Recordings from Shawn Colvin, Suzanne Vega, Steve Forbert, Christine Lavin, John Gorka, and Lucy Kaplansky will be featured on the two-disc, 34-track Smithsonian Folkways release “Fast Folk: A Community of Singers & Songwriters,” due Feb. 26. The set is compiled from more than 100 songs donated to Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in 1999 by the principals of New York’s Fast Folk Magazine.
In addition to Colvin’s “I Don’t Know Why,” available on her second Columbia album “Fat City,” and Vega’s “Gypsy,” previously unreleased in the digital format, some other tracks on the set include Jack Hardy’s “Forget-Me-Not,” Pail Kaplan’s “King of Hearts,” Hugh Blumenfeld’s “Rafael,” and Forbert’s “Thirty Thousand Men.”
The magazine, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2002, has focused on the musical and political scene of Greenwich Village, and has released albums and staged concerts in its two-decade history. The cuts here, many of which are available on CD for the first time, are culled from the magazine-issued LPs. A number of the songs were recorded in the Brooklyn attic studio of a magazine contributor.
Here is the complete tracklisting for the set:
Disc 1:
Rod Macdonald “American Jerusalem”
David Massengill, “What’s Wrong With the Man Upstairs”
Gerry Devine, “Old Factory Town”
Lucy Kaplansky, “Spotlight”
The Song Project with Dave Van Ronk, “Another Time and Place”
Shawn Colvin, “I Don’t Know Why”
John Gorka, “Geza’s Wailing Ways”
David Indian, “Ragman!”
Tom Intondi, “High Times”
Christine Lavin, “Don’t Ever Call Your Sweetheart By His Name”
Frank Christian, “Where Were You Last Night”
Germana Pucci, “Corpo Gracile”
Laura Burns and Roger Rosen, “Kilkelly, Ireland”
Erik Frandsen, “The Viking”
Jack Hardy, “Forget-Me-Not”
Ensemble, “Vacation”
Disc 2:
Suzanne Vega, “Gypsy”
Steve Forbert, “Thirty Thousand Men”
Frank Tedesso, “Margret”
Elaine Silver, “Share the Failure”
Patrick John Brayer, “Bourbon as a Second Language”
Paul Kaplan, “King of Hearts”
Judith Zweiman, “Heart on Ice”
Richard Shindell, “The Courier”
Wendy Beckerman, “By Your Eyes”
Lillie Palmer, “Danton”
Michael Jerling, “Long Black Wall”
Andy Breckman, “Railroad Bill”
Richard Julian, “Gravedigger”
Richard Meyer, “January Cold”
Eric Wood, “Disenchanted”
Hugh Blumenfeld, “Rafael”
Louise Taylor, “Your Face”
Josh Joffen, “Crazy Horse”
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