Radio Planet 3
by Cliff Furnald

There are continual exclamations (and have been for decades) about "the folk revival" and the "return of the folk revival" but in truth, neither folk music nor its appeal to new adherents has ever really waned in America. In the last decade or two, the folk music scene has been dominated by either ensembles interested in flashy, often innovative renditions of traditional music or the songwriters who use folk music as a stepping stone into the realm of personal, popular music. Young singers of traditional songs have had far less visibility in the U.S., even as the stars of folkies like the Waterson/Carthy clan have continued to rise elsewhere.

It is Martin Carthy who immediately comes to mind as you listen to Tim Eriksen on his self-titled solo recording [Appleseed Recordings]. Like Carthy before him, Eriksen has occillated between being a young rock and pop musician with strong folk music interests and being a singer of traditional songs in a more traditional manner. The raw, punkish music of some incarnations of Cordelia's Dad and the short-lived Io were always (subtly, at least) in debt to earlier American music, and Cordelia's Dad fluctuated regularly into the realm of a more pure acoustic folk music. Eriksen is also deeply involved in Appalachian songs and New England shape-note singing and has a significant background in formal folk musicology. He is an urban folk singer in the tradition of the various Seegers or Tracy Schwarz, one that led from educational experience to personal passion to a unique viewpoint. The progression led naturally to this release....

This is an exceprt form the article. This review and four more recordings reviewed in this article in Dirty Linen #95 (August/September '01).