100 books like Folk Music

Not the best-known Dylan book but Jokerman is unusually productive in its scholarly analysis of many of the Nobel Laurette’s revered lyrics. Investigating the writer’s use of ‘Identity’ in his work happens to coincide with 20 of his best known and most loved songs. At one level this might be seen as a book for anoraks, but it is much more and likely to be of interest to anyone inclined to seek answers to questions raised in the apparent opacity of these Dylan classics.

If there is any cultural icon that defines this era, it is music.

Positively 4th Street chronicles the personal and musical lives of these four, a portrait of extravagant, quarrelsome genius and the transformation of folk music from academic song-collecting to an era-defining musical form, by way of Greenwich Village, the anti-war movement, and shifting personal entanglements.

I devoured this book on the recommendation of my friend Otis Gibbs, a songwriter with a particular interest in the great tradition of songs of, by, and for the working class. “Educate – Agitate – Organize,” reads the Joe Hill mural painted on the side of a rare books store in Salt Lake City, where the Wobbly songwriter was sentenced to death by firing squad in 1915. In The Man Who Never Died (2011), journalist William M. Adler contextualizes the vital importance of songs like Hill’s to the union movement, and he uncovers new details about the activist’s controversial conviction.

The child of Communist parents, Alix would grow up to be one of the most profound movers and shakers of the lesbian music movement, producing the first full-length lesbian album, Lavender Jane Loves Women, in 1973. But this memoir is a series of chapters on her early years growing up in the 1950s with progressive activists and folk club life, embarking on her own career in the folk circuit, singing against the backdrop of repressive politics, and coming into the women’s movement as a married mother about to fall in love with another woman.

Spending the summer in a cabin in the woods? Then The Ceremonies is a darn fine choice. The first time I read it was on a camping trip, and I was captivated by the way Klein describes the empty, lonely wilderness surrounding the Poroth Farm (the main location of the tale).

The protagonist of the book is an English professor who’s writing a book on the Gothics, and through the course of the book name drops a ton of classic horror novels and stories from the early 20th century. This book is not only a tremendous cosmic/folk horror novel, but sort of a treatise on classic gothic literature.

Not only is The Ceremonies a truly unsettling horror novel in its own right, but it could inspire a whole new reading list for you!

Not everyone who loves and admires this folk musician, the half-sister of Pete Seeger and a longtime collector of English folk ballads, knows her as the songwriter behind Roberta Flack’s hit “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face;” hence the title. The quirky style of this real page-turner provides fantastic stories of folk heritage, song collecting, love, child-rearing, radio performance activism, encounters with English Travelers, travels to China, and life growing up as a daughter of the ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger.

A Tale of Stars and Shadow exceeded my expectations; mainly because it was one of the first fantasy stories that I’d read which wasn’t exclusively aimed at young adults. 

This is a book for grown-ups, dealing with adult themes (although not sex, perse) and political intrigue. It follows Tallyn, a grief-torn warrior who accepts a posting to protect the spoiled prince of the Winged folk in an exotic country; with beautiful and deadly scenery. I wanted to be in Mithranar – to swim in the clear waters of Feather Bay.  

Coy Hall is a newer writer on the scene but the work he has produced so far has been of exceptional quality.

This particular book contains short stories which interlink yet standalone. Hall’s Grimoire of the Four Imposters has its folk horror set against the historical backdrop of the 16th and 17th centuries. I freely admit to being a history fan and seeing this mixed with a favourite subgenre is a delight.

The stories are dark and menacing, vibrant with character, and melding folklore and the occult into a showcase of storytelling. They show that folk horror can be done differently. 

This book sucked me into the author’s world. I think this was the author’s first novel, so I was unsure how it would read, but it’s gripping & well-written. I’m glad the author has written a sequel to this book. The style of writing is different from what I’m used to, but the author has a way of making the story believable. 

I like books that take me via the scenic route. If I’m reading a history of folk music, I don’t just want dry old discographies and lists of bands and their lineups. I want a living, breathing account of where this all came from and what the modern era has inherited.

I want to know about the collectors and archivists and famous composers like Vaughan Williams and Holst who went from town to town and village to village getting information from people of my Grandad’s age about the songs that were passed down to them through the generations. I want a sense of how this stuff is in the very soil and landscape we inhabit.

This book does all that and more.