groundwork for the folk revival that arose in the fifties and sixties, and his music endures as part of America’s rich musical heritage. In 1970, renowned folk artists like Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Country Joe McDonald, Odetta, Richie Havens, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Earl Robinson, The Band, and Woody’s son Arlo Guthrie, convened to pay tribute to the legendary songwriter, who had passed away from Huntington’s Disease three years earlier. The benefit…
