In a somewhat continuation of the Folk-y/Sting-y/Acoustic mood I have been in lately,  I have some more music I wanted to share.  I was pretty stoked with Old Crow Medicine Show’s Wagon Wheel, and am now equally stoked about Angel from Montgomery, which I learned was a John Prine cover from a recent tribute album.  (Rollo&Grady just put up “Lets Talk Dirty in Hawaiian” covered by Those Darlins.)  I guess recommending John Prine is like recommending Steve Goodman or Tom Waits (many people have heard of that person and probably know a song or two), but if you don’t know a lot of John Prine, a couple great jems include Dear Abby, Angel from Montgomery, and Spanish Pipedream.

While I was satisfied with this great cover of the Paul Simon song Graceland, it wasn’t till another post about the best songs of 2010 that I really investigated The Tallest Man On Earth.  Definitely check out King of Spain.

Too folky? Rollo Grady also has a link to a recent Black Keys appearance on KCRW.

Despite looking like a Norwegian Gozer the Gozarian, Robyn has really grown on me. Though quite different from another favorite song from her, Konichiwa, Bitches, the song Dancing On My Own would be on a personal Top Songs Of The Year list, if I did one of those. You can watch the original video, or just see her perform it at the Nobel Peace Prize concert (cause thats real and not made up!?!): (its the second song)

I haven’t done too much digging for string bands; my previous experience with them was limited to enjoying .357 String band from knowing Kate Brice and not enjoying Yonder Mountain String Band from hearing Joan’s ipod. But after helping dj for a bunch of Irish kids who wanted to hear “Mum-feerd!” every week, I fell in love with Mumford and Sons, a folk-rock band from England who has been getting a lot or radio play recently. If you’ve only heard Little Lion Man or The Cave, definitely give the rest of the cd a listen.

Their all of sudden popularity seems to have forced stations like WXRT to start playing more folk/string bands like The Avett Brothers, another folk rock band from North Carolina who are also worth a listen. They have been around a little longer and have a deeper catalog to peruse. I had not heard of their last album, I and Love and You, until more recently despite being on many blogs’ best-of-the-year-end lists, being produced by Rick Rubin and even going #16 in the us charts.

While I might mock Joan for her love of the Yonder Mountain String band, she did introduce me to Old Crow Medicine Show, a nashville band that seem to be hugely popular (and not new at all) with some people and unknown with most others. Wagon Wheel, from 2004’s OCMS album, is an uncompleted song found in a Bob Dylan bootleg that was expanded to now be their most famous song. Probably one of my current favorite songs: