English 
French As part of the podcast series, “ArtsAbly in Conversation,” Diane Kolin interviewed Charlie Mosbrook, a singer songwriter and a music educator living in Cleveland, in Ohio.
This post presents the resources that Charlie Mosbrook mentioned during the conversation.
Charlie Mosbrook’s website
In the tradition of Woody Guthrie, Charlie uses his music as a vehicle to build a better world — through programs like Music to Life, Stop the Hate, monthly performances in the local spinal cord injury unit, and countless charities and events that advocate for human rights and environmental action. Charlie’s music is both informed and inspired by the amazing individuals who give themselves to these causes. He does not see his music as political, but honest. Honest about the events the songs are written about. Honest about the impact these events had on our lives, and honest about the agency and advocacy resulting from these events. Charlie believes if you have an honest song, the truth will shine.
Visit Charlie Mosbrook’s website
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter and composer who was one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He inspired several generations both politically and musically with songs such as “This Land Is Your Land”. Guthrie wrote hundreds of country, folk, and children’s songs, along with ballads and improvised works. Dust Bowl Ballads, Guthrie’s album of songs about the Dust Bowl period, was included on Mojo magazine’s list of 100 Records That Changed The World, and many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress. Songwriters who have acknowledged Guthrie as a major influence on their work include Steve Earle, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Phil Ochs, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Donovan, Robert Hunter, Harry Chapin, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Andy Irvine, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Jeff Tweedy, Tom Paxton, Brian Fallon, Sean Bonnette, and Sixto Rodríguez. He frequently performed with the message “This machine kills fascists” displayed on his guitar.
Elizabeth Cotten
Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten was an influential American folk and blues musician. She was a self-taught left-handed guitarist who played a guitar strung for a right-handed player, but played it upside down. This position meant that she would play the bass lines with her fingers and the melody with her thumb. Her signature alternating bass style has become known as “Cotten picking”. NPR stated “her influence has reverberated through the generations, permeating every genre of music.” Her album Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar (1958), was placed into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress, and was deemed as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. The album included her signature recording “Freight Train”, a song she wrote in her early teens. In 1984, her live album Elizabeth Cotten Live!, won her a Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording, at the age of 90. That same year, Cotten was recognized as a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2022, she was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as an early influence.
Read more about Elizabeth Cotten
Mississippi John Hurt
John Smith Hurt, known as Mississippi John Hurt, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Hurt was raised in Avalon, Mississippi and taught himself to play the guitar around the age of nine. He worked as a sharecropper and began playing at dances and parties, singing to a melodious fingerpicked accompaniment. His first recordings, made for Okeh Records in 1928, were commercial failures, and he continued to work as a farmer. Dick Spottswood and Tom Hoskins, a blues enthusiast, located Hurt in 1963 and persuaded him to move to Washington, D.C. He was recorded by the Library of Congress in 1964. This helped further the American folk music revival, which led to the rediscovery of many other bluesmen of Hurt’s era. Hurt performed on the university and coffeehouse concert circuit with other Delta blues musicians who were brought out of retirement. He also recorded several albums for Vanguard Records. Hurt returned to Grenada, Mississippi, in 1966, where he died at the age of 73.
Read more about Mississippi John Hurt
Roots of American Music
Roots of American Music, founded in 1999 by Kevin Richards, provides arts programming that connects communities through traditional American music. Their mission is to share the joy of this rich musical heritage with youth, adults, and seniors from diverse backgrounds. They are engaged in the following fields: School and Community Engagement, Education and Empowerment, Arts Integration in Education, Impact and Reach, and Community-Centric Approach. Roots of American Music’s commitment to arts-integrated programming ensures that music becomes a powerful pathway to both academic success and emotional well-being.
Learn more about Roots of American Music
Rhiannon Giddens
Rhiannon Giddens has made a singular, iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music, with its miles-deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities, into just about every field imaginable. A two-time GRAMMY Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning singer and instrumentalist, MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, and composer of opera, ballet, and film, Giddens has centered her work around the mission of lifting up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been overlooked or erased, and advocating for a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins through art. As Pitchfork once said, “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration”—a journey that has led to NPR naming her one of its 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century and to American Songwriter calling her “one of the most important musical minds currently walking the planet.”
