b. 19 December 1940, El Paso, Texas, USA, d. 9 April 1976, Far Rockaway, New York, USA. A superior singer-songwriter, particularly adept at the topical song, Phil Ochs began his career at Ohio State University. He initially performed in a folk-singin…

b. 15 October 1935, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. McGuire first came to prominence as a minor actor in Route 66 before teaming up with singer Barry Kane as Barry And Barry. In 1962, he joined the New Christy Minstrels and appeared as lead singer on s…

Other than Bob Dylan, Fred Neil was perhaps the single most influential singer-songwriter of the '60s US folk boom. With his cavernous baritone and loose-limbed acoustic guitar strumming, he was probably the first singer-songwriter to integrate jazz …

Adding ringing electric guitars to Bob Dylan songs, the Byrds helped invent folk-rock, as well as becoming early proponents of psychedelia and popularizing country-rock with the help of alt-country saint Gram Parsons. Led by Roger McGuinn and his dis…

Tim Hardin was a truly unique stylist who gained attention as part of the Greenwich Village-based singer/songwriter explosion of the mid-1960s. His jazzy phrasing, inscrutable lyrics, unusual chord progressions, and unconventional song structures set…

A prolific and mature songwriter by her early teens, Janis Ian burst on the pop scene in 1967 with the hit "Society's Child." Although she did not score another hit until eight years later with "At Seventeen" (which went to number one), many artists…

One of the premier beat groups from the mid-60s Merseybeat explosion, the Liverpool-based Searchers were formed in 1960 by Chris Curtis (b. Christopher Crummey, 26 August 1941, Oldham, Lancashire, England; drums), Mike Pender (b. Michael John Prender…

One of the best--and most underrated--singer/songwriters to come out of the 1960s folk boom, Tom Paxton wrote love songs and topical satires with equal fluency. A contemporary of Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs, he helped create the template for protest song…

Bob Dylan began as a Woody Guthrie acolyte, imitating the dust-bowl balladeer as faithfully as a baby boomer from Hibbing, Minnesota, could. It wasn't long before he found his own voice, spearheading the early-1960s folk revival as well as the singer…

One of the best female folksingers of the '60s, Judy Collins championed other important songwriters (Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen) and eventually incorporated elements of cabaret and sophisticated pop a la Sondheim and Kurt Weill.

Without Pete Seeger, American folk music as we know it today would be radically different. Seeger was one of modern folk's earliest and most significant architects, from his work in the 1940s with the Almanac Singers (of which Woody Guthrie was a mem…

One of the first 1960s San Francisco psychedelic bands to find a national audience, they were equal parts protest folkies, jug band carousers, and Eastern influenced hypnotic conjurers. Their debut still captures the era better than just about anythi…

He began as a Guthrie/Dylan-style folkie, but soon Donovan Leitch adopted a more psychedelic flower-power stance. His knack for sunny, wistful pop songs produced a batch of giant 1960s hits. His fragile manchild voice and image made him a hippie pinu…

Love's first three albums are the bridge between the Byrds and the Doors. Masterminded by Arthur Lee, the group's garage-folk hybrid hid a dark underbelly that hinted at menace in the midst of the peace-and-love era. Their sturdy songs were boldly wr…

In the '60s and '70s, Canadian songsmith Gordon Lightfoot achieved the perfect marriage of folk and pop. His rich baritone was mellifluous enough to carry the elegantly catchy melodies of songs that possessed considerable substance beneath their unde…

The definitive British folk-rock band, Fairport Convention took the traditional music of England and injected it with electricity and rock energy, sparking a whole musical movement in the U.K. in the late 1960s and early '70s. The late-'60s incarnati…

Buffy Sainte-Marie is celebrated as much for her diligent activism on behalf of Native Americans as for her soul-piercing folk music, which, in her 1960s heyday, endeared her to mainstream audiences as well as a more radical crowd. Her 1964 debut alb…

One of the most legendary unrecorded groups, the Rising Sons consisted of Taj Mahal (b. Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, 17 May 1940, New York City, New York, USA; vocals, guitar), Ry Cooder (vocals, guitar), Gary Marker (bass), Ed Cassidy (drums) and J…

Not unlike his friend Bobby Darin, Dion Dimucci was a native New Yorker who started out as a rock & roller in the 1950s and went through a series of drastic stylistic changes. He began as a doo wop hitmaker with his group the Belmonts, turning out su…

One of the quintessential San Francisco psychedelic bands, the Jefferson Airplane brought together interests in acoustic blues, folk, and rock music. Add political topicality and modal improvisations, and you have an inspired, mind-bending sound tha…