Dave's Music Hall of Fame: Album Inductees (February 2022)

The Top Folk/Folk-Rock Albums Originally posted 2/22/2022. January 22, 2019 marked the 10-year anniversary of the DMDB blog. To honor that, Dave’s Music Database announced its own Hall of Fame. This month marks the thirteenth group of album inductees. These are the top folk/folk-rock albums of all time, excluding previous inductees Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited from Bob Dylan, Carole King’s Tapestry, and Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush. See the full list of album inductees here.

The Band Music from Big Pink (1968) Inducted February 2022 as “Top Folk/Folk-Rock Albums.”

Ironically it took a group of four Canadians and one American to popularize Americana, or roots-based music. The Band’s debut album came about after the members had already made a name for themselves backing Ronnie Hawkins and then Bob Dylan. This album, which featured “The Weight” and “I Shall Be Released,” is a Grammy Hall of Fame inductee. Read more.

The Band The Band (1969) Inducted February 2022 as “Top Folk/Folk-Rock Albums.”

AllMusic.com’s William Ruhlmann called the Band’s self-titled sophomore album “a more deliberate and even more accomplished effort” than their debut. It was commercially more successful, reaching the top ten and selling a million copies.The album, which features “Up on Cripple Creek” and “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down,” is a Grammy Hall of Fame and National Recording Registry inductee. Read more.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Déjà Vu (1970) Inducted February 2022 as “Top Folk/Folk-Rock Albums.”

In 1969, the trio of David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash were hailed as one of rock’s first supergroups. It seemed impossible to top their triumphant Woodstock appearance and a top-ten, four-million-selling album debut, but they roared back the next year by adding Neil Young to their arsenal and delivering a #1 album that doubled the sales of its predecessor. The Grammy Hall of Fame album featured a plethora of folk-rock staples, including “Teach Your Children,” Woodstock,” “Our House,” and “Helpless.” Read more.

Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home (1965) Inducted February 2022 as “Top Folk/Folk-Rock Albums.”

“Subterranean Homesick Blues,” the leadoff track from Bob Dylan’s fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home, wasn’t just his first top-40 single and an iconic video. It also announced a bold new direction for the folk hero: he was going electric. The move alienated some of the genre’s most rigid aficionados but made for a triumphant merger of folk meets rock. The Grammy Hall of Fame album also introduced “Mr. Tambourine Man,” which the Byrds turned into the signature song for the entire movement. Read more.

Bob Dylan Blood on the Tracks (1975) Inducted February 2022 as “Top Folk/Folk-Rock Albums.”

AllMusic.com’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine said, “Dylan made albums more influential than this, but he never made one better.” The Grammy Hall of Fame inductee is popularly referred to as his divorce album because it documents the collapse of his marriage to Sara Lownds, although Dylan denies this. He was also surprised people responded so much to an album with painful themes, but it was definitely a commercial success, reaching #1 in the U.S. and selling 10 million copies worldwide. Read more.

Joni Mitchell Blue (1971) Inducted February 2022 as “Top Folk/Folk-Rock Albums.”

AllMusic.com’s Jason Ankeny called this “the quintessential confessional singer/songwriter album.” Joni’s platinum-selling, Grammy Hall of Fame inductee is an exercise of “writing about what you know” as she lays bare her feelings about ending her relationship with Graham Nash and starting an affair with James Taylor. Paste magazine said, it “set a new bar for breakup albums and still remains the standard by which any acoustically inclined singer/songwriter today will be compared.” Read more.

Van Morrison Astral Weeks (1968) Inducted February 2022 as “Top Folk/Folk-Rock Albums.”

The Grammy Hall of Fame album failed to chart in the U.S. or UK but integrated the improvisational spirit (as well as some significant players) from the jazz world into a folk-leaning effort that no one expected from the guy who’d delivered “Brown Eyed Girl” on his debut and the iconic garage rock “Gloria” with his band Them. PopMatters.com’s Jason Mendelsohn called it “a jazz record disguised as a rock record.” Read more.

Van Morrison Moondance (1970) Inducted February 2022 as “Top Folk/Folk-Rock Albums.”

After the jazzy Astral Weeks, Van Morrison did another 180 and returned to a more tightly-structured, pop-leaning effort with Moondance, a three-million seller that delivered the top-40 hit “Come Running” as well as classic rock hits like “Into the Mystic,” “Crazy Love,” “And It Stoned Me,” and, of course, the title cut. Read more.

Simon & Garfunkel Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970) Inducted February 2022 as “Top Folk/Folk-Rock Albums.”

It’s hard to top Bridge Over Troubled Water as a last hurrah. The fifth and final album for Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel was a massive success, hitting #1 for 10 weeks in the U.S. and 33 weeks in the UK. It sold over 28 million copies worldwide and won the Grammy for Album of the Year. It also gave the world the top-10 hits “The Boxer,” “Cecilia,” and the iconic chart-topping title cut. Read more.

Neil Young Harvest (1972) Inducted February 2022 as “Top Folk/Folk-Rock Albums.”

Harvest was a #1 album that sold more than 16 million copies worldwide, thanks to the chart-topping “Heart of Gold,” top-40 hit “Old Man,” and perhaps the best “don’t do heroin” song ever, “The Needle and the Damage Done.” Billboard named it the Album of the Year and it has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. PopMatters.com’s Erik Klinger says it “hardly sounds like a naked grab for the mainstream” but, as his co-hort Jason Mendelsohn says, “it is by far the most accessible suite of songs he had written thus far in his career.” Read more.