Joni Mitchell – Blue
Joni Mitchell’s Blue, which arrived in June 1971, stands as the definitive, foundational document of the singer-songwriter era, capturing an artist at the absolute…
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– Folk
Carole King – Tapestry
Carole King’s Tapestry, which arrived in February 1971, stands as the quintessential masterwork of the singer-songwriter era, capturing an artist at the absolute zenith…
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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Deja’ vu
Released in March 1970, Déjà Vu stands as the definitive document of the supergroup era, capturing Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young at the absolute…
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Cat Stevens – Tea for the Tillerman
Released in late 1970, Cat Stevens’ Tea for the Tillerman stands as a defining, landmark record that helped establish the intimate, introspective singer-songwriter aesthetic…
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James Taylor – Sweet Baby James
The 1970 release of James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James stands as a defining, landmark record that helped establish the intimate, introspective singer-songwriter aesthetic that…
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Simon & Garfunkel – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
Emerging from the tail end of the folk revival, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme stands as a breathtaking refinement of the duo’s vocal and…
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Bert Jansch – Bert Jansch
In April 1965, a young Scottish troubadour walked into a London flat with a borrowed guitar and recorded an album that would permanently rewrite…
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Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home
n March 1965, the American folk revival was delivered a beautifully chaotic, plugged-in death blow. Bob Dylan, the undisputed prophet of the acoustic protest…
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Jacques Brel – Olympia 64
To witness Jacques Brel on a concert stage was to watch a man slowly, deliberately destroy himself for art. He did not merely interpret…
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Donovan – Sunshine Superman
By the mid-1960s, Donovan had earned a reputation as Britain’s answer to Bob Dylan, a label that was never entirely fair. While his earliest…
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Bob Dylan – Blonde on Blonde
Some albums change an artist’s career. Others change music itself. Blonde on Blonde somehow managed to do both while sounding like nothing else that…
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The Byrds – Mr. Tambourine Man
The mid-1960s were one of popular music’s most fertile periods, with new sounds emerging seemingly every month. British rock bands were dominating the charts,…
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Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
Sometimes an album arrives at exactly the right cultural moment. In 2008, popular music was increasingly dominated by glossy pop production, electronic experimentation, and…
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Grateful Dead – American Beauty
Few bands have undergone as dramatic an evolution as the Grateful Dead during their first five years. Emerging from San Francisco’s psychedelic underground as…
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Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
Few albums have altered the course of popular music as profoundly as The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Released in 1963, it transformed a relatively unknown…
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Paul Simon – Graceland
Few albums have reinvented an artist’s career as dramatically as Graceland. By the mid-1980s, Paul Simon was already recognized as one of America’s greatest…
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Don McLean – American Pie
Some albums become cultural landmarks because of a single unforgettable song. Others endure because the music surrounding that hit proves just as compelling. American…
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Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited
Popular music was changing at a breathtaking pace in 1965, and no artist was driving that transformation more aggressively than Bob Dylan. Having already…
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Joan Baez – Joan Baez
When Joan Baez released her self-titled debut album in 1960, the American folk revival was still gathering momentum. Coffeehouses were beginning to fill with…
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Machito – Kenya
Machito & His Afro-Cubans: Kenya — The Album That Redrew the Map of Jazz Released 1957 (Roulette Records) | Genre: Afro-Cuban Jazz / Mambo…
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Ramblin’ Jack Elliott – Jack Takes the Floor
Long before the folk revival reached its commercial peak in the early 1960s, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott was already carrying traditional American songs from coffeehouses…
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