American Folk Music Revival
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The American folk music revival began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like
Josh White Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914 – September 5, 1969) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names Pinewood Tom and Tippy Barton in the 1930s. White grew up in the Sout ...
,
Burl Ives Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American musician, actor, and author with a career that spanned more than six decades. Ives began his career as an itinerant singer and guitarist, eventually launching his own rad ...
,
Woody Guthrie Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired ...
,
Lead Belly Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...
,
Big Bill Broonzy Big Bill Broonzy (born Lee Conley Bradley; June 26, 1903 – August 14, 1958) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s, when he played country music to mostly African American audiences. In the 1930s ...
,
Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop s ...
,
Richard Dyer-Bennet Richard Dyer-Bennet (6 October 1913 in Leicester, England – 14 December 1991 in Monterey, Massachusetts) was an English-born American folk singer (or his own preferred term, "minstrel"), recording artist, and voice teacher. Biography He was b ...
,
Oscar Brand Oscar Brand (February 7, 1920 – September 30, 2016) was a Canadian-born American folk singer-songwriter, radio host, and author. In his career, spanning 70 years, he composed at least 300 songs and released nearly 100 albums, among them Ca ...
,
Jean Ritchie Jean Ruth Ritchie (December 8, 1922 – June 1, 2015) was an American folk singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player, called by some the "Mother of Folk". In her youth she learned hundreds of folk songs in the traditional way (orally ...
,
John Jacob Niles John Jacob Niles (April 28, 1892 – March 1, 1980) was an American composer, singer and collector of traditional ballads. Called the "Dean of American Balladeers," Niles was an important influence on the American folk music revival of the 195 ...
, Susan Reed,
Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his p ...
,
Bessie Smith Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock a ...
,
Ma Rainey Gertrude "Ma" Rainey ( Pridgett; April 26, 1886 – December 22, 1939) was an American blues singer and influential early blues recording artist. Dubbed the "Mother of the Blues", she bridged earlier vaudeville and the authentic expression of s ...
and
Cisco Houston Gilbert Vandine "Cisco" Houston (August 18, 1918 – April 29, 1961) was an American folk singer and songwriter, who is closely associated with Woody Guthrie due to their extensive history of recording together. Houston was a regular recording ...
had enjoyed a limited general popularity in the 1930s and 1940s. The revival brought forward styles of
American folk music The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ''roots music''. Many traditional songs have been sung ...
that had in earlier times contributed to the development of country and western,
blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
,
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
, and
rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...
music.


Overview


Early years

The folk revival in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
was rooted in the resurgent interest in square dancing and folk dancing there in the 1940s as espoused by instructors such as Margot Mayo, which gave musicians such as
Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
popular exposure. The folk revival more generally as a popular and commercial phenomenon begins with the career of
The Weavers The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City originally consisting of Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman. Founded in 1948, the group sang traditional folk songs fro ...
, formed in November 1948 by
Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
,
Lee Hays Lee Elhardt Hays (March 14, 1914 – August 26, 1981) was an American folksinger and songwriter, best known for singing bass with the Weavers. Throughout his life, he was concerned with overcoming racism, inequality, and violence in soci ...
,
Fred Hellerman Fred Hellerman (May 13, 1927 – September 1, 2016) was an American folk singer, guitarist, producer, and songwriter. Hellerman was an original member of the seminal American folk group The Weavers, together with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Ronn ...
, and
Ronnie Gilbert Ruth Alice "Ronnie" Gilbert (September 7, 1926 – June 6, 2015), was an American folk singer, songwriter, actress and political activist. She was one of the original members of the music quartet the Weavers, as a contralto with Pete Seeger, Le ...
of
People's Songs People's Songs was an organization founded by Pete Seeger, Alan Lomax, Lee Hays, and others on December 31, 1945, in New York City, to "create, promote, and distribute songs of labor and the American people."People's Songs Inc. ''People's Songs Ne ...
, of which Seeger had been president and Hays executive secretary. People's Songs, which disbanded in 1948–49, had been a clearing house for labor movement songs (and in particular the CIO, which at the time was one of the few if not the only union that was racially integrated), and in 1948 had thrown all its resources to the failed presidential campaign of
Progressive Party Progressive Party may refer to: Active parties * Progressive Party, Brazil * Progressive Party (Chile) * Progressive Party of Working People, Cyprus * Dominica Progressive Party * Progressive Party (Iceland) * Progressive Party (Sardinia), Ita ...
candidate Henry Wallace, a folk-music aficionado (his running mate was a country-music singer-guitarist). Hays and Seeger had formerly sung together as the politically activist
Almanac Singers The Almanac Singers was an American New York City-based folk music group, active between 1940 and 1943, founded by Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie. The group specialized in topical songs, mostly songs advocating an anti- ...
, a group which they founded in 1941 and whose personnel often included
Woody Guthrie Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired ...
,
Josh White Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914 – September 5, 1969) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names Pinewood Tom and Tippy Barton in the 1930s. White grew up in the Sout ...
,
Lead Belly Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...
,
Cisco Houston Gilbert Vandine "Cisco" Houston (August 18, 1918 – April 29, 1961) was an American folk singer and songwriter, who is closely associated with Woody Guthrie due to their extensive history of recording together. Houston was a regular recording ...
, and
Bess Lomax Hawes Bess Lomax Hawes (January 21, 1921 – November 27, 2009) was an American folk musician, folklorist, and researcher. She was the daughter of John Avery Lomax and Bess Bauman-Brown Lomax, and the sister of Alan Lomax and John Lomax Jr. Early l ...
. The Weavers had a big hit in 1950 with the single of
Lead Belly Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...
's "
Goodnight, Irene "Goodnight, Irene" or "Irene, Goodnight," is a 20th-century American folk standard, written in time, first recorded by American blues musician Huddie 'Lead Belly' Ledbetter in 1933. A version recorded by the Weavers was a #1 hit in 1950. The ...
". This was number one on the Billboard charts for thirteen weeks. On its flip side was "
Tzena, Tzena, Tzena "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena" (), sometimes "Tzena, Tzena", is a song, written in 1941 in Hebrew. Its music is by Issachar Miron (a.k.a. Stefan Michrovsky), a Polish emigrant in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), and the lyrics a ...
", an Israeli dance song that concurrently reached number two on the charts. This was followed by a string of Weaver hit singles that sold millions, including " "So Long It's Been Good to Know You" ("Dusty Old Dust") (by Woody Guthrie) and " Kisses Sweeter Than Wine". The Weavers' career ended abruptly when they were dropped from
Decca Decca may refer to: Music * Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label * Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group * Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label * Decca Studios, a recording facility in W ...
's catalog because Pete Seeger had been listed in the publication
Red Channels ''Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television'' was an anti-Communist document published in the United States at the start of the 1950s. Issued by the right-wing journal ''Counterattack'' on June 22, 1950, the pamphle ...
as a probable subversive. Radio stations refused to play their records and concert venues canceled their engagements. A former employee of People's Songs, Harvey Matusow, himself a former Communist Party member, had informed the FBI that the Weavers were Communists, too, although Matusow later recanted and admitted he had lied. Pete Seeger and Lee Hays were called to testify before the
House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
in 1955. Despite this, a Christmas Weaver reunion concert organized by Harold Leventhal in 1955 was a smash success and the Vanguard LP album of that concert, issued in 1957, was one of the top sellers of that year, followed by other successful albums. Folk music, which often carried the stigma of left-wing associations during the 1950s
Red Scare A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which ar ...
, was driven underground and carried along by a handful of artists releasing records. Barred from mainstream outlets, artists like Seeger were restricted to performing in schools and summer camps, and the folk-music scene became a phenomenon associated with vaguely rebellious
bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...
ism in places like
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
(especially
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
) and
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
's North Beach, and in the college and university districts of cities like
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
,
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
, and elsewhere. Ron Eyerman and Scott Baretta speculate that:
is interesting to consider that had it not been for the explicit political sympathies of the Weavers and other folk singers or, another way of looking at it, the hysterical anti-communism of the Cold War, folk music would very likely have entered mainstream American culture in even greater force in the early 1950s, perhaps making the second wave of the revival nearly a decade later .e., in the 1960sredundant.
The media blackout of performers with alleged communist sympathies or ties was so effective that Israel Young, a chronicler of the 1960s Folk Revival who was drawn into the movement through an interest in folk dancing, communicated to Ron Eyerman that he himself was unaware for many years of the movement's 1930s and early '40s antecedents in left-wing political activism. In the early and mid-1950s, acoustic-guitar-accompanied folk songs were mostly heard in
coffee house A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non- ...
s, private parties, open-air concerts, and sing-alongs,
hootenannies A hootenanny is a party involving music in the United States. It is particularly associated with folk music. Etymology Placeholder Hootenanny is an Appalachian colloquialism that was used in the early twentieth century U.S. as a placeholder name ...
, and at college-campus concerts. Often associated with political dissent, folk music now blended, to some degree, with the so-called
beatnik Beatniks were members of a social movement in the 1950s that subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. History In 1948, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation", generalizing from his social circle to characterize the undergr ...
scene, and dedicated singers of folk songs (as well as folk-influenced original material) traveled through what was called "the coffee-house circuit" across the U.S. and Canada, home also to
cool jazz Cool jazz is a style of modern jazz music that arose in the United States after World War II. It is characterized by relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the fast and complex bebop style. Cool jazz often employs formal arrangements and ...
and recitations of highly personal beatnik poetry. Two singers of the 1950s who sang folk material but crossed over into the mainstream were
Odetta Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire co ...
and
Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
, both of whom sang Lead Belly and Josh White material. Odetta, who had trained as an opera singer, performed traditional blues, spirituals, and songs by
Lead Belly Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...
. Belafonte had hits with Jamaican calypso material as well as the folk song-like sentimental ballad "Scarlet Ribbons" (composed in 1949).


