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Just for fun, I went through the Online Folk Festival playlist and attached a country of origin or residence to each artist that I play. For groups with members from different countries, I chose the label International.

Here are the results in alphabetical order:

Australia: 6 artists, 7 tracks
Canada: 30 artists, 35 tracks
International: 5 artists, 6 tracks
Ireland: 28 artists, 30 tracks
Russia: 1 artist, 1 track
United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales): 25 artists, 34 tracks
United States of America: 269 artists, 300 tracks
Total: 364 different artists with 413 tracks.

Labels: Online Folk Festival

The Online Folk Festival Top 41 Songs of the past 30 days as of August 28, 2006. Once again, there is a tie at #40. Ratings are determined based on listener voting through the live365.com player interface.

Rank. Artist - "Song" - Album

1. Amy Speace - "Right Through to Me" - Songs For Bright Street
2. The Four Bitchin Babes - "Viagra in the waters" - Hormonal Imbalance
3. Tempest - "The Sleeping Highlander" - Surfing to Mecca
4. Claudia Schmidt - "O Waly Waly" - Spinning
5. T Bone Burnett - "Earlier Baghdad (The Bounce)" - The True False Identity
6. Solas - Nil Na La - "Reunion" - A Decade of Solas
7. Sharon Shannon & Friends - "The burst mattress" - Libertango
8. KT Tunstall - "Black Horse and The Cherry Tree" - Eye To The Telescope
9. Erik Balkey - "Something in the Air/It's Not on the Airwaves" - Sanctuary Road
10. Bruce Cockburn - "Mystery" - Life Short Call Now
11. William Pint and Felicia Dale - "High Barbaree" - Seven Seas
12. Bert Jansch - "Blues Run The Game" - Dazzling Stranger
13. Stephen Fearing - "Glory Train" - So Many Miles, Live
14. Vance Gilbert - "Rainy Night in Georgia" - Angels, Castles, Covers
15. The Love Hall Tryst - "Shallow Brown" - Songs of Misfortune
16. Railroad Earth - "Elko" - Elko
17. Sons of the San Joaquin - "From Whence Came the Cowboy" - A Western Jubilee : Songs and Stories of the American West
18. Eddie From Ohio - "The Bridge" - I Rode Fido Home
19. Yellow Room Gang - "Simple Faith (Tamulevich)" - Volume 1
20. Van Morrison - "Stranded" - Magic Time
21. Richard Thompson - "Word Unspoken, Sight Unseen" - Old Kit Bag
22. Michelle Shocked - "Prodigal Daughter (Cotton Eyed Joe)" - Arkansas Traveler
23. Brooks Williams - "Trouble in Mind" - Blues and Ballads
24. Mustard's Retreat - "Well Here We Are" - The Wind and the Crickets and the South Texas Moon ...
25. Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir - "Steal Away" - Jubilation IV-Acapella
26. Kate Campbell with Spooner Oldham - "Would They Love Him Down in Shreveport?" - For the Living of These Days
27. John Flynn - "Blink" - Two Wolves
28. Chris and Siobhan Nelson - "Purple, White and Green" - Day Has Dawned
29. Red Molly - "Caleb Meyer" - Never Been to Vegas (Live)
30. Leonard Cohen - "Famous Blue Raincoat" - The Essential Leonard Cohen
31. Cat Stevens - "I've Got A Thing About Seeing My Grandson Grow Old [Unreleased] (1970)" - The Very Best Of Cat Stevens
32. Lisa Biales - "Where the Buckwheat Blooms" - Chasing Away the Blues
33. Susan Werner - "Stay on Your Side of Town" - I Can't Be New
34. Pat Wictor - "Raise My Voice And Sing" - Heaven Is So High
35. Nancy White - "And I Copied It" - Stickers On Fruit
36. Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys - "Blue Moon of Kentucky" - Live at Mechanics Hall
37. Al Stewart - "Somewhere In England" - A Beach Full Of Shells
38. Vance Gilbert - "A Case of You" - Angels, Castles, Covers
39. Katy Bowser - "All of My Friends" - All of My Friends
40. Andrea Zonn - "Heads Up For The Wrecking Ball" - Love Goes On
41. Afro Celt Sound System - "Mother" - Anatomic

Labels: Online Folk Festival, Top 40

Since Google has deemed fit to anoint this blog one of the leading sources on Mary Travers, let me offer this bit of news. Mary recently met the woman whose bone marrow allowed her to recover from leukemia and the story is here.

