American folk guitarists

Question

This piglix contains articles or sub-piglix about American folk guitarists

Answer 1

Deidre McCalla

Deidre McCalla is an American singer-songwriter from New York City. McCalla was raised around the folk music scene of Macdougal Street in New York, where she began her career. In the 1990s, she moved to northern California. She has released several albums on the women's music label Olivia Records.

She has worked with Teresa Trull, Mike Marshall, Linda Tillery, Bonnie Hayes, and other musicians. She has stated that she is a lesbian.

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Answer 2

Tim Scott McConnell

Tim Scott McConnell

Tim Scott McConnell aka Tim Scott or Ledfoot (born March 25, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and 12-string guitarist who performs since 2007 under the artist name Ledfoot and created the music genre Gothic blues. He calls himself the "Master of Gothic Blues". The artist's repertoire consists solely of self-written songs. His songs are barely available over radio or TV channels. They have been released on audio albums only. Newer songs can be obtained via online stores. One of his most famous songs is "What You Mean To Me". A live video clip is available on YouTube.

Two of his songs gained international popularity through other artists:

McConnell started touring at the age of 15. He got his first recording contract with Sire Records in 1982. He then recorded for Geffen on his next record in 1985, called "High Lonesome Sound". McConnell headed the LA-based band The Havalinas. The band recorded one album The Havalinas and a live album called Go North. After the break-up of The Havalinas, McConnell did a series of solo albums and toured with a band. In 2007, he released his first Ledfoot album and started touring heavily in Europe solo. He plays mainly solo with the Ledfoot project up until today.

As Ledfoot McConnell developed his own music style, the "Gothic Blues", between 2004 and 2007. This new style could not be defined by any existing music genre, so he invented a name for it. It is characterized by the unique artist's appearance: black clothes, shiny white hair, silver jewelry and a body full of tattoos - many of which designed by the artist himself. He sings with expressive and strong voice, plays the 12-string mostly in Bb minor tuning with porcelain slide and steel finger picks. Extra heavy strings contribute to a unique, strong sound. Frequently Ledfoot adds some extra rhythm with his stomp box. Lyrics and melody are often dark and atmospheric and describe the blues and worries of modern time human beings.

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Answer 3

Country Joe McDonald

Country Joe McDonald

Joseph Allen "Country Joe" McDonald (born January 1, 1942) is an American musician who was the lead singer of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Country Joe and the Fish.

McDonald was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in El Monte, California, where he was student conductor and president of his high school marching band. At the age of 17, he enlisted in the United States Navy for three years and was stationed in Japan. After his enlistment, he attended Los Angeles City College for a year. In the early 1960s, he began busking on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California. His father, Worden McDonald, from Oklahoma, was of Scottish Presbyterian heritage (the son of a minister); he worked for a telephone company. His mother, Florence Plotnick, was the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants and served for many years on the Berkeley City Council. In their youth, both were Communist Party members before renouncing the cause, and named their son after Joseph Stalin.

McDonald has recorded 33 albums and has written hundreds of songs over a career spanning 40 years. In 1965, he and Barry Melton co-founded Country Joe & the Fish which became a pioneer psychedelic rock band with their eclectic performances at the Avalon Ballroom, the Fillmore, the Monterey Pop Festival, and both the and Woodstock Festivals.

Their best known song is his "The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" (1965), a black comedy novelty song about the Vietnam War, whose familiar chorus ("One, two, three, what are we fighting for?") is well known to the generation and Vietnam veterans of the 1960s and '70s. McDonald wrote the song in about 20 minutes for an anti-Vietnam War play. The "Fish Cheer" was the band performing a call-and-response with the audience, spelling the word "fish", followed by Country Joe yelling, "What's that spell?" twice, with the audience responding, and then, the third time, "What's that spell?", followed immediately by the song. The "Fish Cheer" evolved into the "**** Cheer" after the Berkeley free speech movement. The cheer was on the original recording of "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag", being played right before the song on the LP of the same name. The cheer became popular and the crowd would spell out F-I-S-H when the band performed live. During the summer of 1968 the band played on the Schaefer Music Festival tour.Gary "Chicken" Hirsh suggested before one of the shows to spell the word "****" instead of "fish." Although the crowd loved it, the management of the Schaefer Beer Festival did not and kicked the band off the tour for life. The Ed Sullivan Show then canceled a previously scheduled appearance by the band, telling them to keep the money they had already been paid in exchange for never playing on the show. The modified cheer continued at most of the band's live shows throughout the years, including Woodstock and elsewhere. In Massachusetts, McDonald was fined $500 for uttering "****" in public.

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Answer 4

David McEnery

Red River Dave McEnery (born David Largus McEnery) (December 15, 1914 – January 15, 2002) was an artist, musician, and writer of topical songs. He was born in San Antonio, Texas. He got the nickname "Red River Dave" because he enjoyed singing "Red River Valley" in high school. He was the leader of The Swift Cowboys.