The revival at its height

The Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and ...
, a group originating on the West Coast, were directly inspired by the Weavers in their style and presentation and covered some of the Weavers' material, which was predominantly traditional. The Kingston Trio avoided overtly political or
protest song A protest song is a song that is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of ''topical'' songs (or songs connected to current events). It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre. Among social mov ...
s and cultivated a clean-cut collegiate persona. They were discovered while playing at a college club called the Cracked Pot by Frank Werber, who became their manager and secured them a deal with
Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
. Their first hit was a rewritten rendition of an old-time folk murder ballad, " Tom Dooley", which had been sung at
Lead Belly Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...
's funeral concert. This went
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
in 1958 and sold more than three million copies. The success of the album and the single earned the Kingston Trio a
Grammy award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...
for Best Country & Western Performance at the awards' inaugural ceremony in 1959. At the time, no folk-music category existed in the Grammy's scheme. The next year, largely as a result of ''
The Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and ...
'' album and "Tom Dooley", the
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences The Recording Academy (formally the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences; abbreviated NARAS) is an American Learned society, learned academy of musicians, producers, recording engineers, and other musical professionals. It is famous f ...
instituted a folk category and the Trio won the first
Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording The Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording was awarded from 1960 to 1986. During this time the award had several minor name changes: *From 1960 to 1961 the award was known as Best Performance - Folk *From 1962 to 1967 it was awa ...
for its second studio album '' At Large''. At one point, The Kingston Trio had four records at the same time among the top 10 selling albums for five consecutive weeks in November and December 1959 according to ''
Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
'' magazine's "Top LPs" chart, a record unmatched for more than 50 years and noted at the time by a cover story in ''
Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' magazine. The huge commercial success of the Kingston Trio, whose recordings between 1958 and 1961 earned more than $25 million for Capitol records or about $220 million in 2021 dollars, spawned a host of groups that were similar in some respects like
the Brothers Four The Brothers Four is an American folk singing group, founded in 1957 in Seattle, Washington, and known for their 1960 hit song "Greenfields." History Bob Flick, John Paine, Mike Kirkland, and Dick Foley met at the University of Washington, wher ...
,
Peter, Paul and Mary Peter, Paul and Mary was an American folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio consisted of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone Paul Stookey, and contralto Mary Travers. The group's repertoir ...
,
The Limeliters The Limeliters are an American folk music group, formed in July 1959 by Lou Gottlieb (bass violin/bass), Alex Hassilev (banjo/baritone), and Glenn Yarbrough (guitar/tenor). The group was active from 1959 until 1965, and then after a hiatus of si ...
,
The Chad Mitchell Trio The Chad Mitchell Trio, later known as The Mitchell Trio, were an American vocal group who became known during the 1960s. They performed traditional folk songs and some of John Denver's early compositions. They were particularly notable for perf ...
,
The New Christy Minstrels The New Christy Minstrels are an American large-ensemble folk music group founded by Randy Sparks in 1961. The group has recorded more than 20 albums and scored several hits, including " Green, Green", "Saturday Night", "Today", "Denver", and " ...
, and more. As noted by critic Bruce Eder in the ''All Music Guide'', the popularity of the commercialized version of folk music represented by these groups emboldened record companies to sign, record, and promote artists with more traditionalist and political sensibilities. The Kingston Trio's popularity would be followed by that of
Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
, whose debut album ''
Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
'' reached the top ten in late 1960 and remained on the Billboard charts for over two years. Baez's early albums contained mostly traditional material, such as the Scottish ballad "
Mary Hamilton "Mary Hamilton", or "The Fower Maries" ("The Four Marys"), is a common name for a well-known sixteenth-century ballad from Scotland based on an apparently fictional incident about a lady-in-waiting to a Queen of Scotland. It is Child Ballad 1 ...
", as well as many covers of melancholy tunes that had appeared in Harry Smith's ''
Anthology of American Folk Music ''Anthology of American Folk Music'' is a three-album compilation, released in 1952 by Folkways Records, of eighty-four recordings of American folk, blues and country music made and issued from 1926 to 1933 by a variety of performers. The album wa ...
'', such as "The Wagoner's Lad" and "The Butcher Boy". She did not try to imitate the singing style of her source material, however, but used a rich soprano with vibrato. Her popularity (and that of the folk revival itself) would place Baez on the cover of ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine in November 1962. Unlike the Kingston Trio, Baez was openly political, and as the civil rights movement gathered steam, she aligned herself with Pete Seeger, Guthrie and others. Baez was one of the singers with Seeger,
Josh White Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914 – September 5, 1969) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names Pinewood Tom and Tippy Barton in the 1930s. White grew up in the Sout ...
,
Peter, Paul and Mary Peter, Paul and Mary was an American folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio consisted of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone Paul Stookey, and contralto Mary Travers. The group's repertoir ...
, and
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
who appeared at Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington and sang "
We Shall Overcome "We Shall Overcome" is a gospel song which became a protest song and a key anthem of the American civil rights movement. The song is most commonly attributed as being lyrically descended from "I'll Overcome Some Day", a hymn by Charles Albert Ti ...
", a song that had been introduced by People's Songs. Harry Belafonte was also present on that occasion, as was
Odetta Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire co ...
, whom Martin Luther King introduced as "the queen of folk music" when she sang "Oh, Freedom". ('' Odetta Sings Folk Songs'' was one of 1963's best-selling folk albums). Also on hand were the SNCC
Freedom Singers The Freedom Singers originated as a quartet formed in 1962 at Albany State College in Albany, Georgia. After folk singer Pete Seeger witnessed the power of their congregational-style of singing, which fused black Baptist ''a cappella'' church singin ...
, the personnel of which went on to form
Sweet Honey in the Rock Sweet Honey in the Rock is an all-women band, all-woman, African American, African-American a cappella ensemble. They are an United States, American three-time Grammy Award–nominated troupe who express their history as black women through song ...
. The critical role played by Freedom Songs in the voter registration drives, freedom rides, and lunch counter sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1950s and early '60s in the South gave folk music tremendous new visibility and prestige. The peace movement was likewise energized by the rise of the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nucle ...
in the UK, protesting the British testing of the H-bomb in 1958, as well as by the ever-proliferating arms race and the increasingly unpopular
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
. Young singer-songwriter
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
, playing acoustic guitar and harmonica, had been signed and recorded for Columbia by producer John Hammond in 1961. Dylan's record enjoyed some popularity among Greenwich Village folk-music enthusiasts, but he was "discovered" by an immensely larger audience when
Peter, Paul & Mary Peter, Paul and Mary was an American folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio consisted of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone Paul Stookey, and contralto Mary Travers. The group's reperto ...
had a hit with a cover of his song "
Blowin' in the Wind "Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962. It was released as a single and included on his album ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' in 1963. It has been described as a protest song and poses a series of rhetorical questions about ...
". That trio also brought Pete Seeger's and the Weavers' "
If I Had a Hammer "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)" is a protest song written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays. It was written in 1949 in support of the Progressive movement, and was first recorded by the Weavers, a folk music quartet composed of Seeger, Hays, ...
" to nationwide audiences, as well as covering songs by other artists such as Dylan and
John Denver Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, activist, and humanitarian whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singe ...
. It was not long before the folk-music category came to include less traditional material and more personal and poetic creations by individual performers, who called themselves "singer-songwriters". As a result of the financial success of high-profile commercial folk artists, record companies began to produce and distribute records by a new generation of folk revival and singer-songwriters—
Phil Ochs Philip David Ochs (; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American songwriter and protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer). Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and ...
,
Tom Paxton Thomas Richard Paxton (born October 31, 1937) is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning more than fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
,
Eric von Schmidt Eric Von Schmidt (May 28, 1931 – February 2, 2007) was an American singer and guitarist, songwriter, painter and illustrator, and Grammy Award recipient. He was associated with the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s and a key part o ...
,
Buffy Sainte-Marie Buffy Sainte-Marie, (born Beverly Sainte-Marie, February 20, 1941) is an Indigenous Canadian-American (Piapot Cree Nation) singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. While working in these are ...
,
Dave Van Ronk David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002) was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of Mac ...
,
Judy Collins Judith Marjorie Collins (born May 1, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning seven decades. An Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Award-winning recording artist, she is known for her ec ...
,
Tom Rush Thomas Walker Rush (born February 8, 1941) is an American folk and blues singer, guitarist and songwriter who helped launch the careers of other singer-songwriters in the 1960s and has continued his own singing career for 60 years. Life and ...
,
Fred Neil Fred Neil (March 16, 1936 – July 7, 2001) was an American folk singer-songwriter active in the 1960s and early 1970s. He did not achieve commercial success as a performer and is mainly known through other people's recordings of his material&n ...
,
Gordon Lightfoot Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. (born November 17, 1938) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960 ...
, Billy Ed Wheeler,
John Denver Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, activist, and humanitarian whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singe ...
, John Stewart,
Arlo Guthrie Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his father, Woody Guthrie. Gut ...
,
Harry Chapin Harold Forster Chapin (; December 7, 1942 – July 16, 1981) was an American singer-songwriter, philanthropist, and hunger activist best known for his folk rock and pop rock songs. He achieved worldwide success in the 1970s. Chapin, a Grammy ...
, and
John Hartford John Cowan Hartford (December 30, 1937 – June 4, 2001) was an American folk, country, and bluegrass composer and musician known for his mastery of the fiddle and banjo, as well as for his witty lyrics, unique vocal style, and extensive kno ...
, among others. Some of this wave had emerged from family singing and playing traditions, and some had not. These singers frequently prided themselves on performing traditional material in imitations of the style of the source singers whom they had discovered, frequently by listening to Harry Smith's celebrated LP compilation of forgotten or obscure commercial 78rpm "race" and "hillbilly" recordings of the 1920s and 30s, the Folkways
Anthology of American Folk Music ''Anthology of American Folk Music'' is a three-album compilation, released in 1952 by Folkways Records, of eighty-four recordings of American folk, blues and country music made and issued from 1926 to 1933 by a variety of performers. The album wa ...
(1951). A number of the artists who had made these old recordings were still very much alive and had been "rediscovered" and brought to the 1963 and 64
Newport Folk Festival Newport Folk Festival is an annual American folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the Newport Jazz Festival. It was one of the first modern music festivals in America, and remains a foca ...
s. For example, traditionalist
Clarence Ashley Clarence "Tom" Ashley (September 29, 1895 – June 2, 1967) was an American musician and singer, who played the clawhammer banjo and the guitar. He began performing at medicine shows in the Appalachia, Southern Appalachian region as early as 1911 ...
introduced folk revivalists to the music of friends of his who still actively played the older music, such as
Doc Watson Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012) was an American guitarist, songwriter, and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues, and gospel music. Watson won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. W ...
and
The Stanley Brothers The Stanley Brothers were an American bluegrass duo of singer-songwriters and musicians, made up of brothers Carter Stanley (August 27, 1925 – December 1, 1966) and Ralph Stanley (February 25, 1927 – June 23, 2016). Ralph and Carter perform ...
.


