FOLK MUSIC

JOHN LOMAX VISITS 
ALABAMA MUSICIAN 
UNCLE RICH BROWN   1940

To begin with, as the title suggest, folk music were tunes and songs which were passed on from generation to generation. Some of them over the centuries. Nowadays, words and music are written down and using traditional instrument to get the sound of folk music.

It started in the 19th century to write folk music down in case they would be forgotten or lost. Country people started to move into towns and musicians and people who were interested in preserving, wrote them down and collected them.

The Norwegian Edvard Grieg (1882-1967), Australian Percy Grainger (1882-1961) and the Hungarians Belu Bartok (1881-1945) and Zolan Kodaly (1882-1967) were great collectors.

In Britain, Cecil Sharp (1859-1924) studied folk music and became the father of British Folk music. His anthologies included 'One Hundred English Folk-Songs' in 1916. When he travelled to America, he heard on air 'English Folk-Songs from the Southern Appalachians in 1917, by immigrants.

ALAN LOMAX ON STAGE
 MOUNTAIN MUSIC FESTIVAL
 ASHVILLE
 NORTH CAROLINA,  1940

John (1867-1948) and his son Alan (1915-) Lomax became very famous by touring America in the 1930 and collecting and recording songs. Great folk and blues singers like Huddie 'Ledbelly' Ledbetter (1889-1949), Muddy Waters (1915-1983) and Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) followed in their footsteps and recorded and sang on the radio.

Guthrie's well known song was 'Dust Bowl Ballads' which is all about life in the dust-storm ravaged home state, Oklahoma. He then joined the Almanac Singers with Pete Seeger (1919-) and Lee Hays (1914-) and they joined 'The Weavers'. They were the first folk group to achieve commercial success. One of their unforgettable songs was 'Goodnight Irene', 'On Top of Old Smokey' and 'Kisses Sweeter than Wine'.

In Britain, it turned back to skiffle, paper-and-comb, tea chests, washboards or any household goods which might be useful to achieve the original methods producing folk music. The 'King of Skiffle' Lonnie Donegan (1931-)  produced a number of hits of cover versions of American Folk and comic gems , such as 'Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight' and 'My Old Man's a Dustman'. I wonder why he wasn't popular with the purists?

Ewan Macoll (1915-1989) revived the British folk music performing traditional songs learnt from his parents like 'Dirty Old Town', 'Manchester Rambler' and 'The First Time I saw Your Face',

During the '60s the Folk and rock music seemed to intertwine. A Jewish boy Robert Zimmerman (1941-) became known as Bob Dylan moved to New York and became friends with Woody Guthrie who influenced him. Bob Dylan became famous and was soon hailed by the younger generation. His civil rights and anti-war songs like 'Blowing in the Wind', 'The Times they are A-Changin' and 'A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall' made Dylan the 'King of Folk'

The Byrds made a hit with 'Mr Tambourine Man' in 1965. A combination of Dylan's lyrics and the Byrds' electric guitars started the folk-rock. It was followed by Simon and Garfunkel, The Lovin Spoonful and The Mamas and Papas.

In the '70s Britain folk bands like the Fairport Convention, Lindisfarne and Steeleye Span became popular with old folkies and young rockers alike. Guitarist and composer Richard Thompson (1949-) from the Fairporter had a successful career with his wife, Linda, till 1982 and then went solo. The singer song-writer John Martyn (1948-), troubadour Ralph McTell (1944-) and eclectic Canadian Joni Mitchell (1943-) were very successful.

The Celtic folk music is kept alive by The Chieftains and still fiddling after a span of 30 years and The Dubliners doing the same.

In the '90s a youthful Irish singer Enya came from the ranks of Clannad. The Pogues mixed punk into Irish traditional folk music. The Proclaimers and the American songstress Suzanne Vega (1059-) became famous with 'Marlene on the Wall' describing a story of Bed-sit angst.

However, folk music is and remains the music of ordinary folk. Most of the songs started in country areas. People sang them to help to get through the day's work or to entertain themselves. It is assumed that ballad like 'Lord Randall' and 'Summer is icumen in' (not my typos) are hundred of years old and can be traced back. The song 'Greensleeves' could be written during Henry VIII in the 16th century