Folk music doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being the happiest of the genres. With many popular folk songs telling tales of grief, heartbreak and destitution, it’s far more commonly associated ...

George Harrison's "Got My Mind Set on You," his last No. 1 single, was originally recorded by James Ray in 1962. It was ...

The Smithsonian's collections and archives are a rich source of information on American folk music and its many genres. Smithsonian Folkways is home to a significant collection of folk music ...

This 1972 record from Mellow Candle is a great example of what Irish bands were doing with the genre in the 1970s. Clodagh Simonds’ piano tracks are on another level, and the addition of the ...

The Beatles proved time and again that they were musical omnivores. By that we mean that they weren’t afraid to borrow from any musical style, confident they could imbibe its essence and come ...

Pete Seeger didn't like singing by himself. It wasn't just that he contributed his tenor (and banjo picking) to two seminal folk groups — the Almanac Singers (with Woody Guthrie) and The Weavers ...

Folk songs were built to last. They emerged in an age of illiteracy where the only way to make things memorable was to render them catchy enough that they could be passed on through memorised word of ...