American folk guitarists

Question

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

Answer 1

Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, and author. He was widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century and one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. Although primarily remembered as a country music icon, his genre-spanning songs and sound embraced rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal won Cash the rare honor of multiple inductions in the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame.

Cash was known for his deep, calm bass-baritone voice, the distinctive sound of his Tennessee Three backing band, a rebelliousness coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor, free prison concerts, and a trademark look, which earned him the nickname "The Man in Black." He traditionally began his concerts with the simple "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash," followed by his signature "Folsom Prison Blues".

Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation and redemption, especially in the later stages of his career. His signature songs include "I Walk the Line", "Folsom Prison Blues", "Ring of Fire", "Get Rhythm", and "Man in Black". He also recorded humorous numbers like "One Piece at a Time" and "A Boy Named Sue"; a duet with his future wife, June Carter, called "Jackson" (followed by many further duets after their marriage); and railroad songs including "Hey, Porter", "Orange Blossom Special" and "Rock Island Line". During the last stage of his career, Cash covered songs by several late 20th-century rock artists, notably "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails and "Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode.

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Answer 2

Harry Chapin

Harry Chapin

Harry Forster Chapin (December 7, 1942 – July 16, 1981) was an American singer-songwriter best known for his folk rock songs including "Taxi", "W*O*L*D", and the No. 1 hit "Cat's in the Cradle".

Chapin was also a dedicated humanitarian who fought to end world hunger; he was a key participant in the creation of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger in 1977. In 1987, Chapin was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his humanitarian work.

Chapin was born in New York City, the second of four children who also included future musicians Tom and Steve. His parents were Jeanne Elspeth (née Burke) and Jim Chapin, a legendary percussionist. He had English ancestry, his great-grandparents having immigrated in the late 19th century. His parents divorced in 1950, with his mother retaining custody of their four sons, as Jim spent much of his time on the road as a drummer for Big band era acts such as Woody Herman. She married, secondly, to Films in Review magazine editor Henry Hart a few years later. Chapin's maternal grandfather was literary critic Kenneth Burke.

Chapin's first formal introduction to music was while singing in the Brooklyn Boys Choir, where Chapin met "Big" John Wallace, a tenor with a five-octave range, who later became his bassist, backing vocalist, and his straight man onstage. Chapin began performing with his brothers while a teenager, with their father occasionally joining them on drums. Chapin graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1960 and was among the five inductees in the school's Alumni Hall Of Fame for the year 2000. He briefly attended the United States Air Force Academy and was then an intermittent student at Cornell University but did not complete a degree.

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Answer 3

Tracy Chapman

Tracy Chapman

Tracy Chapman (born March 30, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter, known for her hits "Fast Car" and "Give Me One Reason", along with other singles "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution", "Baby Can I Hold You", "Crossroads", "New Beginning" and "Telling Stories". She is a multi-platinum and four-time Grammy Award-winning artist.

Chapman was signed to Elektra Records by Bob Krasnow in 1987. The following year she released her critically acclaimed debut album Tracy Chapman, which became a multi-platinum worldwide hit. The album garnered Chapman six Grammy Award nominations, including Album of the Year, three of which she won, including Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her single "Fast Car", and Best New Artist. Chapman released her second album Crossroads the following year, which garnered her an additional Grammy nomination. Since then, Chapman has experienced further success with six more studio albums, which include her multi-platinum fourth album New Beginning, for which she won a fourth Grammy Award, for Best Rock Song, for its lead single "Give Me One Reason". Chapman's most recent release is Our Bright Future, in 2008.

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Answer 4

Ben Chasny

Ben Chasny

Ben Chasny is an indie rock and psychedelic folk guitarist. His primary projects are Six Organs of Admittance (his solo psych folk project) and Comets on Fire (a psychedelic rock band). He made his recording debut in 1996 with his heavy, free rock project Plague Lounge on "The Wicker Image", an LP released conjointly between the New World of Sound and Holy Mountain labels. Holy Mountain went on to become the "home" of many of his releases under the Six Organs Of Admittance moniker. He has also released an album with Hiroyuki Usui under the name August Born. Chasny has lent his talents to other projects such as Badgerlore, Double Leopards, Current 93 and Magik Markers both in live performance and studio albums. More recent musical projects of his include the avant-folk trio Rangda (along with guitarist Richard Bishop and drummer Chris Corsano) and the more melodic and conventional 200 Years with Magik Markers' Elisa Ambrogio.

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Answer 5

Vic Chesnutt

Vic Chesnutt

James Victor "Vic" Chesnutt (November 12, 1964 – December 25, 2009) was an American singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia. His first album, Little, was released in 1990, but his breakthrough to commercial success didn't come until 1996 with the release of Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation, a charity record of alternative artists covering his songs.

Chesnutt released 17 albums during his career, including two produced by Michael Stipe, and a 1996 release on Capitol Records, About to Choke. His musical style has been described by Bryan Carroll of allmusic.com as a "skewed, refracted version of Americana that is haunting, funny, poignant, and occasionally mystical, usually all at once".

