Folk and Folk Rock Music Map Art Prints: Six Maps, 1965 to 2026
My folk and folk rock music map art prints cover six acts across six decades: The Byrds, Leonard Cohen, Jethro Tull, Billy Bragg, Levellers, and Mumford and Sons. Each print draws a career as a transit map, with the albums as stations in release order and every credited musician as a line of their own.
Folk is the genre people assume is one person and a guitar. The credits say otherwise, and this is the collection where the gap between the image and the credit list is widest.
The Six Maps in the Collection
- The Byrds discography art print: 12 albums, from 1965
- Leonard Cohen discography art print: 15 albums, 1967 to 2019
- Jethro Tull discography art print: 23 albums
- Billy Bragg discography art print: 18 releases, from 1983
- Levellers discography art print: 17 albums, 1988 to 2023
- Mumford and Sons discography art print: eight releases, 2009 to 2026
Two scope notes. The Jethro Tull map includes a Christmas album as a station. The Mumford and Sons map carries eight releases, six of which are studio albums, and the other two are labelled as what they are.
Billy Bragg: One Man in 1983, 23 in 1991, One Again in 2010
The Billy Bragg map is the clearest example in my catalogue of a career changing density. One credited musician in 1983, Bragg himself. Twenty-three in 1991. Back to one in 2010. The map draws that as a network that widens to a crowd and then narrows to a single line again.
Johnny Marr has a line on it. So does a trumpet player who, as it turns out, outlasts him. Billy Bragg called the map a "brilliant idea", which is the only endorsement on this page and the one I am most pleased with. The full list is in Billy Bragg albums in order.
Leonard Cohen: The Record With More Than Forty Players
Everyone pictures Leonard Cohen alone with a guitar. Death of a Ladies' Man, the 1977 album, credits more than forty musicians, more than his first four albums put together. On the map it is the widest station by a distance, sitting between much narrower ones, and it tells you something about that record before you have read a single name.
Fifteen albums, 1967 to 2019. The last station is a record released after his death, from sessions recorded before it.
| Map | Narrowest station | Widest station |
|---|---|---|
| Billy Bragg | 1 musician, 1983 and 2010 | 23 musicians, 1991 |
| Leonard Cohen | The early albums | More than 40, Death of a Ladies' Man |
| Levellers | Two lines run all 17, and two more run 15 | 40 credited lines in total |
| Jethro Tull | Ian Anderson on all 23 | Martin Barre on 19 |
The Byrds: Five Lines That Leave and Rejoin
The Byrds map has 12 albums and five founding lines. All five peel away at different points, which is the churn behind the harmonies, and then all five rejoin at the very last station. I do not know another band where the map ends by putting the original line-up back together.
Levellers: Two Lines on All Seventeen, Two More on Fifteen
Two of the Levellers' lines run every one of the 17 albums, from 1988 to 2023, and two more miss only two, which almost no band I have mapped manages. Joe Strummer is credited on piano on one of them. The print carries 40 lines and is one of the three maps I produce in A1 only, because it does not survive being shrunk.
Jethro Tull and Mumford and Sons: Two Kinds of Spine
Ian Anderson is on all 23 Jethro Tull albums, and Martin Barre, the guitarist most fans could not name, is on 19 of them. Those two lines are the spine of a map that otherwise changes personnel constantly.
Mumford and Sons are the opposite argument. The banjo that everyone associates with them runs the first half of the map and then stops. Eight releases in, the thing the band is known for is no longer on the records.
Sizes and Framing
Five of these maps come in A3 (420 x 297 mm), A2 (594 x 420 mm), and A1 (841 x 594 mm), plus the separate 16 x 12 in, 24 x 18 in, and 36 x 24 in formats for the US, Canada, and Australia. The Levellers map is A1 and 36 x 24 in only. Every size is supplied unframed or ready to hang in a wood frame. Giclée on 230gsm acid-free fine art paper, drawn manually in CAD, no AI at any stage.
Related Music Maps
Dierks Bentley has a banjo credit on nine of his ten albums, which makes him the counter-example to Mumford and Sons, and he sits in the country music maps guide. For the Levellers' full station list and the Strummer credit, see Levellers albums in order.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which artists are on the folk and folk rock music maps?
The Byrds, Leonard Cohen, Jethro Tull, Billy Bragg, Levellers, and Mumford and Sons. The earliest station is 1965 and the latest is 2026.
Which folk map has the most albums?
Jethro Tull, with 23 albums, one of them a Christmas record. Billy Bragg has 18 releases, and Levellers and Leonard Cohen have 17 and 15 albums respectively.
What is not on these maps?
Live albums, compilations, and greatest hits sets are not drawn. The Jethro Tull map includes a Christmas album and the Mumford and Sons map carries two non-studio releases, both labelled on the print. Anything released after the artwork was drawn is not on it until I update the print.
Is Billy Bragg's work with Wilco on the map?
The map carries 18 releases, and which collaborations are drawn as stations is set out in the Billy Bragg albums in order post linked above. Read that before buying if a specific record matters to the person.
If You Cannot Decide Between Them
Six maps across sixty years. The art print gift card covers any of them, and anything else on the site. If the person has ever told you Leonard Cohen was just a man and a guitar, buy the Cohen map and let the 1977 station make the argument.