Visit Rhiannon Giddens’ website
Folk Alliance International
Folk Alliance International (FAI) is an international arts nonprofit and NEA-designated National Arts Service Organization based in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. Founded in 1989, they are a community of passionate and driven artists, managers, agents, DJs, festivals, record labels, fans, and more. They exist to keep the tradition of folk music thriving through preservation, presentation, and promotion. They include an expanded global network of more than 3,000 cultural sector entrepreneurs and leaders. Through their responsive programming built on the foundation of community building, and dedicated resources intended to support those who create this art form they love, they hope to continue sharing the music of the people for years to come.
Visit Folk Alliance International’s website
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in Palo Alto, California in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, folk, country, bluegrass, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, and world music with psychedelia, the band is famous for improvisation during their live performances, and for their devoted fan base, known as “Deadheads”. According to the musician and writer Lenny Kaye, the music of the Grateful Dead “touches on ground that most other groups don’t even know exists.” For the range of their influences and the structure of their live performances, the Grateful Dead are considered “the pioneering godfathers of the jam band world”.
Learn more about The Grateful Dead
Robert Hunter
Robert C. Christie Hunter was an American lyricist, singer-songwriter, translator and poet, best known for his work with the Grateful Dead. Born near San Luis Obispo, California, Hunter spent some time during his childhood in foster homes as a result of his father abandoning his family, and took refuge in reading and writing. He attended the University of Connecticut for a year before returning to Palo Alto, where he became friends with musician Jerry Garcia. Hunter and Garcia began a collaboration that lasted through the remainder of Garcia’s life. Garcia and others formed the Grateful Dead in 1965, and later began working with lyrics from Hunter, whom Garcia invited to join the band as a lyricist. Hunter contributed substantially to many of their albums. Hunter was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Grateful Dead in 1994, and is the only non-performer to be inducted as a member of a band. Upon his death, Rolling Stone described him as “one of rock’s most ambitious and dazzling lyricists”.
Learn more about Robert Hunter
RAMPD
RAMPD (Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities) is a professional platform equipping the music and live entertainment industry with disability inclusive tools, programming and strategy. RAMPD also connects the industry to a global directory of peer-vetted music/sound creators and industry professionals with disabilities, neurodivergence and other chronic or mental health conditions, to find source and hire—bringing competitive opportunities, visibility and community to our Professional Members while offering disability inclusion to Industry/Venue partners. RAMPD’s Mission is to amplify Disability Culture, promote equitable inclusion, and advocate for inclusive and accessible spaces in the music and live entertainment industries. Founded in May of 2021 (and established January 2022) by award-winning recording artist and cultural activist Lachi, RAMPD came about after a public talk between the Recording Academy and several disabled artists revealed the serious lack of visibility, access, and representation for music professionals with disabilities.
Avin Loki Baird
Cleveland folksinger/songwriter/acoustic guitarist Avin Loki Baird was living in Boston. She had a gentle, unforced, kindly type of classic folk voice. Baird collaborated with a lot of the northeast Ohio acoustic and roots music scene’s most talented artists. They return the favor on her last album, Chasing the Muse, released in 2013. Among the people contributing to fleshing out Baird’s new material with vocal harmonies and additional instrumentation are Abbey Blake, Rachel Brown, Steel Farkus, Anita Herczog, Bill Lestock, Charlie Mosbrook, Jon Mosey, and Hal Walker.
Listen to the album Chasing the Muse on YouTube
Kevin T. Richards
Kevin T. Richards is a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist specializing in pre-war acoustic blues, country, and traditional jazz, who plays an array of instruments, including electric and acoustic guitar, fiddle, banjo and mandolin. Averaging hundreds of performances annually, he has entertained audiences across the United States for over forty years. Kevin is the founder of “SpYder Stompers and Sugar Pie”, a quartet that was included in the Ohio Arts Council’s Ohio Artists on Tour directory, and is the lead guitarist for the Gypsy jazz band, Hot Djang!, specializing in the music of Django Reinhardt. He also plays Freddie Green style guitar with the Night Owls, an 11 piece orchestra and with George Foley and his Rhythm with both groups focusing on the works of Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and early 20th century jazz.
Visit Kevin T. Richards’ website
Telarc International
The Telarc International brand is renowned for its technical innovations and audio excellence, most recently apparent with releases by Japanese piano sensation Hiromi, dynamic retro-modern-swing outfit Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band and legendary French composer Jacques Loussier. Since the late 1970s, Telarc International has been the creative home to some of the most prestigious entities in the annals of classical music, featuring great performances by world-class musicians and orchestras, such as Robert Shaw & Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Andre Previn & Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and Christoph von Dohnanyi & Cleveland Orchestra. Over its lifespan, Telarc has expanded its reach into jazz and blues with legends such as Oscar Peterson, George Shearing and Junior Wells.