User:Crustpunklibrarian/Contemporary folk music

Beginning in the post World War II era, folk revivals occurred in Europe, Canada, and the United States, and developed through the 1960's, with the subject matter of this music influenced by the political and social climates of the day. According to The North American Folk Music Revival, "the folk music revival began... as a North Eastern American urban phenomenon, and spread from city to city throughout the entire continent and beyond, to Wester Europe", with "enthusiasts" generally being middle-class university students. While instrumentation of folk music varies across countries and regions, music of the North American folk revival tended to use "acoustic guitar, harmonica, banjo, mandolin, autoharp, violin, and accordion".

Notable figures of the American folk revival include Elizabeth Cotten and Odetta. Cotten, a guitar and banjo player who developed the "Cotten style" of guitar fingerpicking, released her first album, Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tune, in 1958 with the help of Mike Seeger, which also illuminates the use of guitars tuned to open keys, another common element found in folk music. Odetta, who is known for blending her operatic vocal background with blues and folk songs, was notably active in the Civil Rights Movement, which is reflected in her music. Both Cotten and Odetta performed at the first Newport Folk Festival.

Origins of Ideology: Urban, northern states and regions

Influential musicians of this period include Elizabeth Cotton and Odetta

Common Instrumentation: acoustic guitar, harmonica, banjo, mandolin, autoharp, violin, and accordion (cite the north american folk revival)

Folk revival of the mid-20th century in the English-speaking countries[edit]

See also: American folk music revival, Folk music § Fieldwork and scholarship, and British folk revival

While the Romantic nationalism of the folk revival had its greatest influence on art-music, the "second folk revival" of the later 20th century brought a new genre of popular music with artists marketed through concerts, recordings and broadcasting. This is the genre that remains as "contemporary folk music" even when traditional music is considered to be a separate genre. One of the earliest figures in this revival was Woody Guthrie, who sang traditional songs in the 1930s and 1940s as well as composing his own. Among Guthrie's friends and followers as a collector, performer, and composer was Pete Seeger.

In the 1930s, Jimmie Rodgers, in the 1940s Burl Ives, in the early 1950s Seeger's group the Weavers and Harry Belafonte, and in the late 1950s the Kingston Trio as well as other professional, commercial groups became popular. Some who defined commercialization as the beginning of this phase consider the commercial hit Tom Dooley by the Kingston Trio in 1958 as marking the beginning of this era. In 1963–1964, the ABC television network aired the Hootenanny television series devoted to this brand of folk music and also published the associated magazine ABC-TV Hootenanny. Starting in 1950, the Sing Out!, Broadside, and The Little Sandy Review magazines helped spread both traditional and composed songs, as did folk-revival-oriented record companies.

Definitions [edit]

Definitions of "contemporary folk music" are generally vague and variable. Here, it is taken to mean all music that is called folk that is not traditional folk music, a set of genres that began with and then evolved from the folk revival of the mid-20th century. According to Hugh Blumenfeld, for the American folk scene:

[One thing is clear - it's not just about the music. The definitions are political, social, and economic as well as aesthetic. But if it can't be defined, we can at least describe what people who consider themselves folk music fans generally listen to. As of today, at the turn of the 21st century, here's what the American "folk scene" looks like:] --> this is the most important part of his blog post that was NOT included

• In general, it is Anglo-American, embracing acoustic and/or tradition-based music from the U.K. and the United States.
• Musically, it is mainly Western European in its origins; linguistically, it is predominantly English-based. Other musical modes and languages, rightly or wrongly, tend to get separated out and grouped under "World Music," even if they are considered traditional within their respective cultures.
• The few exceptions to this model are derived mainly from prevailing political/historical conditions in the Anglo-American world and the demographics of folk fans: Celtic music, blues, some Central and South American music, Native American music, and Klezmer.

Definitions (Draft)

Definitions of "contemporary folk music" are generally vague and variable. Here, it is taken to mean all music that is called folk that is not traditional folk music, but rather, a set of genres that began with and then evolved from the folk revival of the mid-20th century. According to musician and singer-songwriter Hugh Blumenfeld, for the American folk scene, "it's not just about the music. The definitions are political, social, and economic as well as aesthetic. But if it can't be defined, we can at least describe what people who consider themselves folk music fans generally listen to." Though he considers folk music to be difficult to define, Blumenfeld lists some observed consistencies:

• In general, it is Anglo-American, embracing acoustic and/or tradition-based music from the U.K. and the United States.
• Musically, it is mainly Western European in its origins; linguistically, it is predominantly English-based. Other musical modes and languages, rightly or wrongly, tend to get separated out and grouped under "World Music," even if they are considered traditional within their respective cultures.
• The few exceptions to this model are derived mainly from prevailing political/historical conditions in the Anglo-American world and the demographics of folk fans: Celtic music, blues, some Central and South American music, Native American music, and Klezmer.