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Psychedelic Folk

1966 — psychedelic folk pioneers

Incredible String Band

Robin Williamson and Mike Heron formed the Incredible String Band in Edinburgh in 1966. They pioneered a psychedelic strain of British folk that drew praise from Bob Dylan and, by Robert Plant's own account, later influenced Led Zeppelin. They played Woodstock on August 16, 1969, in a slot that had been rained out and rescheduled, but were left out of the eventual film and soundtrack. That is one reason their set there is far less remembered than the era's other, more famous ones.

League City to Oakland, Gris Gris

Greg Ashley

Greg Ashley grew up in League City, a suburb of Houston, and played in the Mirrors there before moving to Oakland in 2002. In Oakland he fronted the Gris Gris. Garret Goddard of the Cuts passed a burned CD of Ashley's first solo record to Birdman Records owner David Katznelson, and the band signed to the label in 2003. Birdman released that album in 2003, the band's self-titled debut in 2004 and For the Season in 2005. Between solo records such as Painted Garden, Ashley ran the Creamery Analog studio inside Oakland's Ghost Town Gallery for nine years, and he spent seven years making a Sir Lord Von Raven album. When the gallery's tenants were evicted in 2016, he took himself and his studio to Austin.

Damon McMahon, 2006–2024

Amen Dunes

Amen Dunes was the project of Damon McMahon, born in Philadelphia in 1980 and raised in Weston, Connecticut. He studied Chinese and English literature at Swarthmore and later lived in Taiwan, Nanjing and Beijing. After the short-lived New York group Inouk, he started recording as Amen Dunes in 2006. The songs on D.I.A., released in 2009, were written and recorded alone in a Catskills cabin. Through Donkey Jaw in 2011 and Love in 2014 came out on Sacred Bones, and Love was made in Montreal with Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Efrim Menuck and Dave Bryant. Pitchfork called Freedom, produced by Chris Coady in 2018, his euphoric breakthrough. After Death Jokes on Sub Pop in 2024, McMahon announced the end of Amen Dunes that December.

Yale painter, ESP-Disk, 1968

Ed Askew

Ed Askew was born in Stamford, Connecticut, on 1 December 1940 and studied painting at the Yale School of Art, graduating in 1966. He started writing songs around the time he got a Martin tiple, while teaching at a Connecticut prep school. Bernard Stollman offered him a contract with ESP-Disk, which released Ask the Unicorn in 1968. He lived mostly in New Haven until moving to New York City around 1987. His next album, the self-released These Nights and Days, didn't come until 1999. Later records included Imperfiction on Drag City in 2011, For the World with Sharon Van Etten in 2013 and London in 2020, and Tin Angel reissued Ask the Unicorn in 2015. He died on 4 January 2025, aged 84.

Thornton Heath to the Paris streets

Wizz Jones

Raymond Ronald 'Wizz' Jones was born in Thornton Heath, Surrey, on 25 April 1939. He took up guitar in the mid-1950s after seeing Big Bill Broonzy and Ramblin' Jack Elliott in London. In the early 1960s he busked in Paris and travelled through Europe and North Africa. He taught Keith Richards, and Eric Clapton was an avid follower. With banjo player Pete Stanley he made Sixteen Tons of Bluegrass in 1966. His first solo album, Wizz Jones, came in 1969, then The Legendary Me in 1970 and Right Now, featuring John Renbourn, in 1972. Bert Jansch called him the most underrated guitarist ever, and Bruce Springsteen opened a 2012 Berlin show with one of his songs. He died on 27 April 2025, aged 86.

The Collection