Holy Modal Rounders
Boston, Massachusetts, 1972

Pete Stampfel and Steve Weber are not your average country stars. Legendary characters in the Greenwich Village folk scene and the antiwar, pro-drug culture that followed, their music was purely traditional, in the style of old-time musicians and string bands of the 1920s and 1930s, such as Uncle Dave Macon, Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, and Charlie Poole. The Rounders made two influential albums in the 1960s and contributed to the soundtrack of Easy Rider. But their lasting contribution is helping to bring traditional music to an urban, educated audience—including the founders of the influential Rounder records, who named their company after the band.