Archivists, collectors, and re-issued recordings

During the 1950s, the growing folk-music crowd that had developed in the United States began to buy records by older, traditional musicians from the Southeastern hill country and from urban inner-cities. New LP compilations of commercial 78-rpm
race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
and
hillbilly Hillbilly is a term (often derogatory) for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in southern Appalachia and the Ozarks. The term was later used to refer to people from other rural and mountainous areas west ...
studio recordings stretching back to the 1920s and 1930s were published by major record labels. The expanding market in
LP record The LP (from "long playing" or "long play") is an analog sound storage medium, a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of  rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use of the "microgroove" groove specification; and a ...
s increased the availability of folk-music field recordings originally made by
John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...
and
Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...
,
Kenneth S. Goldstein Kenneth S. Goldstein (March 17, 1927 – November 11, 1995) was an American folklorist, educator and record producer and a "prime mover" in the American Folk Music Revival. Early life and education Goldstein was born in Brooklyn to Tillie Horowit ...
, and other collectors during the
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
era of the 1930s and 40s. Small record labels, such as
Yazoo Records Yazoo Records is an American record label founded in the mid-1960s by Nick Perls. It specializes in early American blues, country, jazz, and other rural American genres collectively known as roots music. History The first five releases (L 1001 ...
, grew up to distribute reissued older recordings and to make new recordings of the survivors among these artists. This was how many urban
white American White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
audiences of the 1950s and 60s first heard
country blues Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in t ...
and especially
Delta blues Delta blues is one of the earliest-known styles of blues. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, and is regarded as a regional variant of country blues. Guitar and harmonica are its dominant instruments; slide guitar is a hallmark of the s ...
that had been recorded by
Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
folk artists 30 or 40 years before. In 1952,
Folkways Records Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways. History The Folkways Records & Service ...
released the ''
Anthology of American Folk Music ''Anthology of American Folk Music'' is a three-album compilation, released in 1952 by Folkways Records, of eighty-four recordings of American folk, blues and country music made and issued from 1926 to 1933 by a variety of performers. The album wa ...
'', compiled by anthropologist and experimental film maker Harry Smith. The ''Anthology'' featured 84 songs by traditional country and blues artists, initially recorded between 1927 and 1932, and was credited with making a large amount of pre-War material accessible to younger musicians. (The ''Anthology'' was re-released on CD in 1997, and Smith was belatedly presented with a
Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...
for his achievement in 1991.) Artists like
the Carter Family Carter Family was a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956. Their music had a profound impact on bluegrass, country, Southern Gospel, pop and rock musicians as well as on the U.S. folk revival of the 1960s. ...
,
Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generati ...
,
Blind Lemon Jefferson Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson (September 24, 1893 – December 19, 1929)Some sources indicate Jefferson was born on October 26, 1894. was an American blues and gospel singer-songwriter and musician. He was one of the most popular blues sing ...
,
Clarence Ashley Clarence "Tom" Ashley (September 29, 1895 – June 2, 1967) was an American musician and singer, who played the clawhammer banjo and the guitar. He began performing at medicine shows in the Appalachia, Southern Appalachian region as early as 1911 ...
, Buell Kazee,
Uncle Dave Macon David Harrison Macon (October 7, 1870 – March 22, 1952), known professionally as Uncle Dave Macon, was an American old-time banjo player, singer, songwriter, and comedian. Known as "The Dixie Dewdrop", Macon was known for his chin whiskers, ...
,
Mississippi John Hurt John Smith Hurt (March 8, 1893 – November 2, 1966), better known as Mississippi John Hurt, was an American country blues singer and guitarist. Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself to play the guitar around the age of nine. He wo ...
, and
the Stanley Brothers The Stanley Brothers were an American bluegrass duo of singer-songwriters and musicians, made up of brothers Carter Stanley (August 27, 1925 – December 1, 1966) and Ralph Stanley (February 25, 1927 – June 23, 2016). Ralph and Carter perform ...
, as well as
Jimmie Rodgers James Charles Rodgers (September 8, 1897 – May 26, 1933) was an American singer-songwriter and musician who rose to popularity in the late 1920s. Widely regarded as "the Father of Country Music", he is best known for his distinctive rhythmi ...
, the
Reverend Gary Davis Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis (born Gary D. Davis, April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972), was a blues and gospel singer who was also proficient on the banjo, guitar and harmonica. Born in Laurens, South Carolina and blind since infancy ...
, and
Bill Monroe William Smith "Bill" Monroe (; September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the " Father of Bluegrass". The genre take ...
came to have something more than a regional or ethnic reputation. The revival turned up a tremendous wealth and diversity of music and put it out through radio shows and
record store A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells recorded music. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, record shops only sold gramophone records, but over the 20th century, record shops sold the new formats that were ...
s. Living representatives of some of the varied regional and ethnic traditions, including younger performers like Southern-traditional singer
Jean Ritchie Jean Ruth Ritchie (December 8, 1922 – June 1, 2015) was an American folk singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player, called by some the "Mother of Folk". In her youth she learned hundreds of folk songs in the traditional way (orally ...
, who had first begun recording in the 1940s, also enjoyed a resurgence of popularity through enthusiasts' widening discovery of this music and appeared regularly at folk festivals.


Ethnic folk music

Ethnic folk music from other countries also had a boom during the American folk revival. The most successful ethnic performers of the revival were the Greenwich Village folksingers,
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
, whom ''Billboard'' magazine listed as the eleventh best-selling folk musicians in the United States. The group, which consisted of
Paddy Clancy Patrick Michael Clancy (7 March 1922 – 11 November 1998), usually called Paddy Clancy or Pat Clancy, was an Irish folk singer best known as a member of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. In addition to singing and storytelling, Clancy playe ...
,
Tom Clancy Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was an American novelist. He is best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science, military-science storylines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of ...
,
Liam Clancy Liam Clancy ( ga, Liam Mac Fhlannchadha; 2 September 1935 – 4 December 2009) was an Irish folk singer from Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. He was the youngest member of the influential folk group the Clancy Brothers, regarded as Ireland's ...
, and
Tommy Makem Thomas Makem (4 November 1932 – 1 August 2007) was an internationally celebrated Irish folk musician, artist, poet and storyteller. He was best known as a member of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. He played the long-necked 5-string banjo ...
, predominantly sang English-language, Irish folk songs, as well as an occasional song in
Irish Gaelic Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was the ...
. Paddy Clancy also started and ran the folk-music label
Tradition Records Tradition Records was an American record label from 1955 to 1966 that specialized in folk music. The label was founded and financed by Guggenheim heiress Diane Hamilton in 1956. Its president and director was Patrick "Paddy" Clancy, who was soon ...
, which produced Odetta's first solo LP and initially brought
Carolyn Hester Carolyn Sue Hester (born January 28, 1937) is an American folk singer and songwriter. She was a figure in the early 1960s folk music revival. Biography Hester's first album was produced by Norman Petty in 1957. She made her second album for Tr ...
to national prominence. Pete Seeger played the banjo on their Grammy-nominated 1961 album, ''
A Spontaneous Performance Recording ''A Spontaneous Performance Recording!: The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem'', sometimes simply called ''A Spontaneous Performance'', is a 1961 collection of traditional Irish folk songs performed by The Clancy Brothers with frequent collaborat ...
'', and Bob Dylan later cited the group as a major influence on him. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem also sparked a folk-music boom in Ireland in the mid-1960s, illustrating the world-wide effects of the American folk-music revival. Books such as the popular best seller, the ''Fireside Book of Folk Songs'' (1947), which contributed to the folk song revival, featured some material in languages other than English, including German, Spanish, Italian, French, Yiddish, and Russian. The repertoires of
Theodore Bikel Theodore Meir Bikel ( ; May 2, 1924 – July 21, 2015) was an Austrian-American actor, folk singer, musician, composer, unionist, and political activist. He appeared in films, including '' The African Queen'' (1951), ''Moulin Rouge'' (1952), ' ...
, Marais and Miranda, and
Martha Schlamme Martha Schlamme (née Haftel; September 25, 1923 – October 6, 1985) was an Austrian-born American singer and actress. She was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Vienna, Austria in 1923. Her parents were Meier Haftel and Gisa Braten. For ...
also included Hebrew and Jewish material, as well as
Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
. The Weavers' first big hit, the flipside of Lead Belly's " Good Night Irene", and a top seller in its own right, was in Hebrew ("
Tzena, Tzena, Tzena "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena" (), sometimes "Tzena, Tzena", is a song, written in 1941 in Hebrew. Its music is by Issachar Miron (a.k.a. Stefan Michrovsky), a Polish emigrant in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), and the lyrics a ...
") and they, and later Joan Baez, who was of Mexican descent, occasionally included
Spanish-language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...
material in their repertoires, as well as songs from Africa, India, and elsewhere. The commercially oriented folk-music revival as it existed in coffee houses, concert halls, radio, and TV was predominantly an
English-language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
phenomenon, though many of the major pop-folk groups, such as the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary,
The Chad Mitchell Trio The Chad Mitchell Trio, later known as The Mitchell Trio, were an American vocal group who became known during the 1960s. They performed traditional folk songs and some of John Denver's early compositions. They were particularly notable for perf ...
,
The Limeliters The Limeliters are an American folk music group, formed in July 1959 by Lou Gottlieb (bass violin/bass), Alex Hassilev (banjo/baritone), and Glenn Yarbrough (guitar/tenor). The group was active from 1959 until 1965, and then after a hiatus of si ...
,
The Brothers Four The Brothers Four is an American folk singing group, founded in 1957 in Seattle, Washington, and known for their 1960 hit song "Greenfields." History Bob Flick, John Paine, Mike Kirkland, and Dick Foley met at the University of Washington, wher ...
, The Highwaymen, and others, featured songs in Spanish (often from Mexico), Polynesian languages, Russian, French, and other languages in their recordings and performances. These groups also sang many English-language songs of foreign origin.


