Urban Folk

While traditional, acoustic-bred folk music finds its strength in deeply rural, blue-collared portraits, contemporary Urban Folk artists such as Roger Manning, Bonfire Madigan, and Ani DiFranco cultivate their Folk-Punk roots on cracked, aching city sidewalks. Owing as much to Bob Dylan's personality in D.A. Pennebaker's classic 1965 documentary Don't Look Back as to Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads, Urban Folk songs are often three-chord bouts bursting with sharp-witted criticisms. Often enjoying Greyhound as their official "tour bus," artists within this genre are known to take to the streets and coffeehouses to "busk" their socially concerned and often politically- charged songs. As with most traditional folk material, the message is always paramount while instrumental prowess remains secondary. It's not uncommon to see these transient troubadours barely holding down melodies on cheap electric guitars through pint-sized, battery-powered amplifiers as their voices swoop through the city's tall corridors.