VA - Women of Progressive Folk (A Butterboy Compilation) (4 x CDs)

PROGRESSIVE FOLK

VA - Women of Progressive Folk (A Butterboy Compilation) (4 x CDs)

Progressive folk is the moment when traditional folk steps beyond its inherited boundaries and becomes something more exploratory, more personal, and more modern. It keeps the acoustic roots and modal beauty of older folk forms, but reshapes them through intimate songwriting, atmospheric production, quiet psychedelia, chamber‑folk instrumentation, and a reflective emotional depth that feels both ancient and newly invented. Instead of preserving songs exactly as they were, progressive folk uses tradition as a springboard, expanding melody, stretching harmony, and bringing a poet’s voice to the foreground. It is folk transformed rather than repeated, a gentle evolution defined by curiosity, stillness, and a willingness to push the music somewhere more daring and more human.

Progressive folk didn’t arrive all at once. It drifted in quietly, note by note, voice by voice, carried by women who were reshaping tradition long before anyone thought to name the movement. Some recorded in the 1950s, some in the 1970s, some decades later, yet all of them share a common thread: a willingness to push folk music somewhere more personal, more poetic, more daring, and more emotionally honest. Women of Progressive Folk gathers these voices into one place, not as a timeline, but as a living continuum.

This anthology traces the full arc of that evolution. You’ll hear the early roots of modern folk in Jean Ritchie, Connie Converse, and Barbara Dane, artists who planted seeds that would bloom years later. You’ll hear the late‑60s awakening, when Bridget St John, Judy Dyble, Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs, and Anne Briggs began bending folk into new shapes, letting modal melodies, soft psychedelia, and poetic introspection take the lead. You’ll hear the confident expansion of the early 70s, when Sandy Denny, Shirley Collins, Joan Armatrading, Judee Sill, and Catherine Howe brought depth, craft, and emotional architecture to the genre. And you’ll hear the long afterglow — the quiet‑folk revival carried forward by Gillian Welch, Joan Shelley, Catherine MacLellan, Nanci Griffith, and Julie Byrne, whose recordings echo the same spirit even when made decades later.

What ties all of this together isn’t the year on the label, it’s the sound. A certain stillness. A certain clarity. A certain way of singing that feels both ancient and startlingly intimate. These women weren’t chasing trends; they were building a language. A language of modal beauty, quiet rebellion, and emotional truth.

This box set is a celebration of that language. A complete recording history of progressive folk as told through the women who shaped it, sustained it, and carried it forward. Whether the track was recorded in 1954 or 2017, it belongs here because it speaks the same dialect, one of courage, curiosity, and quiet transformation. (B)

