Favorite singer songwriters (folk, solo, etc.)Music 

  • Thread starter Wardez
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Samus
Lissie
*video*
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Amazing. That lead guitar makes me so happy. Great song, the rhythm's classic. And anyone that uses a capo on an electric guitar is good by me.

You may like The Preatures if you're into Lissie.
 
I love Lissie, her and her band are super talented. She has two studio albums and a covers EP you should check out. On a lot of the songs they play live the bassist plays drums at the same time. Like in these:


 
God damn, that guy brings a whole new definition to Drum and bass. Yeah, nice, shades of Janis Joplin, but refined, cool stuff.
 
Neil Young fit into singer songwriter folk? That's like asking if Michael Jackson could be considered a dancer. He's in the OP, I linked to one of my favorite songs of his, Old Man.
 
The Staves - Wood & Wires Session.

This is live & sounds better than their studio album recordings in my opinion.


 
Dang, here's my kind of thread! Props for mentioning Tallest Man on Earth and Elliott Smith, @Wardez Aside from those two, here's some of my favourite singer songwriters (favourite musicians in general, really):

Conor Oberst - my absolute favourite musician. He's got a few haters for his earlier music as Bright Eyes, because he was a bit "emotional" and his quivering voice (admittedly, it's an acquired taste) but he's definitely grown up since and his 2008 self-titled solo album is a beautiful piece of folk/singer-songwriter music.




My next favourite is an Australian man, Wil Wagner. He's been under the radar for a while now but he's slowly gaining more recognition in Australia and around the world for his work with his punk band, The Smith Street Band. His solo work is really something special, he released an album earlier in the year, titled "Laika" and this is the eponymous track from the album. It's about one of the first animals in space, a dog... which goes by the same name. Possibly one of the saddest songs ever written.




Tim Kasher, is another really underrated artist. Somewhat known for his work as the frontman of the band Cursive (I recall you, Wardez, mentioning you were/are a fan?). His song's tend to be very cynical, his earlier albums generally revolve around his bitter divorce and his current albums tend to be about failed relationships. At the same time he's very witty and his songwriting style is very interesting to me. Here's a song from his 2010 album "The Game of Monogamy", he's singing it while getting a haircut.




I guess I'll just keep mention underrated artists - Jeff Rosenstock, you probably don't know him (OMG, I'm such a hipster guys!) from his ska/punk ventures Bomb the Music Industry! and The Arrogant Sons of Bitches. He generally does all his recording at home, recording guitars and vocals while using computers for the rest. He's been winding down his band efforts and churning out some great solo work since last year. Unlike the rest of the musicians I've posted, he's not really a folk singer but still fits subject of the thread. I couldn't find a live video but here's one of my favourites from the solo album he released late last year titled "I Feel Like ****".




And finally, Taylor Hollingsworth, a self taught musician from Alabama. He was part of Conor Oberst's backing band for his solo album, dubbed "The Mystic Valley Band", during touring for the album Oberst and the band found they were running out of songs to play so they started playing songs written by many of the band members, including Hollingsworth. The band went on to release a second album, Outer South, featuring songs written and sung by not only Oberst but the band members themselves. This is how Hollingsworth came to my attention. After giving Outer South a good thrash, I checked his solo work out and I was very impressed by his guitar work and fun songwriting.

 
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@Cap'n Jack

Awesome list bro, love it all, haven't heard Rosenstock yet, nice flow to his style, reminds me of Jets to Brazil for some reason, who I love btw.

I saw Taylor playing with Conor at a festival before, always has a great band. I saw him perform way back before then as well where he did a show with M. Ward and Jim James from My Morning Jacket way before those two took off, I was so lucky to get to see them perform together like that, they closed out with an awesome cover too, I need to ask my friend what song it was exactly, ahh, slips my mind at the moment. I've gotta check out the rest of Conor's bands' solo stuff, the song you posted is bad ass. Like a refined Daniel Johnston heh heh. Speaking of whom, I love as well.



