So, 2005: The year folk music kicked your ass across the continents. While the big and little Kennies dominating folk’s exurban cousin country channeled ELO, Sgt. Pepper’s, Stone Temple Pilots, Spoon River Anthology, Hoagy Carmichael, and Bob Marley, and talked a lot about mangoes, though (unlike M.I.A.) not whether theirs get salted and peppered. Not to mention other delicacies: “Not too tart and not too sweet/My baby loves to watch me eat her . . . [pause here] . . . key lime pie.” Cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise. Put the lime in the coconut, drink it all up.
AVARUS
Ruskeatimantti
(Tumult Finnish “free folk collective” double album)
Stream “One” (M3U)
Stream “Two” (M3U)
Stream “Three” (M3U)
BIG KENNY
Live a Little
(Hollywood ’90s Caribbean-lilted strawberry-fielded pinkie-in-the-air baroque country-bubblegrunge singer-songwriter reissue)
Stream “Candy
Colored Glasses” (Real)
Stream “Under
the Sun” (Real)
Stream “Cheater’s
Lament” (Real)
KENNY CHESNEY
Be as You Are (Songs From an Old Blue Chair)
(BNA island-lilting lite-country afternoon-rock singer-songwriter concept album about coastal populations)
Stream “Old
Blue Chair” (Real)
Stream “Be
as You Are” (Real)
Stream “Guitars
and Tiki Bars” (Real)
CONJUNTO PRIMAVERA
Hoy Como Ayer
(Fonovisa Mexican polka album plus DVD single)
Stream “Hoy
Como Ayer” (Real)
Stream “No
Hay Nada Completo” (Real)
Stream “Moño
Negro” (Real)
THE DUHKS
The Duhks
(Sugar Hill Caribbean-lilted Renaissance-faire-reeling death-blues bluegrass album)
Stream “Death
Came a Knockin'” (Real)
Stream “Mists of
Down Below” (Real)
Stream “Four
Blue Walls” (Real)
MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO.
Trials & Errors
(Secretly Canadian live psychedelic folk-rock album)
Download “The Dark Don’t
Hide It” (MP3)
Download “Leave the
City” (MP3)
THE MAYBELLES
White Trash Jenny
(Little Red Hen jazz-tinged Celtic-and-Appalachian-style country-folk album)
Stream “Entire
Album” (M3U)
TRISH MURPHY
Girls Get in Free
(Raven/Valley
Entertainment soft-rockabillifiedcountry album)
Preview “All
I Want” (MP3)
Preview “Cowboy
Man” (MP3)
Preview “Crying as
Fast as I Can” (MP3)
RANDY ROGERS BAND
Rollercoaster
(Smith Entertainment country-rock album)
RITUAL
Ritual
(SPV/Tempus Fugit Swedish ethno-prog “power folk” album)
Download “The Way Of
Things” (MP3)
Download “Typhoons
Decide” (MP3)
Download “Solitary
Man” (MP3)
VAN ZANT
“Help Somebody”
(Columbia country-rock single)
Stream “Help
Somebody” (WMA)
WARSAW VILLAGE BAND
Uprooting
(World Village Polish “hardcore folk music” plus polka reels with hip-hop scratching album)
Stream “In
The Forest” (WMA)
Stream “Woman
In Hell” (WMA)