{"id":5995,"date":"2012-05-09T11:52:28","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T18:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=5995"},"modified":"2012-05-09T13:53:08","modified_gmt":"2012-05-09T20:53:08","slug":"folk-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/05\/folk-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"FOLK FORWARD"},"content":{"rendered":"

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FOLK\u00a0<\/strong>FORWARD<\/strong><\/h1>\n

How a sound born of tradition is\u00a0<\/strong>thriving in the modern day <\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n

By Peter Cooper<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the other \u201cF\u201d word. And like its more obscene counterpart, it means different things to different people in different contexts. In the 1950s, it was sweater-vested political subversives. Later, it was shape-shifting musical revolutionaries and introspective singer-songwriters. It has been used to describe troubadours who specialize in journalistic specificity, and others who tend toward poetic vagaries. It was then, it is now, and by all indications it ever shall be. The word is \u201cfolk.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than country or rock or R&B, or most any genre (other than perhaps its cousin, bluegrass), folk music\u2019s instrumentation, intent and execution connect the latest commercial trends in a direct line to the sound\u2019s ancient architects. While at times over the decades folk has fought to be heard over the cacophony of the latest sonic trends, the music is now in popular bloom. Folk-associated acts such as Mumford & Sons, Bon Iver, Iron & Wine, the Civil Wars, Fleet Foxes and others are especially popular among the youth of today, just as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Judy Collins were a\u00a0half-century ago. Rock giants like Bruce Springsteen are harnessing its primal power, and folk standard-bearers like Ani DiFranco are finding new relevance in its effectiveness\u00a0as agitprop.<\/p>\n

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Mumford & Sons<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe current state of folk music is the best it has been since the 1960s,\u201d says Louis Meyers, director of Folk Alliance International, an advocacy organization whose annual five-day conference draws thousands of folk musicians from around the world. \u201cMaybe better than the \u201860s, because people of all ages are listening and the overall audience is more diverse and more dedicated than in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Folk Alliance brings together players, fans, managers and bookers whose venues range from major clubs to private homes, with showcases running from early evening until the dawn. \u201cYou look around Folk Alliance and see older and younger generations,\u201d says Sarah Holbrook of SHEL, a Colorado-based, musically expansive quartet of sisters who classify their sound as folk-pop. \u201cFolk music is different for everybody, in every part of the world. It\u2019s how folks feel about it. That\u2019s folk music.\u201d<\/p>\n

UP, DOWN, UNDERGROUND<\/strong><\/h1>\n
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Amy Speace<\/p><\/div>\n

Folks seem to be feeling good about it lately though the music\u2019s influence and import has waxed and waned through the history of sound recordings. It\u2019s impossible to separate the classic 1920s and \u201930s recordings of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers\u2014now lumped into the \u201ccountry\u201d canon\u2014from folk\u2019s traditions of acoustic instruments and sung stories. The Weavers and others revived interest in folk during the 1950s, but the ascent of Elvis Presley and rock \u2019n\u2019 roll pushed it into the background before the late-decade arrival of the Kingston Trio\u00a0kick-started a folk boom. Legions of young fans sat cross-legged at festivals listening to sages such as Pete Seeger, who exemplified the fierce political edge of the genre. As a member of the Weavers he was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, blacklisted and forced from radio playlists and television appearances.<\/p>\n

The 1960s, of course, brought Bob Dylan, who began as an acolyte following the every word and gesture of fierce-minded heroes like \u201940s pioneer Woody Guthrie and Dylan\u2019s own unheralded New York contemporary Dave Van Ronk (\u201cIn Greenwich Village, Van Ronk was the king of the street,\u201d Dylan writes). Like most folk artists of the day, Dylan began his songwriting career by setting new lyrics to traditional melodies\u2014the Negro spiritual \u201cNo More Auction Block,\u201d for instance, was transformed into \u201cBlowin\u2019 in the Wind.\u201d When he dared to begin formulating his own tunes, purists howled with outrage. Dylan, Baez and Collins came to exemplify a folk music that treated tradition as a springboard rather than a rulebook. \u201cThey were learning the traditional folk songs and then as writers adding their own take,\u201d explains Amy Speace, an acclaimed singer and songwriter who often tours as Collins\u2019 opening act.<\/p>\n

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Bruce Springsteen<\/p><\/div>\n