Rock subsumes folk

The
British Invasion The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of British culture became popular in the United States and significant to the rising "counterculture" on b ...
of the mid-1960s helped bring an end to the mainstream popularity of American folk music as a wave of British bands overwhelmed most of the American music scene, including folk. Ironically, the roots of the British Invasion were in American folk, specifically a variant known as
skiffle Skiffle is a genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, country, bluegrass, and jazz, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a form in the United States ...
as popularized by
Lonnie Donegan Anthony James Donegan (29 April 1931 – 3 November 2002), known as Lonnie Donegan, was a British skiffle singer, songwriter and musician, referred to as the "King of Skiffle", who influenced 1960s British pop and rock musicians. Born in Scotl ...
; however, most of the British Invasion bands had been extensively influenced by rock and roll by the time their music had reached the United States and bore little resemblance to its folk origins. After Bob Dylan began to record with a rocking rhythm section and electric instruments in 1965 (see ''
Electric Dylan controversy By 1965, Bob Dylan was the leading songwriter of the American folk music revival.Paul Simon suggested that Dylan's early compositions virtually took over the folk genre. The response to his albums ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' and '' The Times Th ...
''), many other still-young folk artists followed suit. Meanwhile, bands like
The Lovin' Spoonful The Lovin' Spoonful is an American rock band popular during the mid- to late-1960s. Founded in New York City in 1965 by lead singer/songwriter John Sebastian and guitarist Zal Yanovsky, the band is widely known for a number of hits, including " ...
and the
Byrds The Byrds () were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1964. The band underwent multiple lineup changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn (known as Jim McGuinn until mid-1967) remaining th ...
, whose individual members often had a background in the folk-revival coffee-house scene, were getting recording contracts with folk-tinged music played with a rock-band line-up. Before long, the public appetite for the more acoustic music of the folk revival began to wane. "Crossover" hits ("folk songs" that became rock-music-scene staples) happened now and again. One well-known example is the song "
Hey Joe "Hey Joe" is an American song from the 1960s that has become a rock standard and has been performed in many musical styles by hundreds of different artists. The lyrics tell of a man who is on the run and planning to head to Mexico after shooting ...
", copyrighted by folk artist
Billy Roberts William Moses Roberts Jr. (August 16, 1936 – October 7, 2017) was an American songwriter and musician credited with composing the 1960s rock music standard "Hey Joe" (of which the best-known version is the hit by The Jimi Hendrix Experience). B ...
, and recorded by rock singer/guitarist
Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
just as he was about to burst into stardom in 1967. The anthem "Woodstock (song), Woodstock", which was written and first sung by Joni Mitchell while her records were still nearly entirely acoustic and while she was labeled a "folk singer", became a hit single for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when the group recorded a full-on rock version.


Legacy

By the late 1960s, the scene had returned to being more of a lower-key, aficionado phenomenon, although sizable annual acoustic-music festivals were established in many parts of North America during this period. The acoustic music coffee-house scene survived at a reduced scale. Through the luminary young singer-songwriters of the 1960s, the American folk-music revival has influenced songwriting and musical styles throughout the world.