As a teenager, he appeared regularly on KABC radio. Dave began his career by singing, yodeling, and performing rope tricks at rodeos. In 1936, he broadcast a live singing performance from the Goodyear Blimp over CBS AM radio station WQAM in Miami. His career really took off with his song "Amelia Earhart's Last Flight", broadcast in a pioneer television broadcast from the 1939 New York World's Fair. He worked for radio station WOR (AM) in New York City. He was a radio personality in border radio for station XERF. In the latter part of his life, he became a well-known painter of Texas landscapes and Western Americana themes and was often known to paint the backs of his used guitars.

He worked in several westerns as a singing cowboy, including Swing in the Saddle (1944), Hidden Valley Days (1948) and Echo Ranch (1948).

Red River Dave's songs have been recorded by Hank Snow and Tex Ritter.

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Answer 5

Roger McGuinn

Roger McGuinn

James Roger McGuinn /məˈɡwɪn/ (born James Joseph McGuinn III; July 13, 1942) known professionally as Roger McGuinn and previously as Jim McGuinn, is an American musician. He is best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist on many of the Byrds' records. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work with the Byrds.

He was also part of an author/musician band "Rock Bottom Remainders", a group of published writers doubling as musicians to raise proceeds for literacy charities. In July 2013, McGuinn co-authored an interactive ebook, Hard Listening, with the rest of the group.

McGuinn was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. His parents, James and Dorothy, were involved in journalism and public relations, and during his childhood, they had written a bestseller titled Parents Can't Win. He attended The Latin School of Chicago. He became interested in music after hearing Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel", and asked his parents to buy him a guitar. (During the early 1980s, he paid tribute to the song that encouraged him to play guitar by including "Heartbreak Hotel" in his autobiographical show). Around the same time, he was also influenced by country artists and/or groups such as Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, and The Everly Brothers.

In 1957, he enrolled as a student at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, where he learned the five-string banjo and continued to improve his guitar skills. After graduation, McGuinn performed solo at various coffeehouses on the folk music circuit where he was hired as a sideman by the Limeliters, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and Judy Collins and other folk music artists in the same vein. He also played guitar and sang backup harmonies for Bobby Darin. Soon after, he relocated to the West Coast, eventually Los Angeles, where he eventually met the future members of The Byrds.

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Answer 6

Andy McKee

Andy McKee

Andy McKee (born April 4, 1979 in Topeka, Kansas) is an American fingerstyle guitar player who has released five albums and been the subject of YouTube videos.

McKee played his first guitar, an Aria nylon string bought by his father, at age 13. Initially underwhelmed by his guitar lessons, McKee began teaching himself how to play guitar. He began learning shred guitar music, including songs by Metallica, Eric Johnson, and Joe Satriani. McKee's electric guitar-playing cousin inspired him to continue learning, taking him out for his 16th birthday to see a guitarist named Preston Reed perform live at a clinic. McKee later bought an instructional videotape from Reed and began to learn many of his acoustic guitar techniques from it. Later that year, with his mother's permission, he obtained his GED in order to quit attending high school and play more guitar. He began to be influenced by guitarists such as Michael Hedges, Billy McLaughlin, Pat Kirtley, and from Passion Session by Don Ross, as he continued studying the instrument on his own.

In 2001, McKee independently released his first album, Nocturne. That same year, he was placed third at the National Fingerstyle Guitar Competition in Winfield, Kansas. In 2003, McKee toured in Taiwan with Jacques Stotzem, Isato Nakagawa, and Masaaki Kishibe, and earned first place in the Miscellaneous Acoustic Instrument contest of the New Jersey State Fiddling and Picking Championships with a Ron Spillers harpguitar he purchased from Stephen Bennett in 2002.^, The instrument can be heard in a number of his songs on later albums, such as "Into The Ocean" and "Gates of Gnomeria". Only 1,000 copies of Nocturne were ever produced and the album is now out of circulation.

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Answer 7

Lori McKenna

Lori McKenna

Lori McKenna (née Giroux) (born December 22, 1968) is an American folk singer-songwriter. She lives in Stoughton, Massachusetts with her husband and five children.

In 2016 she was nominated for the Grammy Award for Song of the Year and won Best Country Song for co-writing the hit song "Girl Crush" performed by Little Big Town.

McKenna started writing songs as a teenager, and became a professional songwriter at the age of 27, when she was already married and had three children. She began singing at open mic nights in Boston, notably at the Blackthorn Tavern in nearby Easton, and eventually at her own shows. Working with her then manager Gabriel Unger, McKenna released four independent CDs: Paper Wings and Halo (produced by Seth Connelly), Pieces of Me (produced by Crit Harmon), The Kitchen Tapes (self-produced demos), and Bittertown (produced by Lorne Entress). During this period she recorded for Signature Sounds, won awards from ASCAP and the Boston Music Awards, performed at the Sundance Film Festival, the Newport Folk Festival and played many venues in the Northeast.

