Folk music was wildly popular in the Fifties. Washington Square Park, August 25, 1957.

Photo: André Kertész via the J. Paul Getty Museum

Bob Dylan in 1965🌿🖤

American Indian activist, Vietnam War veteran, and protest folksinger, Peter LaFarge in Greenwich Village, August 1962

Myrkur for her album "Mareridt" by Daria Endresen

Happy Birthday the Scottish folk singer/songwriter Brian McNeill born on April 6th 1950 in Falkirk.

Brian was a founder member of the Battlefield Band, one of our finest Folk Groups. He also joined several other top Scottish Folk musicians including Dick Gaughan in Clan Alba.

Brian is a multi instrumentalist – chiefly fiddle, bouzouki, mandocello, guitars and concertina – and the importance of his songwriting has long been recognised with such songs as The Yew Tree, The Lads O' The Fair, The Snows of France and Holland, Strong Women Rule Us All With Their Tears, Any Mick'll Do and No Gods and Precious Few Heroes. Many of his songs have been performed and recorded by artists worldwide. He has been described as ‘Scotland’s most meaningful contemporary songwriter’.

​Brian’s audio visual shows, The Back O' The North Wind, about Scottish emigration to America, and the sequel, The Baltic Tae Byzantium, exploring the influence of the Scots in Europe, have won wide critical acclaim. His long connection with America's Lone Star State led to him being created an honorary Texan by the then Governor George W Bush. For six years Brian was Head of Scottish Music at the RSAMD, now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Brian is increasingly in demand for his production skills and his album credits include Davey Arthur, The Paul McKenna Band, Lorne MacDougall, Rua Macmillan, Eric Bogle and John Munro, Matt Tighe and Tad Sargent, The John Wright Band, Drones and Bellows and Missouri a cappella quartet The Wee Heavies.

As well as his musical talent Brian has also turned his hand to writing, he pens short stories, crime and mystery fiction involving his hero, busker Alex Fraser and his heroine, private sleuth Sammy Knox.

Brian is currently on the road with the The Feast of Fiddles 30th anniversary tour.

A song Brian wrote is one of my favourite modern folk songs

No Gods And Precious Few Heroes

I was listening to the news the other day Heard a fat politician who had the nerve to say He was proud to be Scottish, by the way With the glories of our past to remember "Here's tae us, wha's like us", listen to the cry No surrender to the truth and here's the reason why The power and the glory's just another bloody lie They use to keep us all in line

For there's no gods and there's precious few heroes But there's plenty on the dole in the land o the leal And it's time now to sweep the future clear Of the lies of a past that we know was never real

So farewell to the heather and the glen They cleared us off once and they'd do it all again For they still prefer sheep to thinking men Ah, but men who think like sheep are even better There's nothing much to choose between the old vain and the new They still don't give a damn for the likes of me and you Just mind you pay your rent to the factor when it's due And mind your bloody manners when you pay

For there's no gods and there's precious few heroes But there's plenty on the dole in the land o' the leal And it's time now to sweep the future clear Of the lies of a past that we know was never real

And tell me will we never hear the end Of puir bluidy Charlie at Culloden yet again? Though he ran like a rabbit down the glen Leavin better folk than him to be butchered Or are you sittin in your Council house, dreamin o'er your clan? Waiting for the Jacobites to come and free the land? Try going down the broo with your claymore in your hand And count all the Princes in the queue

For there's no gods and there's precious few heroes But there's plenty on the dole in the land o' the leal And it's time now to sweep the future clear Of the lies of a past that we know was never real

So don't talk to me of Scotland the Brave For if we don't fight soon there'll be nothing left to save Or would you rather stand and watch them dig your grave While you wait for the Tartan Messiah? He'll lead us to the Promised Land with laughter in his eye We'll all live on the oil and the whisky by and by Free heavy beer! Pie suppers in the sky Will we never have the sense to learn?

That there's no gods and there's precious few heroes But there's plenty on the dole in the land o' the leal And I'm damned sure that there's plenty live in fear Of the day we stand together with our shoulders at the wheel Aye, there's no Gods

Madeleine Hyland

bob dylan at gerde’s folk city, 1961.

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez photographed in 1963🌵🌵🌵

Via @groovysixties on Instagram🌵

LIFE Magazine, 10 April 1964

Is anyone else gripped by the revelations emanating from Canada that revered First Nation folk singer and activist Buffy Sainte-Marie is a Pretendian (“a person who falsely claims to have Indigenous ancestry.” See also: Sacheen Littlefeather)? In recent years there's been a rush of documentaries and tributes to her, and Sainte-Marie appeared on a postage stamp. But looking back on her life and sixty-year career and re-visiting old interviews uncovered inconsistencies. Then Sainte-Marie’s family members started speaking up and it unraveled from there. Sainte-Marie (now 82 years-old) has always insisted she was born on Cree land in Saskatchewan and adopted as a baby by a white American family in Maine. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s new exposé reveals she was their biological daughter all along, and that Sainte-Marie kept relatives silent with legal (and blackmail) threats. The disillusioning saga raises so many questions. Sainte-Marie was prodigiously talented and would have found stardom anyway, so why (as one commentator asks) “did she have to do it in redface?” What was the emotional toll of maintaining this façade for so many decades, always worrying about being uncovered? And is Sainte-Marie’s considerable advocacy, charity work and consciousness raising a mitigating factor? Read here or watch here. Pictured: Buffy Sainte-Marie photographed by Jack Robinson for Vogue magazine, May 1969.

I wrote and sang a little song for my upcoming folk horror project. I don't know much about music composition, and I barely know how to use audio editing software, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

If you enjoy the song, consider following the upcoming project it's for maybe? 🥺

Muddy Waters (April 4, 1913 - April 30, 1983)

📷 Gems

You dig man?✨