Major figures

*
Woody Guthrie Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired ...
is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, Traditional music, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan ''This Machine Kills Fascists'' displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is "This Land Is Your Land". Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress. In the 1930s Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California while learning, rewriting, and performing traditional folk and blues songs along the way. Many of the songs he composed were about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Balladeer". Throughout his life, Guthrie was associated with United States communism, communist groups, though he never formally joined the Party.Spivey, Christine A. ''The Student Historical Journal 1996–1997'', Loyola University New Orleans, 1996. During his later years Guthrie served as a Figurehead (metaphor), figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
. Such songwriters as
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
,
Phil Ochs Philip David Ochs (; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American songwriter and protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer). Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and ...
, Bruce Springsteen,
Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
, Joe Strummer and
Tom Paxton Thomas Richard Paxton (born October 31, 1937) is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning more than fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
have acknowledged their debt to Guthrie as an influence. Guthrie's son,
Arlo Guthrie Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his father, Woody Guthrie. Gut ...
, broke into the folk scene near the end of Woody's life and had significant success of his own. *The Almanac Singers Almanac members Millard Lampell,
Lee Hays Lee Elhardt Hays (March 14, 1914 – August 26, 1981) was an American folksinger and songwriter, best known for singing bass with the Weavers. Throughout his life, he was concerned with overcoming racism, inequality, and violence in soci ...
,
Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
, and
Woody Guthrie Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired ...
began playing together informally in 1940; the Almanac Singers were formed in December 1940. They invented a driving, energetic performing style, based on what they felt was the best of American country string band music, black and white. They evolved towards controversial topical music. Two of the regular members of the group,
Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
and
Lee Hays Lee Elhardt Hays (March 14, 1914 – August 26, 1981) was an American folksinger and songwriter, best known for singing bass with the Weavers. Throughout his life, he was concerned with overcoming racism, inequality, and violence in soci ...
, later became founding members of
The Weavers The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City originally consisting of Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman. Founded in 1948, the group sang traditional folk songs fro ...
. *
Burl Ives Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American musician, actor, and author with a career that spanned more than six decades. Ives began his career as an itinerant singer and guitarist, eventually launching his own rad ...
– as a youth, Ives dropped out of college to travel around as an itinerant singer during the early 1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his banjo. In 1930 he had a brief, local radio career on WBOW (1230 AM), WBOW radio in Terre Haute, Indiana, and in the 1940s he had his own radio show, titled ''The Wayfaring Stranger'', titled after one of the popular ballads he sang. The show was very popular, and in 1946 Ives was cast as a singing cowboy in the film ''Smoky''. Ives went on to play parts in other popular films, as well. His first book, ''The Wayfaring Stranger'', was published in 1948. *
Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
had met, and been influenced, by many important folk musicians (and singer-songwriters with folk roots), such as
Woody Guthrie Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired ...
and
Lead Belly Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...
. Seeger had labor movement involvements, and he met Woody at a "Grapes of Wrath" migrant workers' concert on March 3, 1940, and the two thereafter began a musical collaboration (which included the
Almanac Singers The Almanac Singers was an American New York City-based folk music group, active between 1940 and 1943, founded by Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie. The group specialized in topical songs, mostly songs advocating an anti- ...
). In 1948 Seeger wrote the first version of his now-classic ''How to Play the Five-String Banjo'', an instructional book that many banjo players credit with starting them off on the instrument. *
The Weavers The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City originally consisting of Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman. Founded in 1948, the group sang traditional folk songs fro ...
were formed in 1947 by Seeger,
Ronnie Gilbert Ruth Alice "Ronnie" Gilbert (September 7, 1926 – June 6, 2015), was an American folk singer, songwriter, actress and political activist. She was one of the original members of the music quartet the Weavers, as a contralto with Pete Seeger, Le ...
,
Lee Hays Lee Elhardt Hays (March 14, 1914 – August 26, 1981) was an American folksinger and songwriter, best known for singing bass with the Weavers. Throughout his life, he was concerned with overcoming racism, inequality, and violence in soci ...
, and
Fred Hellerman Fred Hellerman (May 13, 1927 – September 1, 2016) was an American folk singer, guitarist, producer, and songwriter. Hellerman was an original member of the seminal American folk group The Weavers, together with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Ronn ...
. After they debuted at the Village Vanguard in New York in 1948, they were then discovered by arranger Gordon Jenkins and signed with Decca Records, releasing a series of successful but heavily orchestrated single songs. The group's political associations in the era of the
Red Scare A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which ar ...
forced them to break up in 1952; they re-formed in 1955 with a series of successful concerts and album recordings on Vanguard Records. A fifth member, Erik Darling, sometimes sat in with the group when Seeger was unavailable and ultimately replaced Seeger in The Weavers when the latter resigned from the quartet in a dispute about its commercialism in general and its specific agreement to record a cigarette commercial. *
Josh White Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914 – September 5, 1969) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names Pinewood Tom and Tippy Barton in the 1930s. White grew up in the Sout ...
was an authentic singer of rural blues and folk music, a man who had been born into abject conditions in South Carolina during the Jim Crow years. As a young black singer, he was initially dubbed "the Singing Christian" (he sang some Gospel songs, and was the son of a preacher), but also recorded blues songs under the name Pinewood Tom. Later discovered by John H. Hammond and groomed for both stage performance and a major-label recording career, his repertoire expanded to include urban blues, jazz, and gleanings from a broad folk repertoire, in addition to rural blues and gospel. Josh White gained a very wide following in the 1940s and had a huge influence on later blues artists and groups, as well as the general folk-music scene. His pro-justice and civil-rights stance provoked harsh treatment during the suspicious HUAC era, seriously harming his performing career in the ‘50s, and keeping him off TV until 1963. In folk-music circles, however, he retained respect and was admired both as a musical hero and a link with the Southern rural-blues and gospel traditions. *
Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
, another influential performer, inspired in part by
Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his p ...
