Folk Music

From LoveToKnow Music

Folk music emerged out of the tradition of storytelling, and in its earliest form was a way for communities to preserve their histories and legends. The emergence of radio and the rise in popularity of country music – whose artists often borrowed traditional folk songs – moved folk out of local communities and onto a wider stage. In the 1960s, popular music artists began employing a simple storytelling formula to craft songs of protest and social commentary.

The 1960s

Though most of his own work took place in the 1930s and 40s, Woody Guthrie, best known as the writer of “This Land Is Your Land,” can be considered the father of the folk music revolution that took place in the 60s in the USA. Guthrie’s protégée was Ramblin Jack Elliot, a folk musician based in New York City. Ramblin Jack was an inspiration to many musicians living in Greenwich Village in the 1960s who would go on to have an important place in music history – The Greenbriar Boys, considered the first bluegrass group to come from outside the south, Phil Ochs, best known for “I Ain’t Marching Anymore,” Joan Baez, one of the first women to gain prominence in folk music, and perhaps most notably, Bob Dylan.

Two factors influenced the rise in popularity of folk music in the 60s – first, record labels began tapping into the music scene in Greenwich Village, and dedicated folk music labels sprang up (Vanguard Record being a pioneer in this field). Second, the cultural landscape of 1960s America made these folk singers and their protest songs the natural mouthpiece for a generation fighting civil rights battles and against increasing involvement in the Vietnam War. Artist like Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary were very active politically, using their music to familiarize people will issues of social justice and their popularity to rally people behind their causes.

The genre in the early 1960s generally followed the “singer/songwriter” format – one person and their acoustic guitar – but the British invasion changed all of that. Once they were exposed to music from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and other British acts, folk musicians in America began experimenting with different instruments. This experimentation gave rise to the folk rock genre, popularized by bands such as The Mamas and The Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Lovin’ Spoonful (all of whom came from the same Greenwich Village folk scene as Dylan, Ochs, and Baez). Not everyone was happy to see folk musicians moving away from the stripped down format – Bob Dylan famously plugged in an electric guitar during his performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival to booing and cries of “Judas” from the audience.

The 1970s

The 70s saw a return in popularity of the singer/songwriter. Nanci Griffith, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian and Carole King all rose to fame performing stripped down, acoustic music, while those like John Denver straddled the folk/country divide. Individual members of disbanded folk groups from the 60s, like Mary Traver of Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel of Simon and Garfunkel, released high selling solo albums. Coffeehouses became the local venue of choice for aspiring singer/songwriters of the 70s, a tradition now ingrained in American culture.

Folk singers also maintained their involvement in social campaigns in the 70s. Joan Baez traveled to North Vietman, volunteered with Amnesty International and eventually formed her own human rights group, Humanitis International. Peter, Paul and Mary reformed to raise money for anti-war government candidates. Folk music became almost inseparable from so called “left” causes.

Folk Music in The 1980s and Beyond

The genre branched in many different directions in the 1980s. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez still recorded and toured, and other folk groups had periods of reunion and solo projects, but a new school of folk musician also emerged. First were the folk punk artists – musicians who embraced the activism and meaningful songwriting of Dylan and the folk movement, but also learned lessons from the late 1970s punk explosion, with their DIY attitude and angry lyrics. The Knitters and Jason and the Scorchers are early examples of this sound, which would later go on to fall under the catch-all “alt-country banner” – Steve Earle and Ani DiFranco are the best known modern musicians in this school.

Greenwich Village, where popular American folk songs emerged in the 1960s, was the birth place of a 1990s and beyond reaction to folk – the Antifolk movement. The antifolk musicians widen the definition of folk to include many types of DIY music. Beck, and later, The Moldy Peaches, got their start in the antifolk scene.

This style of music in America today can mean a singer/songwriter and an acoustic guitar, a folk rock group, an angry folk punk singer, or an anitfolker creating something entirely different altogether, but the ideas of music as a force for change remains a powerful theme across the genre.