Do you like Matt Corby?

His song Brother is just phenomenal:


For those of you who don't know M. Ward, really a must listen:


My Morning Jacket as well:


I adore Tim Kasher, Cursive was one of the first bands I ever got really deeply into when I was a kid, his collaboration with anyone in Saddle Creek was always a highlight.
 
@Wardez Never got into Matt Corby, his work seems like something that might have to grow on me though. Despite me being Australian, I tend to find it hard to get into anything Australian (music, TV, film), there are a few exceptions but generally something about Australian arts doesn't quite sit right with me.:indiff: My brain has been diluted by American arts, I guess. :lol: I was going to post both M. Ward and Jim James but I was unable to imbed anymore media into my post. Love both their music, Jim James' new solo album is fantastic and easily one of my favourites of the year. I was supposed to be seeing M. Ward this weekend, along with ****ing Desaparecidos and Neutral Milk Hotel, but the festival they were touring with was cancelled. Also, check out Taylor Hollingsworth's "Life with a Slow Ear". It might be available on iTunes, you might be able to download it directly from Team Love Records too. Jeff Rosenstock releases all his (along with his other projects) music on Quote Unquote Records, a donation based record label where you pay anything you want or even download the albums free of charge. But yeah, I absolutely recommend his album "I Feel Like ****".


I'd like to add Townes Van Zandt to this awesome thread. As with many folk musicians, his story is a bit of a depressing one. He went under the radar for most of his career with very little recognition and struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, which ultimately killed him in the late '90s. This year, I was able to find his second album, "Our Mother the Mountain", in a small local record store on Record Store Day.




It's great to finally be discussing music I'm really passionate about here on GTPlanet!
 
Chris Cornell anyone??? I would think he would have to be considered at the very least... or how about David Gilmore of Pink Floyd??? You couldn't lose for mentioning either of those two.
 
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Ohhh baby, this is amazing. Thanks so much for posting this disinfected. Great voice, great rhythm. Awesome breakdowns, not enough of those being done in this genre. The touch of blues hovering around the track is perfect.
 
I can highly recommend a lot of Koji's stuff, including his split EP with Into It, Over It. He has a lot of talent and is fairly unique in his approach.
 
Aww dang! I can't believe I failed to give this guy a mention earlier - David Dondero, a transient rambling his way around America (and sometimes the world), sleeping in his car between gigs. He started off playing drums for a few punk bands, notably This Bike is a Pipe Bomb (worth checking out if you're into folk punk) and then went on to forge a solo career. He's an absolutely brilliant song writer, easily one of my favourites, so I'm not sure how I failed to mention him earlier! Rumour has it that Conor Oberst took Dondero's singing style, they both have that distinct "quiver" in their voices, although it's more likely Oberst picked that up from his mentor Simon Joyner (another artist worth checking out). All his solo albums are on BandCamp, I strongly encourage anyone into modern folk to check him out, he's released a few real good albums but his 2007 album "South of the South" is my favourite and a great place to start. I also first got into his music a few days before finding out he was playing in my home town and I unfortunately missed the show and perhaps my only chance to see him play. Anyway, here's a short set he did for the NPR Tiny Desk a few years ago:




EDIT: Okay, and to further point out how much of a great guy Dondero is, I just purchased his new album "This Guitar" on BandCamp, left him a message at the payment screen saying "You're a champ, Dave! Keep doing what you're doing (and do more of it in Australia)!" and almost instantly I got an email back from him, basically saying thanks, hope I enjoy the record and he's planning on coming down here soon! :D
 
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For me Irish folk is awsome. A few drunk guys composing musics to sing in the pubs.

The Dubliners is plain awsome (don't know if they compose their musics but I guess so)



If you can sing this with the lyrics you are awsome.
 
I kept getting updates from this thread while I was at work and forgot to check back when I got home. Really like this Ben Howard video, reminds me a bit of José Gonzales, I'm sure you would've heard his song Heartbeats. I'll have to check out more of his stuff, for sure!

