Playlist#1 Folk Roots Music: Women

1. Joan Baez: "It Ain't Me,Babe"

Joan Baez was the largest breakout female folk singer of the revival. Her music consists mainly of her playing a guitar to complement her strong vocals. The folk feature that is important in her music is her use of vibrato vocals and the political and social context of her songs.

2. Joni Mitchell: "Both Sides Now"

Joni Mitchell played a great part in the songwriting style and content of songs the folk revival. Because she was part of the first generation of singers to write their own songs, Joni was able to break through as a singer partly due to her poetic lyrics. However, not only her lyrics and voice classify her as a folk genre, she also slaps her guitar, giving the song a classic folk beat.

3. Buffy Sainte Marie: "Welcome, Welcome Emigrante"

Buffy Sainte Mairie embodies the folk qualities of the 1960's by using vibrato in her voice and singing lyrics similar to Woody Guthrie's "This Land is your Land", which deals with nationalism and country pride.

4. Janis Ian: "Society's Child"

As just a age of thirteen, Janis Ian touches the heart of America with her strong soulful voice, however, her song "Society's Child" was also chosen because it was too innovative for the time, causing outbreaks due to its content. These outbreaks shined light on her message and allowed such serious topics to be sung by folk singers of today.

5. Odetta: "The Midnight Special"

Odetta transforms traditional soul music into that of American folk by using her deep powerful voice to convey feeling, but with a sonic style of the keyboard that would grab the attention and influence many folk music idols, such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Janis Joplin.

6. Sylvia Fricker: "You Were On My Mind"

In duet form, Sylvia utilizes traditional falsetto vocals to correspond with a more classic melody using instruments like the piano and guitar. The song reached popularity in it's time, and a cover version was used by 'We Five', which became a hit single.

7. Emmylou Harris: "I"ll Be Your Baby Tonight"

"I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" is written by Bob Dylan. Emmylou Harris' cover of the song includes high-pitched vocals surrounding a customary guitar beat. The female version of the song struck listeners due to the enticing difference in pitch between Emmylou's voice and the guitars strum.

8. Rosalie Sorrels: "If I could be the rain"

Rosalie Sorrels is most known for her collection of traditional folk songs embracing traditional lyrics through her history of poetry and song. The tinge to her guitar gives her songs the authentic feeling that accompanies that traditional style.

9. Aretha Franklin: "I Never Loved A Man"

Aretha Franklin is best known for her singles "Respect" and "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me). Declared as the Queen of Soul, Aretha is the outlier of this folk collection. Although not normally included as a folkway singer, her early work, such as "I Never Loved A Man" include elements of folk music. However, the elements of otherness surround her sound, the inclusion of the horn instruments and the push she gives to her voice contain a dramatic jazz quality.

10. Peggy Seeger: "Freight Train"

Peggy Seeger came from an influential family to the folk music-sphere. Her brothers Mike and Pete were popular old-time folk singers and songwriters. Although they were more well known than Peggy, she held her own when it came to her sonic elements. Using her banjo and guitar, she completes difficult cords, which stand out from behind her soothing vocals.

11. June Carter: "He Don't Love Me Anymore"

June Carter utilizes her high-pitched voice in this ballad to allow the folk vocals to be the foreground of the song, with bluegrass elements in the string instruments played behind her. June will later go on to marry Johnny Cash and the duo will change the way blues and folk music are looked at forever.

12. Judi Collins: "Both Sides Now"

I included Judi Collin's cover of "Both Sides Now" (written and played by Joni Mitchell)to allow comparison of the two folksingers. Judi allows an electric folk movement to permeate her song, including the high-pitched background instrument and strings. Although the vocals of Judi and Joni are quite comparable, it is the other sonic instruments that allow a look at how electric folk began.

13. Holly Near: "I Am Willing"

Holly Near is a social activist--similar to Joan Baez--this activism is evident in her songs. She mixes the idea of gospel sound and folk vocals through her idea of change for the world. In this way, her voice is full of soul power, organized in a way with a folk beat.

14. Miriam Makeba: "When I've Passed On"

Miriam Makeba is also known as Mama Africa, referring to her South African origins. She uses these African elements in her voice to combine traditional soul music and traditional folk music. When these combine with the accordion instrument, a blues element, the song creates a new way to sing foreign music and include it in an American folk genre.

15. Nina Simone: "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"

Nina Simone is another artist that dabbles in many genres at once. She lives to mix gospel and soul with folk. She stretches her voice in a typical folk fashion, while including string instruments, which lean away from the folk soundscape.

16. Kate Wolf "You"