, started his career as a club singer in New York to pay for his acting classes. In 1952, he signed a contract with RCA Victor and released his first record album, ''Mark Twain and Other Folk Favorites''. His breakthrough album ''Calypso (album), Calypso'' (1956) was the first LP to sell over a million copies. The album spent 31 weeks at number one, 58 weeks in the top ten, and 99 weeks on the US charts. It introduced American audiences to Calypso music and Belafonte was dubbed the "King of Calypso". Belafonte went on to record in many genres, including blues, American folk, Gospel music, gospel, and more.
Odetta Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire co ...
sang "Water Boy" and performed a duet with Belafonte of "There's a Hole in My Bucket" that hit the national charts in 1961. *Odetta, Odetta Holmes – Starting in 1953 singers Odetta & Larry, Odetta and Larry Mohr recorded some songs, with the LP being released in 1954 as ''The Tin Angel, Odetta and Larry'', an album that was partially recorded live at San Francisco's Tin Angel bar. Odetta enjoyed a long and respected career, with a repertoire of traditional songs (e.g., spirituals) and blues until her death in 2008, becoming known as "the Voice of the Civil Rights Movement", and "the Queen of American Folk Music" (Martin Luther King Jr.). *
The Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and ...
was formed in 1957 in the Palo Alto, California area by Bob Shane, Nick Reynolds, and Dave Guard, who were just out of college. They were greatly influenced by the Weavers, the calypso sounds of Belafonte, and other semi-pop folk artists such as the Gateway Singers and The Tarriers. The unexpected and surprising influence of their hit record " Tom Dooley" (which sold almost four million units and is often credited with initiating the pop music aspect of the folk revival) and the unprecedented popularity and album sales of this group from 1957 to 1963 (including fourteen top ten and five number-one LPs on the ''Billboard'' charts) were significant factors in creating a commercial and mainstream audience for folk-style music where little had existed prior to their emergence. The Kingston Trio's success was followed by other highly successful 60s pop-folk acts, such as
The Limeliters The Limeliters are an American folk music group, formed in July 1959 by Lou Gottlieb (bass violin/bass), Alex Hassilev (banjo/baritone), and Glenn Yarbrough (guitar/tenor). The group was active from 1959 until 1965, and then after a hiatus of si ...
and The Highwaymen. *
Dave Van Ronk David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002) was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of Mac ...
was a mainstay of the scene, the so-called "Mayor of Macdougal Street". He was a mentor and inspiration for
Tom Paxton Thomas Richard Paxton (born October 31, 1937) is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning more than fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
, Christine Lavin, Joni Mitchell, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and Bob Dylan (who described Van Ronk as "the king who reigned supreme" in the Village) *
The Brothers Four The Brothers Four is an American folk singing group, founded in 1957 in Seattle, Washington, and known for their 1960 hit song "Greenfields." History Bob Flick, John Paine, Mike Kirkland, and Dick Foley met at the University of Washington, wher ...
: Their first album, ''Brothers Four'', released toward the end of the year, made the top 20. Other highlights of their early career included singing their fourth single, "The Green Leaves of Summer", from the John Wayne movie ''The Alamo (1960 film), The Alamo'', at the 1961 Academy Awards, and having their third album, ''BMOC/Best Music On/Off-Campus'', go top 10. They also recorded the title song for the Hollywood film ''Five Weeks in a Balloon (film), Five Weeks in a Balloon'' in 1962 and the theme song for the American Broadcasting Company, ABC television series ''Hootenanny (U.S. TV series), Hootenanny''. *
Phil Ochs Philip David Ochs (; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American songwriter and protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer). Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and ...
is most known for his topical songs such as I Ain't Marching Anymore and Draft Dodger Rag, but he can also be attributed to being one of the major figures in the antiwar movement during the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, Phil started a rally in Los Angeles and penned a song detailing the cause, titled War is Over. He also wrote a lot of poetic music, such as ''"''When I'm Gone''"'' and ''"''Changes''"''. *
Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
’s career got started in 1958 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where at 17 she gave her first coffee-house concert. She was invited to perform at the 1959
Newport Folk Festival Newport Folk Festival is an annual American folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the Newport Jazz Festival. It was one of the first modern music festivals in America, and remains a foca ...
by pop-folk star Bob Gibson (musician), Bob Gibson, after which Baez was sometimes called "the barefoot Mary (mother of Jesus), Madonna", gaining renown for her clear voice and three-octave range. She recorded her Joan Baez (album), first album for an established label the following year – a collection of laments and traditional folk ballads from the British Isles, accompanying the songs with guitar. Her Joan Baez, Vol. 2, second LP release went gold, as did her next (live) albums. One record featured her rendition of a song by the then-unknown Bob Dylan. In the early 1960s, Baez moved into the forefront of the American folk-music revival. Increasingly, her personal convictions – peace, social justice, anti-poverty – were reflected in the topical songs that made up a growing portion of her repertoire, to the point that Baez became a symbol for these particular concerns. *
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
often performed, and sometimes toured, with Joan Baez, starting when she was a singer of mostly traditional songs. As Baez adopted some of Dylan's songs into her repertoire and even introduced Dylan to her avid audiences, a large following on the folk circuit, it helped the young songwriter to gain initial recognition. By the time Dylan recorded his Bob Dylan (album), first LP (1962), he had developed a style reminiscent of Woody Guthrie. He began to write songs that captured the "progressive" mood on the college campuses and in the coffee houses. Though by 1964 there were many new guitar-playing singer-songwriters, it is arguable that Dylan eventually became the most popular of these younger folk-music-revival performers. *Peter, Paul, and Mary debuted in the early 1960s and were an American trio who ultimately became one of the biggest musical acts of the 1960s. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers. They were one of the main folk music torchbearers of social commentary music in the 1960s. During the 1960s, they won five Grammy Awards. As the decade passed, their music incorporated more elements of pop and rock. *
Judy Collins Judith Marjorie Collins (born May 1, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning seven decades. An Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Award-winning recording artist, she is known for her ec ...
, affectionately known as Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, ""Judy Blue Eyes"" debuted in the early 1960s. At first, she sang traditional folk songs or songs written by others – in particular the protest poets of the time, such as
Tom Paxton Thomas Richard Paxton (born October 31, 1937) is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning more than fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
,
Phil Ochs Philip David Ochs (; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American songwriter and protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer). Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and ...
, and
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
. She also recorded her own versions of important songs from the period, such as Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man", Ian Tyson's "Someday Soon (Ian Tyson song), Someday Soon", and
Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
's "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season), Turn, Turn, Turn". *The Smothers Brothers, composed of Tom and Dick Smothers, used comedy to promote folk music on their CBS-TV variety series (1967–1969), along with social protest against the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
et al. They had many notable music guests such as blacklisted folk singer
Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
.