Acts like the Byrds and Simon and Garfunkel dared to add electric instruments and rhythm sections, creating the subgenre of \u201cfolk-rock\u201d in the mid-\u201960s. Folk\u2019s big tent expanded further to include a wave of inward-looking 1970s singer-songwriters: Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Loudon Wainwright III, Tom Rush and the like. But by the bigger-is-better 1980s the music\u2019s popular reach was shrinking. When Nanci Griffith sought to move to national stages with a sound influenced by Texas folk masters Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and Eric Taylor, she repeatedly told interviewers that she hoped to remove the stigma that had grown to surround folk\u2014only to be classified as a country artist instead.<\/p>\n

By the late \u201980s, a roots renaissance was afoot. Suzanne Vega and Tracy Chapman scored radio hits armed with acoustic guitars, and folkies like Michelle Shocked found themselves sought out by major labels. Craggy-voiced troubadour Bill Morrissey led a New England-based mini-folk revival that would grow to inspire John Gorka, Patty Griffin, Ellis Paul and many others. In New York, the \u201canti-folk\u201d scene that included Cindy Lee Berryhill and future alt-rock figurehead Beck brought punk-rock elements into the mix. By the 1990s, folk established an essential, if impermanent, independence from the larger pop world. Greg Brown, Garnet Rogers, John Gorka, Dar Williams and others found a folk circuit of listening rooms and festivals based on community, not corporations. It was, as author and performer Scott Alarik called it, \u201cthe modern folk underground.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the new century, folk musicians\u2019 aspirations were largely of the grassroots variety. That meant the music was largely immune to corporate whims, but it also made it hard for musicians performing tradition-inflected material to find new fans. The genre\u2019s new-era lynchpins\u2014artists such as Gorka, Chris Smither and Greg Brown\u2014played to audiences more notable for their enthusiasm than their youth. But many in the community were certain it didn\u2019t have to be that way. \u201cIf you can get young people in the room, and if you\u2019re good at what you\u2019re choosing to do and it\u2019s authentic, then they\u2019ll respond,\u201d says folk musician Rod Picott.<\/p>\n

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REFINED AND DEFINED\u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n
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Patty Griffin<\/p><\/div>\n

Whether those acts playing folk instruments are in fact \u201cfolk artists\u201d provides unending debate for musicians, scholars and cynics. Most classify on a case-by-case basis. A tradition-drenched string band like Old Crow Medicine Show nearly always gets a folk pass, while other acoustic acts are sometimes derided as rock bands playing not-so-rock instruments. Is Pearl Jam\u2019s Eddie Vedder a folkie because he made a solo album of songs accompanied only by ukulele (dubbed, aptly enough, Ukulele Songs<\/em>)? \u201cWe go out of our way not to define \u2018folk,\u2019\u201d says the Folk Alliance\u2019s Meyers. \u201cIt means something different to each person, and that\u2019s OK. Any definition of folk would be based on that person\u2019s experiences and field of reference, and that is different for everyone. Folk music is any music based on a traditional style of music, and we believe that traditions change every time the calendar changes to another year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today folk can be Dylan performing at the Grammys with the Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons. It can be the hippie-friendly freak-folk of Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom. It can be Richard Thompson wielding an electric guitar or Celtic artist Donal Lunny with a bouzouki. It can be cowboy fiddler Skip Gorman at a festival, Native American flute player and storyteller Bill Miller on a college campus or the no-longer-blacklisted Seeger being feted as a guest of honor at the White House. \u201cI\u2019m still just a woman, solo onstage with an acoustic guitar\u2014no light show, no pyrotechnics, no dancing, just a story sung to music,\u201d Speace says. \u201cContemporary folk songs are about the same thing that \u201960s folk songs were about: love, longing, politics, change.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the internet age, folk can be a mashup of influences and inspirations. \u201cWe have everything at our disposal now,\u201d says Otis Gibbs, a socially minded artist in the Woody Guthrie mold. \u201cI remember long ago talking with friends and one would say, \u2018I\u2019ve got this John Lee Hooker bootleg video. Want to watch it?\u2019 And we\u2019d all go to his house at 4 a.m., because we might never have a chance to see that again. Now it\u2019s on YouTube, and anybody with the tiniest bit of curiosity has it right there in their living room. I used to think of folk music as something indigenous to an area\u2014but with the internet, nothing goes unnoticed and there\u2019s no regionalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Tom Morello<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2012, folk music is about universality, expansion and rejuvenation. \u201cEverything is thriving now,\u201d says Eva Holbrook of SHEL. \u201cWe have the internet, and we can listen to whatever we want. Our influences aren\u2019t just basic ones, and music is becoming more diverse everywhere.\u201d The 20-somethings who flock to SHEL shows, or to major venues to catch sets from Mumford & Sons or the Avetts, don\u2019t necessarily arrive schooled in the populist philosophies of Seeger or early Dylan. They\u2019ve likely never heard of Van Ronk, and they have grown up seldom experiencing music as an invitation to political or social change in the way their grandparents may have.<\/p>\n

