Reddit reviews Anthology of American Folk Music (Edited by Harry Smith)

• Agreed, Robert Johnson is a good start. Some describe his style as a blend of other musicians at his time, or at times blatant homages (or ripoffs?). For example, Johnson's Sweet Home Chicago was 'inspired' by Kokomo Arnold's Kokomo Blues.
  
  
• Skip James is another good one. If you ever watched 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou,' the song hard time killing floor blues played by the guitarist in the movie at the camp fire is a Skip James tune. One distinguishing feature of Skip is that a lot of his songs are minor key blues played (in fact, he started learning guitar in open D-minor tuning). Another classic of his is Devil Got My Woman. Artists like Cream have covered his songs, like I'm so glad, and was an influence to Robert Johnson (for example, compare 22-20 blues and 32-20 blues.
  
  
• Son House is another blues musician who influenced Johnson and people after him. An example of a modern cover of one of his songs is the White Stripes cover of Son's Death Letter Blues.
  
  Other standards that should be explored more are
  
  
• Blind Lemon Jefferson,
  
• Blind Willie McTell,
  
• Blind Willie Johnson,
  
• and the not-so-blind Kokomo Arnold, others as well.
  
  
  One good start for Folk Music in general is The American Folkways Collection, which has a few highlights from some a few other blues musicians.
  
  Wikipedia is good for discovering blues music, by reading the articles on these guys and looking at who they played with or were influenced by. Also good to read articles about rock musicians like Led Zeppelin, Yardbirds, Cream, Clapton, and look at the background or inspiration to their music since a lot of their songs are covers of some old blues tunes (e.g. compare Led Zeppelin's version of 'Nobody's Fault of Mine' to Blind Willie Johnson's version.
  
  

check out this version by [Tommy Jarrell] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e56j2jDGHw)

Defining folk music is tough, because the term has become a catchall for many different types of music. Folk music was very much an oral tradition for a long, long time. Songs would melt into one another and many common themes could be found in many different songs. Look at the story of Stack-O-Lee and Billy Lyons or Betty and Dupree. These stories have been told in different songs dozens of times.

I would point you to the [Folkways Anthology of American Folk Music] (https://www.amazon.com/Anthology-American-Music-Edited-Harry/dp/B000001DJU) as a great starting point for the "genre." It does a great job of showing the many different styles of music that have since come under the folk umbrella. It also basically lays out the blueprint for so much of the popular music that followed in the decades since it's release.

Blue.

• The blues: Bessie Smith, Son House, basically everything off the Anthology of American Folk Music, Doug Macleod, and swing/jazz stuff (the Duke).
  
  
• Alternative (?): The Pixies, Butthole Surfers, Violent Femmes, The Mars Volta, At the Drive-In, Blood Brothers
  
  
• Older Stuff: B-52s, Sisters of Mercy, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Cure (Pornography), Joy Division, The Go-Gos, Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell, Boingo, The Smiths
  
  
• Indie/Folk: Conor Oberst / Bright Eyes, Bon Iver, Cat Power, M. Ward,
  
  
• Rap: Anything by RZA (Gravediggaz' 6 Feet Deep album), Dr. Octagon, Beastie Boys
  
  
• Misc: Bad Religion, Bach, Warpaint, Cake, Dresden Dolls, James Blake, Joanna Newsom, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
  
  
  So yeah. A little all over with a dark side I guess.
  
  (edit: formatting, and I can't believe I forgot the Smiths)

Folk songs for me begin and end with the Anthology of American Folk Music, collated in the '50s by Harry Smith. This is Greil Marcus's "old weird America" in spades: the last song on Disc One (the must-have record of the set) is Kelly Harrell's "My Name is John Johanna," likely the scariest music I've ever heard.