Labels: Folk News

Jazz/pop trumpeter Maynard Fersuson died this week at age 78. There's a fine obituary article at the Washington post site at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082401836.html

A piece I wrote about Maynard Ferguson and Chuck Mangione on this blog can be found at http://www.onlinefolkfestival.com/folkblog/2005/01/mr-flugel-and-conquistador.html

I only saw Maynard once, at the Cleveland Zoo, sometime in the late 80s while he was doing his Big Bop Nouveau music with the small combo. They were remarkable, but at the time I didn't appreciate it because I was expecting more of the jazz/pop stuff. I wish now I could have appreciated it for what it was.

Addendum: I looked at AMG and amazon.com and, surprisingly to me at least, it does not appear that anyone has done a career-spanning "best of" or "essential" type set for Maynard. I think a three-disk set with one disk covering his work with Stan Kenton and his own big bands in the sixties and early seventies and a second disk covering his "pop" phase form the mid-70s through the '80s and a third disk covering his post-80s return to bop and other more pure jazz forms would be a great project. I'd buy it.

Labels: obituaries

Lots of good CDs in the mail the last couple weeks, so I added tracks from several new CDs over the weekend:

Artist - Album

The Be Good Tanyas - Hello Love
Smithfield Fair - Walking Through This World
Various Artists - One Meatball
Deborah Holland - Bad Girl Once...Soccer Mom Now
Tanya Lowman - It's Gonna Take a Long Time
Amos Lee - Supply and Demand
Red Molly - Never Been to Vegas (live)
Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer - Seven is the Number
Old Crow Medicine Show - Big Iron World
Jen Chapin - Ready
Albert Kuvezin and Yat-Kha - ReCovers

I also received new CDs from the Jackie Frost Ensemble and Aussie guitarist Tommy Emmanuel that will be added this week some time. The Tommy Emmanuel recording is particularly good - I've not been impressed with a recording of someone playing acoustic guitar since the first time I heard Phil Keaggy's acoustic stylings.

Live365.com track ratings are currently down due to database issues, and so I've not been able to provide a Top 40 list yet this month. I promise to provide one once the database issues are corrected.

Labels: New Adds

The FolkBlog is listed on BlogShares (see link in the left-hand column), just in case you'd like to own shares in this venture - well, figuratively.

The move was successful. Everything is at the new place, though I'm still not certain where everything is, and will eventually clear enough boxes out of the garage so that I can park the car in there.

Anyway, on to the new adds:

Artist - Album
Amos Lee - CD single from Supply and Demand
Anonymous 4 - Gloryland
Brett Dennen - So Much More
Bruce Cockburn - Life Short Call Now
Catie Curtis - Long Night Moon
Crooked Still - Shaken by a Low Sound
Dave Potts - $12.99
David Mallett - Midnight on the Water (live)
Dennis Doyle - Single Malt
Donal O'Connor and John McSherry - Tripswitch
Eva Tree - Sail Away
Four Bitchin' Babes - Hormonal Imbalance
Hem - Funnel Cloud
High Cotton - Hanging by a Thread
John Flynn - Two Wolves
Kate Campbell with Spooner Oldham - For the Living of These Days
Lisa Biales - Chasing Away the Blues
Mike Daugherty - Better Slow Down
Pat Wictor - Heaven is So High
Rootbound - Rootbound
Sharon Goldman - Shake the Stars
Sloan Wainwright - Life Grows Back

Labels: New Adds