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Track lists

CD1

01 Bridget St. John - Ask Me No Questions 7:50 1969

02 Judy Dyble - I Talk to The Wind 6:38 1969

03 Vashti Bunyan - Diamond Day 1:47 1969

04 Linda Perhacs - Chimacum Rain 3:21 1970

05 Clodagh Simonds (Mellow Candle) - Silversong 4:29 1972

06 Jacqui McShee (Pentangle) - Let No Man Steal Your Thyme 2:43 1968

07 Joni Mitchell - For Free 4:31 1969

08 Celia Humphris (Trees) - Murdoch 5:10 1970

09 Sandy Denny (Fotheringay) - Winter Winds 2:12 1970

10 John and Beverley Martyn - Sweet Honesty 8:05 1970

11 Maddy Prior (Steeleye Span) - Dark-Eyed Sailor 5:58 1970

12 Shirley Collins & The Albion Band - Poor Murdered Woman 4:19 1971

13 Sandy Denny - Solo 4:26 1971

14 Judee Sill - Lady-O 3:14 1969

15 Deirdre - Lovely Joan 4:22 1971

16 Shelagh McDonald - Stargazer 4:11 1971

17 Carolanne Pegg - Fair Fortune's Star 10:03 1971

18 Norma Waterson - Red Wine and Promises 3:05 1972

19 Sandy Denny (Fotheringay) - Banks of the Nile 8:05 1970

20 Sue Vickers (Forest) - Bluebell Dance 3:10 1970

CD2

01 Joan Armatrading - City Girl 4:00 1972

02 Sandy Denny - The Music Weaver 3:17 1972

03 Judee Sill - The Archetypal Man 3:36 1973

04 Buffy Sainte-Marie - The Vampire 2:05 1971

05 Hazel Dickens - They'll Never Keep Us Down 2:45 1973

06 Janis Ian - Jesse 4:07 1973

07 Mary McCaslin - Way Out West 4:13 1973

08 Dory Previn - Mythical Kings and Iguanas 3:28 1971

09 Catherine Howe - It Comes With The Breezes 3:28 1971

10 Karen Beth - It’s All Over Now 2:44 1972

11 Rosalie Sorrels - Traveling Lady 5:04 1971

12 Eliza Gilkyson - Requiem 3:54 1972

13 Odetta - Hit or Miss (1970) 3:45 1970

14 Barbara Keith - Detroit or Buffalo 4:31 1972

15 Bonnie Koloc - You're Gonna Love Yourself in the Morning 2:34 1972

16 Emmylou Harris - Hickory wind 4:04 1973

17 Kathy Mattea - Give Yourself to Love 4:33 1973

18 Anne Briggs - The Snow it Melts The Soonest 2:18 1971

19 Sandy Denny - Quiet Joys of Brotherhood 4:28 1972

20 Linda Thompson (Richard & Linda Thompson) - The Great Valerio 5:23 1973

CD3

01 Linda Thompson (Richard and Linda Thompson) - The End of the Rainbow 3:57 1974

02 Catherine Howe - On A Misty Morning 2:34 1971

03 Judee Sill - The Phoenix (Original Version) 2:24 1973

04 Joan Armatrading - Down to Zero 3:53 1975

05 Barbara Dickson - The Orange and The Blue 3:37 1974

06 Maddy Prior (Tim Heart & Maddy Prior) - The False Knight on The Road 3:02 1974

07 Mary McCaslin - The Bramble and The Rose 3:19 1973

08 Joni Mitchell - Car on A Hill 3:02 1974

09 Shirley Collins & The Albion Country Band - Murder of Maria Marten 7:25 1974

10 Judy Dyble (Trader Horne) - In My Loneliness 2:25 1970

11 Beate Krause (Carol of Harvest) - Somewhere at The End of The Rainbow 6:25 1978

12 June Tabor - While Gamekeepers Lie Sleeping 1:48 1974

13 Shirley & Dolly Collins - The Moon Shines Bright 2:05 1975

14 Mandy Morton (Spriguns of Tolgus) - Curragh of Kildare 4:48 1975

15 Sandy Denny - Whispering Grass 3:45 1974

16 Anne Briggs - Standing on the Shore 4:33 1971

17 Lal Waterson (Lal Waterson & Mike Waterson) - Fine Horseman 3:31 1972

18 Jacqui McShee (Pentangle) - Cruel Sister 7:04 1970

19 Francesca Garnett (Chimera) - Silver Man 2:54 1970

20 Alison O’Donnell (Mellow Candle) - Sheep Season 5:02 1972

CD4

01 Sibylle Baier - Tonight 2:26 1970

02 Connie Converse - Talkin' Like You (Two Tall Mountains) 2:30 1954

03 Joan Shelley - Not Over By Half 4:33 2015

04 Catherine Maclellan - When She Don't Need Me 4:38 2009

05 Julie Tippetts - Sunset Glow 7:51 1975

06 Jean Ritchie - Nottamun Town 2:29 1965

07 Shirley Collins - The False Bride 4:19 1969

08 Barbara Dane - When I Was a Young Girl 3:42 1962

09 Oige - The Flower of Magherallyo 4:42 1993

10 Carolyn Hester - The Water is Wide 3:44 1963

11 Karen Dalton - Something on Your Mind 3:23 1971

12 Gillian Welch - One and Only 5:28 1996

13 Ellen McIlwaine - Pinebo (My Story) 2:41 1972

14 Molly Drake - I Remember 3:04 1955

15 Nanci Griffith - Once in a Very Blue Moon 2:34 1984

16 Lily & Maria - I Was 4:00 1968

17 Linda Perhacs - Hey, Who Really Cares 2:35 1970

18 June Tabor - Reynardine 2:59 1976

19 Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Heart Like A Wheel 3:10 1974

20 Julie Byrne - Vertical Ray 3:01 2017

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Music weaves itself into the fabric of our emotions, dances through the corridors of memory, and whispers to the soul of who we are. Sharing these stories deepens the connection, turning the experience into something timeless and profound.

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