About the Show
Foolkiller Folk
The Foolkiller Folk collective delves into the rich storytelling, cultural significance, and protest power of folk music, spanning from ancient Child Ballads to today's releases.
"When one becomes enlightened one kills the fool within" -Jack Conroy
We lost a fair number of folk and folk-adjacent performers in 2024 and Mark & Val are honoring them in chronological order of their passing. We started our first episode with Jo-El Sonnier who passed away on January 28, 2024, and ended with Dickey Betts who passed away on 4/18/24. This episode starts with Alex Hassilev who passed away on April 21 and ends with Rod Patterson who passed away on May 30. In between we’ll feature Fergie MacDonald, Frank Wakefield, Jim Mills, Ron Kavana, John Barbata, Spider John Koener, Mansour Seck, and Rod Patterson.
Alex Hassilev, a multilingual, multitalented troubadour and the last original member of the Limeliters, a trio made up of Alex Hassilev, Glenn Yarbrough, and Lou Gottlieb, and one of the biggest acts of the folk revival of the early 1960s, and at their height, between 1960 and 1962, playing 300 dates a year.
Alex. Hassilev played banjo and guitar and sang baritone, not only in English but in French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian, all of which he spoke fluently.
Urbane and witty, they packed coffeehouses and college auditoriums with a repertoire that mixed straight-faced folk standards and cheeky tunes like “Charlie the Midnight Marauder.”
Alex Hassilev retired from the Limeliters in 2006 though he continued to play with them occasionally and the band remains active today
The acclaimed Scottish accordionist Fergie MacDonald passed away on April 23, 2024. Macdonald was nicknamed “the Ceilidh King” and played an important role in popularizing the West Highland style of Scottish dance music. He was estimated to have released about 50 records throughout his career and topped the Scottish pop charts in 1966. In addition to being a fine musician, MacDonald was an accomplished clay pigeon shooter who won 14 caps for Scotland
Frank Wakefield was an innovative bluegrass mandolinist whose sweeping musicality led to collaborations with the New York Philharmonic and Jerry Garcia. He first made his mark in the early 1950s after joining the band led by the singer and guitarist Red Allen as a vocalist and mandolin player.
“Bluegrass”, the album that Frank Wakefield made with Red Allen for Folkways Records in 1964 featured versions of two of Wakefield’s most enduring originals “New Camptown Races” and “Catnip” both of which, with their developments in melody, tunings, and chord changes pushed the limits of what then constituted bluegrass.
Jim Mills was one of the most celebrated banjo players of his generation and a noted vintage instrument trader. He spent 14 of his roughly 30 years professional career with Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, and was known for a powerful banjo style drawing heavily on the sound of Earl Scruggs and J.D. Crowe. Between 1999 and 2006 he won the IMBA Banjo Player Of The Year Award every year but two.
In 2009 his meticulously researched book on the history of Gibson banjos was released complete with an array of wonderful photos of classic examples, and in 2010 Jim left Ricky Skaggs to focus on his growing business of buying and selling them
Ron Kavana, was an Irish singer, songwriter, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, and band leader. Performing with a lengthy list of bands, Kavana performed with influential musicians from the worlds of Celtic music, British soul, blues, rhythm & blues, rock, Irish folk and folk-rock, and worldbeat music
Irish Songs of Rebellion, Resistance and Reconciliation a two-disc set commissioned by Malcolm Mills released in 2006, a body of work that underlined the significance of the 200 years of Irish History that culminated in the landmark multiparty good Friday agreement ratified in 1998
John Barbata, session musician and Drummer for the Turtles, Jefferson Starship and a stretch of concerts with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s that were documented on the live album 4 Way Street. If an also known for his infamous decision to decline an invitation to join the Eagles
Spider John Koerner, was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter whose work drew praise from the Doors and the Beatles (if not the general public). He played the bars and coffeehouses of the nation’s university towns, and he performed both standards and his own original songs, which came out, as one critic put it, “pre-antiquated.”
Musically, he was best known as a member of Koerner, Ray & Glover, along with Dave “Snaker” Ray, another guitarist and vocalist, and Tony “Little Sun” Glover, who played harmonica.
However Mr. Koerner entered the annals of history less for his own music than for his role in the musical development of someone else as in 1960, taught his friend Bobby Zimmerman about traditional American music, then watched as the young man metamorphosed into Bob Dylan
Mansour Seck was Senegalese musician in the ‘griot’ tradition, best known for his long-term collaboration with Baaba Maal, his longtime friend. Unlike Maal, Seck was a griot, a hereditary storyteller and musician responsible for keeping alive the music and stories of his people, and he transformed Baaba’s style by teaching him griot songs. Together they recorded Djam Leelii, the 1989 album that became a cult success in Great Britian almost by accident and launched Maal’s career, and Seck later became a key member of Maal’s band, Daande Lenol, with whom he toured the world.
The griot’s role was to preserve the genealogies and oral traditions of the tribe. They were usually among the oldest men in a tribe. Griot music is characterized by the use of the kora, a harp-like instrument with 21 strings, and the balafon, a wooden xylophone-like instrument. Griot music often features call-and-response singing, with the griot singing a verse and the audience responding with a chorus.
Rod Paterson was widely regarded as the finest male Scots traditional singer of his generation, particularly renowned for his Burns interpretations. He was no mean guitarist and a composer of characterful songs and sang with such notable bands as Jock Tamson’s Bairns – a band whose distinctive and keenly committed approach to Scottish traditional music and would bring them legendary status from the late Seventies until the turn of the Millennium – as well as the Easy Club and Ceolbeg, or as a solo performer always in demand for stage, radio and TV work.
He also became a tutor on the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s traditional music degree course and His most recent release was just earlier this year, on unearthed tracks by Bring In the Spirit, a collective also including singer Kirsten Easdale, originally formed for 2009’s 250th anniversary of Robert Burns’s birth