In 2004 McKenna signed a publishing deal with Nashville's Harlan Howard Music after Mary Gauthier shared McKenna's Bittertown with Melanie Howard. McKenna gained more attention in 2005, when Faith Hill recorded covers of four of McKenna's songs – three of which (including the title track) appeared on Hill's 2005 release Fireflies, the fourth as an exclusive to the iTunes Store.

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Answer 8

Don McLean

Donald "Don" McLean III (born October 2, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter best known for the 1971 album American Pie, containing the songs "American Pie" and "Vincent".

McLean's grandfather and father were also named Donald McLean. The Buccis, the family of McLean's mother, Elizabeth, came from Abruzzo in central Italy. They left Italy and settled in Port Chester, New York, at the end of the 19th century. He has other extended family in Los Angeles and Boston.

Though some of his early musical influences included Frank Sinatra and Buddy Holly, as a teenager, McLean became interested in folk music, particularly the Weavers' 1955 recording At Carnegie Hall. Childhood asthma meant that McLean missed long periods of school, particularly music lessons, and although he slipped back in his studies, his love of music was allowed to flourish. He often performed shows for family and friends. By age 16 he had bought his first guitar (a Harmony acoustic archtop with a sunburst finish) and began making contacts in the music business, becoming friends with folk singers Erik Darling and Fred Hellerman, both members of the Weavers. Hellerman said, "He called me one day and said, 'I'd like to come and visit you', and that's what he did! We became good friends - he has the most remarkable music memory of anyone I've ever known." McLean recorded his first studio sessions (with singer Lisa Kindred) while still in prep school.

When McLean was 15, his father died. Fulfilling his father's request, McLean graduated from Iona Preparatory School in 1963, and briefly attended Villanova University, dropping out after four months. While at Villanova he became friends with singer/songwriter Jim Croce.

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Answer 9

Erin McKeown

Erin McKeown (pronounced "mick-YONE") is an American multi-instrumentalist and folk-rock singer-songwriter.

McKeown's music is difficult to categorize. It touches on pop, swing, rock, folk, and electronic music, as well as many other genres. McKeown cites The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as an influence on her music.

She grew up in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and now lives in Massachusetts. McKeown began her career in the folk scene. She released her first album, Monday Morning Cold in 1999 on her own label (TVP Records), travelling throughout New England while a student at Brown University in order to promote the record. Although she had begun studying ornithology, she graduated from Brown with a degree in ethnomusicology. Early in her career, she collaborated with Beth Amsel, Jess Klein, and Rose Polenzani; the four of them performed as Voices on the Verge.

McKeown's 2005 album, We Will Become Like Birds (produced by Tucker Martine), served as a departure from her earlier work, with a more rock-oriented sound. At a September 1, 2008, concert at The Gravity Lounge in Charlottesville, Virginia, McKeown told the audience that she wrote this album "in an attempt to write myself out of the worst heartache I'd experienced up to that point." Her next studio release, Sing You Sinners, was released in Europe on the 23 October 2006 and in the United States on January 9, 2007 by Nettwerk. It consists mostly of covers of jazz standards from the 1920s through 1950s.

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Answer 10

James McMurtry

James McMurtry

James McMurtry (born March 18, 1962 in Fort Worth, Texas) is an American rock and folk rock/americana singer, songwriter, guitarist, bandleader, and occasional actor (Daisy Miller, Lonesome Dove, and narrator of Ghost Town: 24 Hours in Terlingua). He performs with veteran bandmates Daren Hess, Cornbread, and Tim Holt.

His father, novelist Larry McMurtry, gave him his first guitar at age seven. His mother, an English professor, taught him how to play it: "My mother taught me three chords and the rest I just stole as I went along. I learned everything by ear or by watching people."

McMurtry spent the first seven years of his boyhood in Ft. Worth but was raised mostly in Leesburg, Virginia. He attended the Woodberry Forest School, Orange, Virginia. He began performing in his teens, writing bits and pieces. He started performing his own songs at a downtown beer garden while studying English and Spanish at the University of Arizona in Tucson. After traveling to Alaska and playing a few gigs, he returned to Texas and his father's "little bitty ranch house crammed with 10,000 books". After a time, he left for San Antonio, where he worked as a house painter, actor, bartender, and sometimes singer, performing at writer's nights and open mics.

In 1987 McMurtry's career entered an upswing. A friend in San Antonio suggested McMurtry enter the Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk songwriter contest; he became one of six winners that year. Also around this time John Mellencamp was starring in a film based on a script by McMurtry's father, which gave McMurtry the opportunity to get a demo tape to Mellencamp. Mellencamp subsequently served as co-producer on McMurtry's 1989 debut album, Too Long in the Wasteland. McMurtry also appeared on the soundtrack of the film Falling from Grace, working with Mellencamp, John Prine, Joe Ely, and Dwight Yoakam in a "supergroup" called Buzzin' Cousins.

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