Some traditional folksongs -- the broadside ballads -- were ways to spread news, which is a reasonable excuse to post this item to my "other journalism" weblog as well as my less active folk music blog. (You might play a few of these Irish and British songs in the background while reading this. One or two do fit the broadside category. You'll find out where the audio comes from in a minute.)
I was a fan of Roger (Jim) McGuinn when he was a backup musician for a series of early 1960s folk-revival performers (think "Mighty Wind" style if you must)... and I was even more of a fan a few years later, when he reappeared as wizard of the jangling 12-string Rickenbacker on "Mr. Tambourine Man," "8 Miles High," "Turn, Turn, Turn" and other hits by the Byrds.
So it was great to hear McGuinn in solo performance about 10 years ago in Chapel Hill. I remember sitting next to my "Cybercasting" professor, Paul Jones, and that we both talked to McGuinn afterward. (Paul is the chief wizard of the site formerly known as Sunsite.UNC, currently http://ibiblio.org)
I've never gotten around to asking Paul whether that concert was the "When Jimmy met Sunsite" moment that led to McGuinn's creating "Jimmy's Folk Den," which iBiblio still houses. Or maybe they had been in touch before the show.
In any case, McGuinn's site has presented a downloadable solo performance of a traditional "folk revival" sing-along favorite each month for all these years... a pioneering the "regularly published Internet audio" idea well ahead of the recent "audioblogging," "podcasting" and "podsafe music" movements.
By now, the collection has everything under the traditional sun -- blues, sea chanteys, ballads, spirituals, and those Irish and British songs -- each one accompanied by the lyrics and chords... perfect for a worldwide Web hootenanny singalong. (Which, fortunately, no one ever took to calling "Folkaraoke.")
The song-a-month project became a podcast when podcasting was young, and McGuinn now has a separate weblog, the 21st century personal broadside.
Now he's getting back to his "disc" roots -- offering a CD of higher-quality recordings of those old favorite songs from the Folk Den. Here's the announcement I saw (where else?) on The Real Paul Jones weblog:
Paul has more to say, and an excerpt from the CD notes...
And if you're considering the album as a gift for some old folky, get in the mood, with the FolkDen's online collection of seasonal songs... Having both sound and lyrics makes it great for laptop-equipped carollers. (Hmm... the laptop might keep your hands warm, too.)
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Footnote: Yes, I know. Still no actual podcast here, despite repeated threats. Still like the idea. Still don't have time. Probably because I get obsessive about links (hypertextual verbosity?) when writing items like this.
1:34:36 PM 
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