Gallery

File:Woody Guthrie 2.jpg, Woody Guthrie in 1943 File:Burlives.jpg, Burl Ives in 1955 File:Pete Seeger NYWTS.jpg, Pete Seeger in 1955 File:Josh White, Café Society (Downtown), New York, N.Y., ca. June 1946 (William P. Gottlieb 09091).jpg, Josh White, Café Society (Downtown), New York, N.Y., c. June 1946 File:Harry Belafonte Civil Rights March 1963.jpg, Harry Belafonte speaking at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C File:Odetta (1961).jpg, Odetta, 1961 File:Joan Baez 1963.jpg, Joan Baez playing at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, March on Washington in August 1963 File:Joan Baez Bob Dylan.jpg, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan at the March on Washington, 1963 File:Bob Dylan in November 1963.jpg, Bob Dylan in November 1963 File:Peter paul and mary publicity photo.JPG, Peter, Paul and Mary File:Judy Collins solo performance 1967.JPG, Judy Collins performing on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, 1967 File:Tom Smothers Dick Smothers Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour 1968.JPG, The Smothers Brothers in 1967


Other performers

*Eric Andersen *Leon Bibb (musician), Leon Bibb *David Blue (musician), David Blue *David Bromberg *Bud & Travis *Guy Carawan *Johnny Cash *
Harry Chapin Harold Forster Chapin (; December 7, 1942 – July 16, 1981) was an American singer-songwriter, philanthropist, and hunger activist best known for his folk rock and pop rock songs. He achieved worldwide success in the 1970s. Chapin, a Grammy ...
*Sam Charters *Guy Clark *Paul Clayton (folksinger), Paul Clayton *John Cohen (musician), John Cohen *Leonard Cohen *Shawn Colvin *Elizabeth Cotten *Karen Dalton *Barbara Dane *Erik Darling *
John Denver Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, activist, and humanitarian whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singe ...
*Donovan *Ramblin' Jack Elliott *Logan English *Even Dozen Jug Band *Mimi Fariña *Richard Fariña *Jackson C. Frank *The Freedom Singers *Gale Garnett *Gateway Singers *Bob Gibson (musician), Bob Gibson *Cynthia Gooding *The Greenbriar Boys *David Grisman *Stefan Grossman *John P. Hammond *Tim Hardin *Richie Havens *
Lee Hays Lee Elhardt Hays (March 14, 1914 – August 26, 1981) was an American folksinger and songwriter, best known for singing bass with the Weavers. Throughout his life, he was concerned with overcoming racism, inequality, and violence in soci ...
*John Herald *
Carolyn Hester Carolyn Sue Hester (born January 28, 1937) is an American folk singer and songwriter. She was a figure in the early 1960s folk music revival. Biography Hester's first album was produced by Norman Petty in 1957. She made her second album for Tr ...
*Joe Hickerson *The Highwaymen (folk band) *David Holt (musician) *The Holy Modal Rounders *
Cisco Houston Gilbert Vandine "Cisco" Houston (August 18, 1918 – April 29, 1961) was an American folk singer and songwriter, who is closely associated with Woody Guthrie due to their extensive history of recording together. Houston was a regular recording ...
*Janis Ian *Skip James *Joe and Eddie *Lisa Kindred *Peter La Farge *Bruce Langhorne *
Gordon Lightfoot Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. (born November 17, 1938) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960 ...
*
The Lovin' Spoonful The Lovin' Spoonful is an American rock band popular during the mid- to late-1960s. Founded in New York City in 1965 by lead singer/songwriter John Sebastian and guitarist Zal Yanovsky, the band is widely known for a number of hits, including " ...
*Ewan MacColl *Ed McCurdy *Roger McGuinn *Maria Muldaur *Geoff Muldaur *Jo Mapes *Joni Mitchell *Bob Neuwirth *New Lost City Ramblers *
Tom Paxton Thomas Richard Paxton (born October 31, 1937) is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning more than fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
*Malvina Reynolds *Fritz Richmond *Gil Robbins *The Rooftop Singers *Dick Rosmini *
Tom Rush Thomas Walker Rush (born February 8, 1941) is an American folk and blues singer, guitarist and songwriter who helped launch the careers of other singer-songwriters in the 1960s and has continued his own singing career for 60 years. Life and ...
*Tony Saletan *John Sebastian *Mike Seeger *Peggy Seeger *The Serendipity Singers *Simon & Garfunkel *Patrick Sky *Rosalie Sorrels *The Tarriers *Artie Traum *Happy Traum *Ian and Sylvia *Eric Von Schmidt *The Washington Squares *
Doc Watson Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012) was an American guitarist, songwriter, and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues, and gospel music. Watson won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. W ...
*Gillian Welch *Robin and Linda Williams *Glenn Yarborough


Managers

* Albert Grossman * Harold Leventhal * Victor Maymudes * Fred Weintraub * Frank Werber


Venues

* The Bitter End * Cafe Au Go Go * Caffè Lena * Cafe Wha? * Calliope: Pittsburgh Folk Music Society * Club Passim * Eighth Step Coffee House * Gate of Horn * Gerdes Folk City * The Gaslight Cafe * Hungry i * The Ice House (comedy club) * The Main Point * The Purple Onion * Shaker Village Work Group * The Tin Angel * Troubadour (West Hollywood, California), The Troubadour * Village Vanguard


Periodicals

* ''Broadside (magazine), Broadside'' * ''
People's Songs People's Songs was an organization founded by Pete Seeger, Alan Lomax, Lee Hays, and others on December 31, 1945, in New York City, to "create, promote, and distribute songs of labor and the American people."People's Songs Inc. ''People's Songs Ne ...
'' * ''Sing Out!''


