Any musicians like Jim?

I love Jim Moray but as you can imagine, the modern-folk scene isn't that big with American kids. Does anyone know some musicians who have a similar style to Jim?

There are loads..!

I'll give you one for starters: Jim is set to stand in for one of the musicians in a band called Bellowhead for a couple of nights. So you might try them to begin with.

Then have a read through the rest of this forum and see what other names have been mentioned in passing

Cheers

Nick

Thanks Nick, but from where I'm standing they're not exactly in a similar style. They just happen to be taking songs from the same kind of sources, but taking them in a completely different direction.

If you like Sweet England or the loud stuff from 'Low Culture', then a band called The Imagined Village might appeal - led by Simon Emmerson who worked on the mix of SE with me. See also the 'Anglicana' album by Eliza Carthy.

If you like 'Jim Moray', then try Wheeler Street, which I produced.

If you like the acousticy stuff from 'Low Culture', then perhaps look at 'Awkward Annie' by Kate Rusby or the first Lau album.

I'm not sure theres anyone making stuff in the folk world like the electronic/'single idea' things I do - Lemady or Fanny Blair or A Week Before Easter - I don't know why 'cause it's not complex to put together. However, that sort of thing was around a lot when I was a student. I can't think of any names right now, but it co-incided with the release of the iBook and and MaxMSP software becoming more common in the late 90s.

On a more general tip, I recommend the (under-rated) run of albums June Tabor made in the 1990s - Against the Streams, Aleyn and A Quiet Eye.

I took the question to mean artists with a similar mindset, not necessarily those who play identical sounding music

Well if you like Jim you have good taste so here are some suggestions based on what I've heard & liked (feel free to totally disagree rest of board )
Spiers & Boden - pretty traditional folk stuff but done really, really well, I especially recommend their latest effort Vagabond (these two also feature in Bellowhead & you might be able to spot the similarities between this and the Bellowhead albums).
Mawkin:Causley/Mawkin: two different ventures from those cheeky Essex lads, Mawkin play mostly dance tunes of the French and English vareity & Mawkin:Causley tend to do more ballads and featture the talents of Jim Causley, Jamie Delarre has been playing with Jim for a fair while now so if you like the violin on the latest album you need to track them down.
Faustus- great arrangements and they feature Saul Rose of the aforementioned Jim Moray band.
Tim van Eyken - really unusual voice, really like his version of Fair Ellen of Radcliffe from the album Stiffs Lovers Holymen Thieves.
Imagined Village - I think this has already been mentioned, really good album, lots of bhangra/dhol influence, love it.
Jackie Oates - Jim's sister, Lovely voice, new album just out.
The The Wurzels - lots of local (North-East) influence, nice tunes.
Lau - really inovative and they are Scottish! (hurrah).
Karine Polwart - lovely voice & interesting arrangements.
Katherine Tickell - Northumbrian tunes (we dance rapper sword dancing to her CD).

Finally Judy Dyble has just released an album called 'Talking With Strangers' Nick played it to me the other day & I hadn't a clue who it was by, it's really good

I hope you enjoy then as much as I have, do let us know how you get on



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2009 08:16AM by black cat.

Wow thanks guys, didn't expect to get so many new musicians, all new to me may I add. Now I've just got to cross my fingers and pray they come to the states!

igloomccoy Wrote:
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> Wow thanks guys, didn't expect to get so many new
> musicians, all new to me may I add. Now I've just
> got to cross my fingers and pray they come to the
> states!


Or you could come to the UK? The one major omission to the list (what wasn't I thinking?!?) Has to be Martyn Bennett. Unfortunately he's dead now but if you like Jim's more experiemental stuff I think you'd definitely like him. As a first listen I'd recommend grit, I was completely blown away by it a couple of years ago.

First of all Black Cat-Martyn Bennett was AMAZING!I totally agree. 'Bothy Culture' was the first CD I ever bought myself back in the day at the Larmer Tree festival. Happy days.

I am currently in the process of trying to convert someone to the English Folk music scene but it isn't going very well at all. I am huge fan of most of the artists listed, espcially Eliza Carthy. I tried Anglicana (a favourite of mine) and it didn't go down very well at (which I took personally of course!). I dragged my friend Morgan to a Seth gig back when I was in London and from there got him interested in the delights of Jim so I have converted people before! Didn't mean for that to sound so cult like! I don't mean to hijack your thread but I was wondering if anyone has any good ideas of artists or albums which may make good 'introductions' to the world of English folk?

Elsie83 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> First of all Black Cat-Martyn Bennett was
> AMAZING!I totally agree.
I don't mean
> to hijack your thread but I was wondering if
> anyone has any good ideas of artists or albums
> which may make good 'introductions' to the world
> of English folk?


Glad to hear you like Martyn Bennett, as my friend Ewan said to me, now you can go out and buy all his cds to ensure the remaining Bennetts can live off fine scottish single malts. Seemed like a good plan to me.

Recommending cds is always a tricky one, as you say some people like the same stuff you do while others hate it. You could maybe try a range of stuff? John & Jon tunes/songs, the imagined village, fairport convention, Mawkin, Kate Rusby, a morris on album or 10, there's also this chap called Jim Moray I believe is quite popular...
I'm sure your friend will find something they like out of that lot. Let us know how you get on & keep on fighting the good fight (one day everyone will appreciate the value of a good folk tune)

Late to this particular thread, but I have to put in a mention for Jenny M. Thomas and the System. I'd never heard of them until Jim name-dropped the new album in his twitter stream. I took a chance on it and was totally blown away. While, musically, it's only distantly connected to Jim's work they share a basic approach of wanting to do something different, experimental and modern with traditional folk music. Jenny's inspiration seems to be modernist classical rather than electronica but the results are breathtaking and deserve to be much better known.

[jennymthomasandthesystem.bandcamp.com]

Now if only I could find a way to buy the songs from her first album without having to order it all the way from Australia ....