The New Folk Music: Part One

American folk music originally had a simple definition: traditional songs with simple instrumentation created by non-professional musicians and passed around through oral transmission. Subject matters tended to be simple and universal too: work, love, death, war.

In the 1930s and 40s, Alan and John Lomax (son and father) collected  traditional songs from all over rural America, making field recordings available to the public through the Library of Congress. This pioneering activity brought to light such indigenous performers as Lead Belly (Huddie Ledbetter), Muddy Waters, and a more sosophisticated character - song writer Woody Guthrie. Here is Woody singing the traditional ballad, The House of the Rising Sun:


In 1940 0r 1941, Guthrie became a founding member of the Almanac Singers, a folk music group consisting of musicians who, in addition to singing traditional songs began writing and singing topical songs with a political point of view. A member of this group, Pete Seeger, became one of the most famous folk singers in America. He went on to become leader of The Weavers, a popular folk group in the early 60s.

The involvement of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger in folk music led to the association of folk music with protest songs, usually from a unionist, left wing perspective. The Almanac singers, who at one time formed a communistic collective, recorded union songs. Woody Guthrie famously wrote and sang the people's anthem This Land is Your Land, and Pete Seeger was known for anti-war protest songs. Bob Dylan, who since 1962 has been preeminent among American singer/songwriters, first gained fame as a folksy protest singer. His most famous song from this early period  is Blowin in the Wind, although the chilling anti-war ballad Masters of War is a better song.

Folk music became newly popular in the early 1960s. Besides Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, well known singers of the time included:

Joan Baez
Buffy Sainte Marie
Odetta
Peter, Paul, and Mary
Janis Ian
Judy Collins
The Kingston Trio
Harry Belafonte
Hoyt Axton
Burl Ives

Come to the library to hear these and other folk singers.