That, too, is changing. The rise of the Occupy movement against corporate greed in America has been accompanied almost inevitably by a soundtrack of folk music. Bruce Springsteen\u2019s chart-topping new Occupy-inspired opus Wrecking Ball<\/em> is bursting with folk influences amid the raucous rock \u2019n\u2019 roll. One of the most politically outspoken rockers of today, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello has carved out a second career for himself as an acoustic folk artist under the Nightwatchman moniker. \u201cI came upon that type of music later in life,\u201d he says. \u201cI had always been a fan of music that was dark and heavy, but it tended to be heavy metal or punk rock or hip-hop. I discovered that quiet music could sometimes be as deep, dark and unnerving as anything played with Marshall stacks. It\u2019s a style of music that feels very true to me, as much as any crazy guitar noises I\u2019ve ever made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some very specific folk traditions are being revived by similarly high-profile acts. John Mellencamp rewrote the traditional song \u201cTo Washington\u201d with new lyrics applying to the Iraq War. The title cut of Ani DiFranco\u2019s new album \u00bfWhich Side Are You On? <\/em>is an Occupy-centric rewrite of a 1931 protest song written by union activist Florence Reece. \u201cI do like that folk process and the fact that melodies and stories can be kept alive indefinitely through the oral tradition,\u201d DiFranco says. \u201cIt feels really good to get down with the traditional folk-singing side of myself. I\u2019d like to do more of that.\u201d (The indefatigable Seeger, 92, plays banjo on the track.)<\/p>\n

THE REBIRTH OF COOL\u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n
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Ani DiFranco<\/p><\/div>\n

Whether the topic at hand is political or personal, the essential pull of folk remains its innate humanity. It\u2019s an energy that doesn\u2019t stem from pumped-in electro-percussion tracks and that isn\u2019t dependent on video screens, choreography or special effects. Listeners hear songs that are intended as real-life stories, not aspirational fantasies. Those songs echo with ancient reverberations, but pulse with a contemporary heartbeat.<\/p>\n

Veteran troubadour Tim Easton views folk\u2019s recent re-flowering with glee. \u201cSo funny how the word \u2018folk\u2019 became a bit of a dirty word after the \u201970s and classic rock,\u201d he says. \u201cI believe the recent folk boom started because of computers and technology and corporate missteps. Suddenly you have all these unique kids who want to do something different. These groups are returning us to nature and harmonies and organic sounds, and bands like Mumford will now influence younger kids for sure. Not only will the circle never be broken, but it will turn into a figure eight.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter what the future holds, the \u201cF\u201d word isn\u2019t so taboo anymore. \u201cI remember when I first started out playing in New York City clubs, being really shy about calling myself a folk singer, as if there was something dated or uncool about that,\u201d Speace says. \u201cSeems cool is coming back around to folk again. For many young artists these days, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez are untouchable. They\u2019re stars as much as Bono is a star. It\u2019s a different world from the commercial side but the music is still connected.\u201d \u00a0 M<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  FOLK\u00a0FORWARD How a sound born of tradition is\u00a0thriving in the modern day \u00a0 By Peter Cooper It\u2019s the other \u201cF\u201d word. And like its more obscene counterpart, it means different things to different people in different contexts. In the 1950s, it was sweater-vested political subversives. Later, it was shape-shifting musical revolutionaries and introspective singer-songwriters. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3630],"tags":[2009,3155,3599,3604,3592,3602,969,3621,3623,3611,2328,3600,3601,3607,3596,3629,3627,3626,3628,3613,3610,3598,3612,1624,3624,3593,286,3614,991,3151,2875,3625,3303,3618,3591,3619,3608,157,2331,3609,3615,3605,3597,3622,3603,3616,2798,2727,3620,3617,3606,3594,3595],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5995"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5995"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6016,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5995\/revisions\/6016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}