Lester Bangs Quotes

Folk-rock hasn't changed much over the decades since the Byrds started it.

My dad is a huge folk music fan, so growing up, there were always records playing in my house. Carole King, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles - I grew up with this music, and I was aware of how special this music was to a lot of people.

As much as I love heavy riffs, I like The Eagles, Neil Young, Elton John, Crowded House.

I've grown up on American songwriters my whole life - listening to Paul Simon and Bob Dylan and people like John Prine - you know, classic, real songwriters. They've been the lion's share of what I've really focused on as a writer and as influences, too.

I'm always looking for overlooked post-Dylan singer-songwriter records from the '70s.

First I was a European-style player, then I was a downtown 'noise guy,' and now some people call me an Americana guy.

Then about 12 years ago it dawned on me that folk music - the music of Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs, early Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger - could be as heavy as anything that comes through a Marshall stack. The combination of three chords and the right lyrical couplet can be as heavy as anything in the Metallica catalogue.

I love 'Crazy Horse,' and Neil Young is one of my favorite guitar players.

When I was in Boston, I was doing a lot of Americana stuff - I fell in love with Ray LaMontagne, Patty Griffin, and Neil Young.

My dad was a huge Bob Dylan fan, so we listened to his music, Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, and all that kind of stuff.

I write heavily under the influence of James Taylor.

Music-wise, I listen to everything. Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman - I guess I like a lot of '70s music.

Probably my favorite artists to listen to James Taylor, Stevie Wonder - I haven't gone back in a really long time and really listened to them - my first guitar influences. It's been awhile since I revisited that.

I could do James Taylor, Neil Young, and sound just like them.

My taste is very '70s, like Garfunkel and James Taylor, so not too far from country, but not really the mainstream country that's on the radio.

I rejected most of the folk I was exposed to in the Seventies. I came around later to Tom Waits, some parts of Jim Croce, and a lot of Cat Stevens.

My parents listened to a lot of James Taylor and Hall and Oates. My mom and I used to listen to Liz Phair and Indigo Girls a lot in the car, too.

Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Neil Young and Bob Dylan are my main influences.

The music that I first fell in love with was American music, really. Nothing against British acts - I love them and will forever - but on the whole, it was the art of American storytelling in the kind of folk and blues lyrics that, if you scratch a little bit, there's a heartbreaking story there.

I've been writing a lot more folky, country type stuff. One of the reasons I wanted to write in the first place was because of Darrell Scott.

I am going through a Neil Young phase. I also listen to a lot of alternative country, a band called Smog and Bonnie Prince Billy, which is very dark and twisted.

I'm really taken with 'Calling Me Home' by Alice Gerrard.

A dream set would include songs by other artists like Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and other favorites. More obscure Heart songs like 'Wait For an Answer' and 'Nada One' would be fun, plus fan favorites like 'Love Mistake' and 'Language of Love.' Endless possibilities.

But when I was 12 or 13, I found the acoustic guitar and got into guitar music ultimately, like Black Motorcycle Club, obviously Neil Young, Crosby, Stills and Nash.

I grew up playing guitar in the late Nineties, early 2000s, so a very acoustic-driven pop-rock era, and then in college, I started listening to Jason Isbell and Kacey Musgraves. Then I really fell in love when I discovered really old country, like June Carter Cash - one of my all-time favorites.