Freak-Folk Legend Peter Stampfel Remains His Zany Self » PopMatters
Song Shards will not be to everybody’s taste (thank God), but who other than Peter Stampfel could make 1940s jingles sound whimsically cool?
Song Shards: Soul Jingles, Stoic Jingles, Vintage Jingles, Prayers and Rounds Peter Stampfel Jalopy 19 September 2025
Peter Stampfel is a name that should mean something to you, that is, if you are into folk music. Don’t take my word for it, Robert Christgau wrote, “Next to Bob Dylan, Stampfel is the closest thing to a genius that [the folk scene] produced.” First moving from Wisconsin to New York City in 1959, at age 20, Stampfel, along with Steve Weber, established the psychedelic and puckish folk group the Holy Modal Rounders, progenitors of freak-folk and psych-folk.
Their debut self-titled LP (1964) was produced by Samuel Charters, who, the year before the publication of his pioneering 1959 book, The Country Blues, had started the Orange Blossom Jug Five with the folk hero Dave Van Ronk. Moreover, the Holy Modal Rounders’ first album includes a rewrite of the traditional “Hesitation Blues”, credited as the first song to use the word “psychedelic” in popular music due to the lyrics, “Got my psychedelic feet in my psychedelic shoes / I believe, Lordy mama, got the psychedelic blues”.
Stampfel is the living embodiment of an “outsider artist”, a counter-cultural figure with a knowledge of folk music to boot—think of the late folk singer and cult hero Michael Hurley. In fact, Stampfel appears on Hurley’s album Have Moicy! (1976). Lastly, Stampfel was an early member of the Fugs.
Greil Marcus, the cultural critic, coined the term “The Old, Weird America” to mean, at its most basic level, weird—you know, those old-time musicians: Dock Boggs and Clarence Ashley who not so much sang as keened with a detached expression on their weathered faces, which did not let on either way if they were offering you elixir or poison. The term has, in a sense, become a floating lyric: picked up and shifting definition in the hands of its next custodian. Whatever, Stampfel is weird.
Weird makes the United States fascinating, which is why the Basement Tapes is, in part, compelling: it exudes an otherness rooted in the American experience. In the 1960s, freaks went public, as Susan Sontag penned in On Photography (1977). You might think: what the hell does this have to do with a record review in 2025? Good question, but the Holy Modal Rounders were at the vanguard of this freakdom.
Remaining an outsider artist throughout his life, Stampfel has released numerous interesting records, including You Must Remember This… (1995) and Dook of the Beatniks (2010). Now, at 86, Stampfel has possibly released his most earnest and wackiest album yet with Song Shards. Essentially, Song Shards is comprised of three parts: Stoic Jingles (stoic aphorisms), Soul Jingles (his own)—who needs Marcus Aurelius when you have Stampfel?—and 1940s advertising jingles (seriously).
When you hear Stampfel for the first time, you will never forget that voice—a reedy voice that seems to belong to the ancient bards via the folk singers Nimrod Workman and Horton Barker. He croaks and cackles; anything but sings. Frankly, Stampfel has never had a strong voice—but who likes a powerful voice, anyway? To quote the late, great David Berman: “All my favorite singers couldn’t sing.”
Recently, Stampfel was diagnosed with dysphonia, a vocal impediment that causes the voice to sound raspy or strained. Of course, this impacts his singing, but fittingly, it ties in with Song Shards’ motif: mortality. In other words, death feels that much closer, graspable, concrete—especially in contrast with the younger female backing vocalists.
For the first time, Stampfel has recorded prayers, secular hymns, or stoic aphorisms. Whichever way you describe them, Stampfel began making up his own prayers when he went to Alcoholics Anonymous in August 1988; sometimes, he sets them to music. Now, we hear the result with Song Shards, complete with bright mandolin melodies and bluesy slide guitar.
For the most part, the Stoic Jingles work; however, occasionally, they come across well-meaning but slight—or, you could say, I have not practiced gratitude to fully appreciate and/or apprehend them (you are correct). The strength of the record lies in the contemplative numbers, such as “The Road”, which will make you weep, and weep some more.
Don’t worry, though, Stampfel has not created a brooding album about mortality. Instead, his off-kilter sensibilities are on full display, with tracks such as “More Wack” and “Swell Hells Bells”. This is not a conventional record—it never was going to be with Stampfel, who, in 2021, released Peter Stampfel’s 20th Century in 100 Songs, an album in which he chronologically recorded one song for each year of the 20th century, including a cover of Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” for 1996 to much hilarity.
Even to the unconventional Stampfel, the 1940s jingles are, well, zany. However, there is a personal subtext: he heard them during his youth spent in Milwaukee; this explains the title of the last song, “Wisconsin Super Service Stations”. Regardless of whether one was born in this century or the previous, there is something absurdly great about listening to 1940s jingles in 2025.
On Song Shards, Stampfel remains his inimitable self: witty, irreverent, and damn right wacky. Obviously, the album will not be to everybody’s taste (thank God)—but who other than Peter Stampfel could make 1940s jingles sound whimsically cool?