This thread makes me wish I was still making music with the folk/country band myself and a few friends had going on for a short time (I was playing bass), called Canis Vulpes. We had good fun, even if we only ever ended up playing one gig together, but that project has ended for various reasons. I guess it's worth putting it out there that one half of the band put together an album before myself and the drummer came in, called Grizzly Country. You can purchase a download of it from the record labels website.

Also, here's a recent video of Jeff Rosenstock playing a couple of songs from his solo project and his band Bomb the Music Industry! (which is having its last gig very soon!). Awesome footage and exactly the kind of performance I love to see from singer-songwriters:

 
Cap'n Jack
I kept getting updates from this thread while I was at work and forgot to check back when I got home. Really like this Ben Howard video, reminds me a bit of José Gonzales, I'm sure you would've heard his song Heartbeats. I'll have to check out more of his stuff, for sure!

This thread makes me wish I was still making music with the folk/country band myself and a few friends had going on for a short time (I was playing bass), called Canis Vulpes. We had good fun, even if we only ever ended up playing one gig together, but that project has ended for various reasons. I guess it's worth putting it out there that one half of the band put together an album before myself and the drummer came in, called Grizzly Country. You can purchase a download of it from the record labels website.

Also, here's a recent video of Jeff Rosenstock playing a couple of songs from his solo project and his band Bomb the Music Industry! (which is having its last gig very soon!). Awesome footage and exactly the kind of performance I love to see from singer-songwriters:
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Definitely man, Jose Gonzales is the ****.

Wow, definitely always a good idea to get back into music. A problem a lot of my friends faced after our band broke up was that they didn't think they could just make music without a group anymore. They got stuck in that niche. I encourage them all the time to just do it for the fun, don't worry about how it's gonna record, if the rhythm works with different arrangements of instruments and such, just write, just play with whatever you have, even if it's just your damn lips! Recording little whistle melodies led to almost half of the patterns I used for songs back in the day.

If a band is what you ultimately want, just keep playing and it'll come to you.

But wow, that's awesome you guys released an album! Just bought it.

And I'm digging Jeff Rosenstock, looks like fun shows. Only seen one show like that, Tom Gabel from Against Me! solo, was a great kind of join around the bonfire type vibe, really cool.
 
Wardez
Wow, definitely always a good idea to get back into music. A problem a lot of my friends faced after our band broke up was that they didn't think they could just make music without a group anymore. They got stuck in that niche. I encourage them all the time to just do it for the fun, don't worry about how it's gonna record, if the rhythm works with different arrangements of instruments and such, just write, just play with whatever you have, even if it's just your damn lips! Recording little whistle melodies led to almost half of the patterns I used for songs back in the day.
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Yeah, it's hard to find motivation now but I'm sure it'll come back. GTA and GT6 haven't helped this past few months either...

But wow, that's awesome you guys released an album! Just bought it.
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Well, it's just a small label my best friend (and former band mate) started late last year. He's doing a fantastic thing for some of the local acts here and doing a hell of a job. I'm real proud of him. Thanks for making a purchase though, he'd love that someone outside of Adelaide, let alone Australia, made a purchase! I loved playing the songs on there, "Winter's Cub" was a favourite of mine just because of the fun rolling bass line that was written for it.

And I'm digging Jeff Rosenstock, looks like fun shows. Only seen one show like that, Tom Gabel from Against Me! solo, was a great kind of join around the bonfire type vibe, really cool.
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Yeah, it's a great vibe. A mixture of something you'd get late one night at a pub and a punk rock gig!
 
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I've had a soft spot for David Gray and his wobbly head, ever since i saw him perform Please Forgive Me on Letterman back in 2001. Both his old records and the new ones. Very different but all brilliant none the less

 
Here's an old favourite - Three great modern day singer-songwriters (M. Ward, Conor Oberst and Jim James) doing a cover of one of the greats:

 

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