Folk
This section gathers album stories, birthdays, and anniversaries from folk artists and songwriters, along with vinyl reissue news as titles return to print. Folk has a long history of careful preservation on record: archival labels such as Smithsonian Folkways have spent decades documenting traditional and singer-songwriter recordings specifically for release on LP, treating the format as a way to keep field recordings and acoustic albums in circulation rather than letting them disappear. Expect stories about the people behind specific songs and albums, and why a reissue of an older folk record still matters to listeners.
124 STORIES
How Did Johnny Cash Make His Final Album Hit So Hard?
Johnny Cash released American IV: The Man Comes Around on November 5, 2002, his final album while alive. It was built largely from covers and anchored by a stark reading of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt".
· 4 min read
How Shania Twain's Come On Over Broke Every Rule
Shania Twain's Come On Over, released on Mercury Records in November 1997, was written entirely with producer Mutt Lang. It became the best-selling studio album by a woman in history.
· 3 min read
Why Did Bob Dylan Go Back to the Garage?
Bob Dylan had already recorded a whole album of covers with a full band in Chicago, but he shelved it. The sessions had a producer, a studio, and finished songs…
· 4 min read
Why Did Beck Sue His Own Label Over Mutations?
Beck recorded Mutations as a quiet acoustic album for Bong Load Records, but Geffen took the record back and released it on DGC on November 3, 1998.
· 4 min read
Why Did Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette Unite?
Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette released Honky Tonk Angels on Columbia Records in 1993. The joint album featured a Patsy Cline duet pulled from the archives.
· 4 min read
How Did Marianne Faithfull Face Death on Negative Capability?
Marianne Faithfull's twentieth studio album, Negative Capability, arrived on November 2, 2018. The rock and folk record is about old age, loss and living without easy answers.
· 4 min read
The Voice That Refused to Be Forgotten
Eva Callahan, a little-known Washington club singer, died of melanoma on November 2, 1996 — and within four years her voice was topping the UK chart.
· 4 min read
Why Did Mississippi John Hurt Vanish for Decades?
Mississippi John Hurt recorded for Okeh in the 1920s, then returned to sharecropping in Avalon. A stranger sent to confirm his identity found him decades later.
· 4 min read
Olivia Newton-John's If Not for You at 55
Olivia Newton-John's debut album If Not for You, released on Festival Records in November 1971, was a collection of covers. It set the template for the career that followed.
· 4 min read
How Did Gustavo Santaolalla Win an Oscar for Brokeback Mountain?
Gustavo Santaolalla's score for Brokeback Mountain arrived on Verve Forecast in November 2005. It won the Oscar for Best Original Score with folk restraint rather than orchestral sweep.
· 3 min read
How Did City and Colour's Sometimes Find Its Way to a Juno?
Sometimes, the 2006 debut from Alex Zander's City and Colour, grew out of acoustic songs fans had already been trading online. It arrived on Dine Alone Records in November 2005.
· 4 min read
What Made The Essential Bob Dylan a Quiet Powerhouse?
Released by Columbia Records in 2000, The Essential Bob Dylan launched Sony Music's double-disc series. It stretched from 1963's "Blowin' in the Wind" to the Oscar-winning "Things Have Changed."
· 3 min read
How Did Alan Jackson Pull Six Singles from One Album?
Alan Jackson released Everything I Love on October 29, 1996. The ten-track album went on to produce six singles, a run no other record in his career matched.
· 4 min read
Why Did Dolly Parton Bet Her Career on Bluegrass?
Dolly Parton released The Grass Is Blue on October 26, 1999, with no record deal at all, and turned a bluegrass album into a Grammy winner.
· 4 min read
Why Did Johnny Cash Fight Radio Over Bitter Tears?
Johnny Cash bought a full-page Billboard ad calling radio programmers gutless for refusing to play The Ballad of Ira Hayes. He then mailed out more than 1000 copies of the single himself.
· 4 min read
Don McLean's American Pie at 55
Don McLean's second album American Pie arrived on October 24, 1971, via United Artists Records. It turned a paperboy's memory of Buddy Holly into a national singalong.
· 3 min read
How Taylor Swift Made a Country Debut on Her Own Terms
Taylor Swift released her self-titled debut on Big Machine Records on October 24, 2006, with every song written or co-written by her.
· 4 min read
How Rory Gallagher Bet His Sound on a Stranger
In October 1976 Rory Gallagher released Calling Card, his sixth studio album. Deep Purple and Rainbow bassist Roger Glover produced it at Musicland Studios in Munich.
· 4 min read
How Trespass Nearly Ended Genesis and Then Saved It
Genesis released Trespass on 23 October 1970, the last album with guitarist Anthony Phillips and the only one with drummer John Mayhew. Phillips's departure nearly broke the band up.
· 4 min read
Elvis Costello's Almost Blue Risked Everything
Elvis Costello's Almost Blue, released on October 23, 1981, found him singing Hank Williams and George Jones songs. Producer Billy Sherrill worked with him in Nashville.
· 4 min read
How Buddy Holly Found Strings in His Final Session
Buddy Holly walked into New York's Pythian Temple studio on October 21, 1958, and cut two songs with an orchestra conducted by Dick Jacobs. They became his final recordings.
· 4 min read
Roxette Look Sharp! Broke America by Accident
Roxette's Look Sharp! reached number one in Sweden for seven weeks, yet EMI America had already rejected the duo as unsuitable for the United States.
· 4 min read
How Did Simon & Garfunkel's First Album Rise from Failure?
Simon & Garfunkel's debut album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. arrived on 19 October 1964 and sold poorly, until a remixed single pulled it back into the charts.
· 3 min read
How The Beatles Turned a Day Off Into 'Kansas City'
On 18 October 1964, The Beatles used a day off from their British tour to record 'Kansas City' at EMI's London studio, nailing the song in one take.
· 4 min read