Injuries from a 1983 car accident left him partially paralyzed; he used a wheelchair and had limited use of his hands.

An adoptee, Chesnutt was raised in Zebulon, Georgia, where he first started writing songs at the age of five. When he was 13, Chesnutt declared that he was an atheist, a position that he maintained for the rest of his life.

At 18, a car accident left him partially paralyzed; in a December 1, 2009 interview with Terry Gross on her NPR show Fresh Air, he said he was "a quadriplegic from [his] neck down", and although he had feeling and some movement in his body, he could not walk "functionally" and that, although he realized shortly afterward that he could still play guitar, he could only play simple chords. After his recovery he left Zebulon and moved to Nashville, Tennessee; the poetry he read there (by Stevie Smith, Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, W. H. Auden, Stephen Crane, and Emily Dickinson) served to inspire and influence him.

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Answer 6

Frank Christian (singer-songwriter)

Frank Christian (born Frank P. Caputo, October 19, 1952 – December 24, 2012) was a Greenwich Village-based singer-songwriter and guitarist. His best-known song, "Three Flights Up" was recorded by Nanci Griffith for her Grammy award-winning 1992 release Other Voices, Other Rooms.

Christian has also had much success as a sideman. He has appeared on dozens of albums, backing such performers as Dave Van Ronk, Suzanne Vega, John Gorka, Nanci Griffith, and The Smithereens.

He began his guitar studies with the jazz guitarist Roosevelt Span.

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Answer 7

David Clark (guitar player)

David Clark (born ~1959 in Macon, Georgia) is an American guitar player, folklorist and newspaper columnist. As of 2013, he resides in Georgia.

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Answer 8

Guy Clark

Guy Clark

Guy Charles Clark (November 6, 1941 – May 17, 2016) was an American Texas country and folk singer, musician, songwriter, recording artist, and performer. He released more than twenty albums, and his songs have been recorded by other artists including Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffett, Lyle Lovett, Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner, and Rodney Crowell. He won the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album: My Favorite Picture of You.

Clark was born in Monahans, Texas, and eventually settled in Nashville, where he helped create the progressive country and outlaw country genres. His songs "L.A. Freeway" and "Desperados Waiting for a Train" that helped launch his career were covered by numerous performers. The New York Times described him as "a king of the Texas troubadours", declaring his body of work "was as indelible as that of anyone working in the Americana idiom in the last decades of the 20th century".

He was an accomplished luthier and often played his own guitars. He achieved success as a songwriter with Jerry Jeff Walker's recordings of "L.A. Freeway" and "Desperados Waiting for a Train". Artists such as Johnny Cash, David Allan Coe, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner, Hayes Carll, Brad Paisley, John Denver, Alan Jackson, Rodney Crowell, The Highwaymen, and Kenny Chesney have recorded Clark's songs.Emmylou Harris has accompanied him on several recordings, particularly his own version of "Desperados Waiting for a Train" on his first album, Old No. 1, released in 1975.

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Answer 9

John Ford Coley

John Ford Coley

John Ford Coley (born October 13, 1948) is an American singer, classically trained pianist, guitarist, actor, and author most known for his partnership in the musical duo England Dan & John Ford Coley.

John Ford Coley was born John Edward Colley in Dallas, Texas. He grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry, early rock and roll, singing church hymns and was trained as a classical pianist. At 16, while at W.W. Samuell High School in Dallas, John along with fellow schoolmate Dan Seals joined the group "Theze Few" which later became "The Southwest FOB" (Freight on Board) and toured the Texas music scene where they had one hit "The Smell of Incense" that in 1969 rose to number 43 on the charts. This band played on the bill with such acts as Led Zeppelin and others.

While in the band, Seals and Coley began their own acoustic act: Colley and Wayland. The act was renamed England Dan & John Ford Coley, and the duo was signed by A&M Records. In 1971, the two moved to Los Angeles where they opened for numerous bands. Their first break came in 1972 with the song "Simone". It became a number one hit in Japan and was quite popular in France. However, "Simone" did not fare as well in the United States, and the two were released from their contract with A&M after three albums.

Two years later, they acquired another record deal from Atlantic Records subsidiary Big Tree Records and released the song "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight". Overall they had four top tens and two top twenties. They were nominated for a Grammy award, received triple-platinum and gold records and released eight albums; additionally, others were released abroad.

The duo disbanded in 1980.

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Answer 10

Shana Cleveland

Shana Cleveland

Shana Cleveland is an artist based out of Los Angeles, California best known for her work fronting surf rock band La Luz as lead guitarist and vocalist. Cleveland has also found success as a member of former group, The Curious Mystery, as well as working as a solo artist, having released her first solo album with backing group the Sandcastles in 2015. In addition to her career as a musician, Cleveland has done work as a writer and a graphic artist. Her work has appeared in places such as Black Clock, the Columbia Poetry Review, Court Green, and Vice.

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