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I’ve found myself on a bit of a Folk kick lately. Joshua Radin. Amos Lee. Jack Johnson. James Blunt. Cary Brothers.

What’s Folk music anyhow? Not necessarily a simple question if you refer to Wikipedia, though if you’ve listened to these artists you’ll know I ascribe to the more modern definition of music consisting predominately of simple acoustic guitar arrangements and vocals. Though I have to admit that my personal folk nirvana is when these talented song writers pick up the pace and expand the songs with a few more instruments. At the end of the day, I’ll always be a rock fan at heart.

Folk artists have long been top on my list. Well at least artists with roots in Folk. Pop-rockers Vertical Horizon (who I used to work for) may be best know for their single “Everything You Want” , ranked by Casey Casem as the top song of 2000, but the group started as an acoustic folk duo with the album There and Back Again. Rockwell Church , another personal favorite, has systematically expanded their sound from album to album, but vocal harmony and acoustic guitar they started with remain at the root of their music.

A few weeks ago I picked up James Blunt’s Back to Bedlam on iTunes . By now most people with a bead on music are familiar with Blunt, a former British army officer who has exploded onto U.S. scene recently following some similar success in the U.K. I first heard Blunt when his track “You’re Beautiful” was released as a free download on iTunes. I find the free tracks hit or miss, but I managed to find at least two artists who have made it all worth it. During months of flirting with buying Back to Bedlam I was noticing it was holding strong in top five albums on iTunes. I finally bit the bullet and downloaded and it has consistantly grown on me over the last few weeks. My current favorite track is “Wisemen” .

My most recent acquisitions were Joshua Radin’s self-released We Were Here and Amos Lee’s self-titled album from Blue Note/EMI.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I found out about Radin from Zach Braff who has been plugging him hard on his blog (Zach Braff’s Garden State Blog) and even gave him a pitch on iTunes. Of couse, Radin’s music has been heavily featured on the last two seasons of Scrubs (”These Photographs” , “Don’t Look Away” , “Closer” , “Today” ). We Were Here is Radin’s full length debut and features remakes of some of his more popular songs “Winter” and “Today” , though unlike many folk artists who find themselves expanding their arrangements and crossing over to rock in their arrangements, Radin has actually scaled back from his earlier EP, First Between 3rd and 4th . To be honest, I personally prefer the EP, but for my aforementioned reasons. We Were here is still a great effort and shows real development of a personal style in addition to great song writing.

Amos Lee, on the other hand, was a Pandora find. Lee’s album has more of blues feel and definitely more produced than Radin, which most arrangements also including light percussion and keys. The highlight of the album is the break-up anthem, “Colors” , which is in the sad and pining vein rather than bitter and pissed off. On the track, Lee swoons in a sweet falsetto over a laidback guitar riff.

If you get the chance I’d highly recommend all three of these artists. They’re mellow gold.

Nate Out.