Folk music: the most honest songs I've found

That folk music craze of the 60's started me on a journey I'm still taking.  I simply can't get enough of the American folk genre.  

I'm not able turn a radio on and leave it playing all day long; at some point I just have to have silence or I'll go crazy; I need some quiet time.  But many times, when my husband is out of the house (or dozing on the couch, as he does now in this season of our lives), when I'm working in the kitchen, I'll command Alexa to play my self-created Pandora folk station; that's the kind of music I can listen to for long periods of time.  And what a variety of characters entertain me with that music.

Folk is the most honest music I know, simply because the artist is singing his life to you.  A large majority of the folk singers have no better singing skills than my mother and father and I when we sang in the car on the way to church, but they aren't showing off their voices anyhow... they are showing you their souls, their hardships, their romances, their beliefs.  They don't have bands backing them up; all they need is a banjo, guitar, or harmonica.  For that matter, they'll sing without any instrument if they must.  They aren't showing off; they sing because they'd die if they couldn't sing their lives and experiences.

Yesterday I listened to my self-created folk station for an hour or so, and what a variety of real, genuine people I heard:  Mississippi John Hurt, Utah Phillips, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Bob Dylan, Guy clark, Ola Belle Reed:  Even their names are raw and lovely.  It felt as though each one was sitting on a chair in my kitchen, singing just for me.  

As I listened, I thought about their lives; what stories they could tell!

Mississippi John Hurt was a sharecropper who taught himself to play guitar at age 9; he had no success with his music in his early years.  It wasn't until blues enthusiasts discovered the farmer in 1963 and persuaded him to move to Washington, D.C. that he got some recognition and recorded for the Library of Congress.  His songs were later shared by people like Bob Dylan and Doc Watson.  After Hurt's time in the limelight, he returned home to Mississippi, where he died from a heart attack in 1966.  

Wikipedia has a lot of fascinating information about his music.

John Hurt's home; he's on the right.

And if you like, you can watch him singing "Lonesome Valley".

I Hear America Singing

BY WALT WHITMAN

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

I couldn't have said it better myself.