folk

The Blind Boys of Alabama are a gospel music group from Alabama that first formed at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in 1939. Although the Blind Boys of Alabama have been singing gospel music for more than five decades, it's only recently that the group has had the benefit of a major record company behind them. Led by founding member Clarence Fountain, the rest of the group currently consists of Eric McKinney, George Scott, Caleb Butler, Johnny Field, Jimmy Carter, Joey Williams, Donald Dillion and Aubrey Blount.

taraful haiducilor (a.k.a. Taraf de Haïdouks) are a troupe of Romanian Gypsy musicians, from the town of Clejani, the most prominent such group in Romania in the post-Communist Era. "Haiduc" or "haiduk" is a word of Balkan origin which means something like "outlaw"; in Romanian it has a rustic or archaic connotation. Most of those who know the band in the Western world know them by way of French-speaking areas, where they are known as "Taraf de Haïdouks", since French lacks a genitive case. They are known in their native Romania as "taraful haiducilor".

Harry Manx is a musician who blends blues, folk, and Hindustani classical music. Born on the Isle of Man and raised in Ontario, he is currently living on Saltspring Island, BC, Canada. He plays slide guitar, harmonica, six-string banjo, cigar-box guitar and the Mohan Veena (a 20-stringed guitar/sitar hybrid). He studied for five years in India with Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. Discography: * Dog My Cat (2001)
* Wise and Otherwise (2002)
* Jubilee (with Kevin Breit) (2003)
* Road Ragas Live (2003)

I've never tried to mask my unbridled desire for the Jewelled Antler Collective - these San Francisco-based forest dwellers have managed to do something quite magical in them there woods, and make psychedelic folk music (free folk, new weird America, whatever) sound simply irresistible. I don't know what it is really, maybe it's the guiding hand of Thuja-member and founder of the whole thing Loren Chasse, who appears here as the spiritual frontman of Softwar.