See also

*
American folk music The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ''roots music''. Many traditional songs have been sung ...
*
Anthology of American Folk Music ''Anthology of American Folk Music'' is a three-album compilation, released in 1952 by Folkways Records, of eighty-four recordings of American folk, blues and country music made and issued from 1926 to 1933 by a variety of performers. The album wa ...
* British folk revival * Contemporary folk music * Festival (1967 film), Festival * Folk club * Folk music * Folk rock *
Folkways Records Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways. History The Folkways Records & Service ...
* Hootenanny (U.S. TV series) * March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom * A Mighty Wind *
Newport Folk Festival Newport Folk Festival is an annual American folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the Newport Jazz Festival. It was one of the first modern music festivals in America, and remains a foca ...
* New Weird America * No Direction Home * A Prairie Home Companion * Protest songs in the United States * Roots revival


Notes


Bibliography

*Cantwell, Robert
''When We Were Good: The Folk Revival''
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. * Cohen, Ronald D.
''Folk music: the basics''
Routledge, 2006. * Cohen, Ronald D.
''A history of folk music festivals in the United States''
Scarecrow Press, 2008 *Cohen, Ronald D.
''Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival & American Society, 1940–1970''
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. *Cohen, Ronald D., ed. ''Wasn't That a Time? Firsthand Accounts of the Folk Music Revival. American Folk Music Series no. 4''. Lanham, Maryland and Folkestone, UK: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. 1995. *Cohen, Ronald D., and Dave Samuelson. ''Songs for Political Action''. Booklet to Bear Family Records BCD 15720 JL, 1996. *Cray, Ed, and Studs Terkel. ''Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie''. W.W. Norton & Co., 2006. *Cunningham, Agnes "Sis", and Gordon Friesen. ''Red Dust and Broadsides: A Joint Autobiography''. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. * De Turk, David A.; Poulin, A., Jr., ''The American folk scene; dimensions of the folksong revival'', New York : Dell Pub. Co., 1967 *Denisoff, R. Serge. ''Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left''. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971. *Denisoff, R. Serge. ''Sing Me a Song of Social Significance''. Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1972. *Denning, Michael. ''The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century''. London: Verso, 1996. * Donaldson, Rachel Clare
''Music for the People: the Folk Music Revival And American Identity, 1930–1970''
PhD Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, May 2011, Nashville, Tennessee *Dunaway, David. ''How Can I Keep From Singing: The Ballad of Pete Seeger''. [1981, 1990] Villard, 2008. *Eyerman, Ron, and Scott Barretta. "From the 30s to the 60s: The folk Music Revival in the United States". ''Theory and Society'': 25 (1996): 501–43. *Eyerman, Ron, and Andrew Jamison. ''Music and Social Movements. Mobilizing Traditions in the Twentieth Century''. Cambridge University Press, 1998. *Filene, Benjamin. ''Romancing the Folk: Public Memory & American Roots Music''. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000. *Goldsmith, Peter D. ''Making People's Music: Moe Asch and Folkways Records''. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998. *Hajdu, David. ''Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña''. New York: North Point Press, 2001. *Hawes, Bess Lomax. ''Sing It Pretty''. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008 *Jackson, Bruce, ed. ''Folklore and Society. Essay in Honor of Benjamin A. Botkin''. Hatboro, Pa Folklore Associates, 1966 *Lieberman, Robbie. ''"My Song Is My Weapon:" People's Songs, American Communism, and the Politics of Culture, 1930–50''. 1989; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995. *Lomax, Alan, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger, eds. ''Hard Hit Songs for Hard Hit People''. New York: Oak Publications, 1967. Reprint, Lincoln University of Nebraska Press, 1999. *Lynch, Timothy. ''Strike Song of the Depression (American Made Music Series)''. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001. * Mitchell, Gillian
''The North American folk music revival: nation and identity in the United States and Canada, 1945–1980''
Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007 *Reuss, Richard, with [finished posthumously by] Joanne C. Reuss. ''American Folk Music and Left Wing Politics. 1927–1957. American Folk Music Series no. 4''. Lanham, Maryland and Folkestone, UK: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. 2000. *Rubeck, Jack; Shaw, Allan; Blake, Ben et al. ''The Kingston Trio On Record''. Naperville, IL: KK, Inc, 1986. *Scully, Michael F. ''The Never-Ending Revival: Rounder Records and the Folk Alliance''. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 200

*Seeger, Pete. ''Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Singer's Stories''. Bethlehem, Pa.: Sing Out Publications, 1993. *"The Smothers Brothers". The Sixties in America Reference Library. Encyclopedia.com. 6 Apr. 2021
Encyclopedia.com , Free Online Encyclopedia
. *Willens, Doris. ''Lonesome Traveler: The Life of Lee Hays''. New York: Norton, 1988. *Weissman, Dick. ''Which Side Are You On? An Inside History of the Folk Music Revival in America''. New York: Continuum, 2005. *Wolfe, Charles, and Kip Lornell. ''The Life and Legend of Leadbelly''. New York: Da Capo [1992] 1999.


External links


Folk Music Revival. American Folklife Center. Library of Congress.Field Recorders Collective
– a collection of CDs of American traditional styles; Appalachian, fiddling, banjo, Cajun, Gospel from private collections now made available to the public
"Blowin in the Wind: Pop discovers folk music" Part 1
Show 18 of John Gilliland's ''The Pop Chronicles'', Digital Library of the University of North Texas. The story of the origins of the American Folk Revival is narrated by
Arlo Guthrie Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his father, Woody Guthrie. Gut ...
,
Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
, Nick Reynolds of
The Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and ...
, Roger McGuinn of The Byrds, with satirist Stan Freberg (as a bongo-playing 1950s beatnik). It features
Lead Belly Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...
, The Almanac Singers,
Woody Guthrie Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired ...
,
Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
, and
The Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and ...
. In it, Pete Seeger is heard repeatedly crediting
Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...
as the most important figure in initiating the American folk revival by taking folk music out of the archives and "giving it to singers". Nick Reynolds and Roger McGuinn credit The Weavers and the labor songs of the
Almanac Singers The Almanac Singers was an American New York City-based folk music group, active between 1940 and 1943, founded by Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie. The group specialized in topical songs, mostly songs advocating an anti- ...
as the inspiration for
The Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and ...
and The Byrds. The role of ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine in asserting distinctions between pop versus "purist" folk music is also discussed. See also the continuation of this sho
"Blowin in the Wind: Pop discovers folk music" Part 2
Show 19, featuring
Odetta Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire co ...
,
The Limeliters The Limeliters are an American folk music group, formed in July 1959 by Lou Gottlieb (bass violin/bass), Alex Hassilev (banjo/baritone), and Glenn Yarbrough (guitar/tenor). The group was active from 1959 until 1965, and then after a hiatus of si ...
,
The Brothers Four The Brothers Four is an American folk singing group, founded in 1957 in Seattle, Washington, and known for their 1960 hit song "Greenfields." History Bob Flick, John Paine, Mike Kirkland, and Dick Foley met at the University of Washington, wher ...
, Peter Paul and Mary, Glenn Yarbrough,
Buffy Sainte-Marie Buffy Sainte-Marie, (born Beverly Sainte-Marie, February 20, 1941) is an Indigenous Canadian-American (Piapot Cree Nation) singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. While working in these are ...
,
Judy Collins Judith Marjorie Collins (born May 1, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning seven decades. An Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Award-winning recording artist, she is known for her ec ...
, and
Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
.
The HistoryscoperThe Folk File: A Folkie's Dictionary
by Bill Markwick (1945–2017) – musical definitions and short biographies for American and U.K. Folk musicians and groups. Retrieved August 9, 2017. {{Folk music American folk music, Revival Retro-style music