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What is folk music<\/a><\/strong>? It’s actually quite a tricky question to answer – that’s why writers and academics have spent centuries debating it. That said, we’re all aware of the debt that classical music owes to folk. And we all know a good folk singer when we hear one. Here, in no particular order, are ten of the best folk singers ever.<\/p> Even if you just know \u2018Hallelujah\u2019, you know Leonard Cohen. The poet-novelist-singer-songwriter poured his soul into everything: his beautiful melodies, his haunting lyrics, his many relationships, his Jewish faith. <\/p> As a youngster, growing up in an orthodox Jewish family in Montreal, Cohen regularly involved himself in extracurricular activities. He got involved on the yearbook staff, in the arts and current events clubs, in his school\u2019s theatre programme. He even served as president of the Students’ Council. <\/p> But music occupied a special place in his affections. That was thanks to his mother, who would sing songs around the house. ‘I know that those changes, those melodies, touched me very much,’\u201d’ he later reminisced. \u201cShe would sing with us when I took my guitar to a restaurant with some friends; my mother would come, and we’d often sing all night.\u201d<\/p> He came to his singing-songwriting career relatively late – in his mid-thirties, after struggling to make a living as a novelist and poet. But it was quick to take off, thanks to the profoundly haunting yet simple way he dealt with the most fundamental aspects of life: sex, God, love, loss, death and longing. It\u2019s a quality that turned him into an icon, with many hailing him as a literary and musical genius. <\/p> Yet Cohen himself always remained remarkably matter of fact about his creative process. \u2018I have no idea what I am doing,\u2019 he once said in an interview with the New Yorker<\/em>. \u2018It\u2019s hard to describe. As I approach the end of my life, I have even less and less interest in examining what have got to be very superficial evaluations or opinions about the significance of one\u2019s life or one\u2019s work. I was never given to it when I was healthy, and I am less given to it now.\u2019<\/p>The best folk singers: our top ten<\/h2>
Leonard Cohen<\/h3>
God, love, loss, death and longing<\/h4>