Sometimes there’s nothing quite like a singer/songwriter with an acoustic guitar. Stuff I’ve been listening to in this genre:
Willy Porter
Jack Johnson
Rockwell Church
Peter Mulvey
Anyone who enjoys this type of music, what other artists do you listen to in this vein?
All of Andrew Ratchin’s stuff is excellent. He performs solo as Electric Bonsai Band, he did his best work with Uncle Bonsai (the two women, Arni and Ashley, did most of the vocals, with Andrew on guitar), and Mel Cooleys was much more heavily instrumented, but had the same hyper-literate, satiric lyrics. Website’s at www.yellowtailrecords.com (I hope that link’s not against the rules. As near as I can tell, the whole label is run out of a house by one or two people. I ordered some tapes a couple years ago and Andrew called me to see if I’d gotten them, so it’s not exactly a commercial juggernaut.)
There’s also John Wesley Harding. He tends to bounce back and forth from almost-rock and very traditional folk, and in between the extremes he’s done some very good music. If you have your heart set on accoustic guitar, try the album John Wesley Harding’s New Deal, and his song The Devil in Me absolutely kicks ass.