History

Background

During the 1930s through 1960s, folklorists like Alan Lomax and Ralph Rinzler were on a mission to "discover" consummate musicians in Appalachia and the South, both white and black, who played primarily at funerals, weddings, and on back porches. Harry Smith, an anthropologist, artist, and musicologist, had amassed an impressive collection of American vernacular music and sold it to Folkways Records, which released the collection as the Anthology of American Folk Music in 1952. Woody Guthrie, the Almanac Singers and the Weavers, performing the traditional and topical songs of the people, further contributed to the inspirational backdrop for the upcoming folk revival.

Harry Smith, 1965

The Folk Revivalists

What were the commonalities that linked the folk revivalists? Most had come to the Boston/Cambridge area as students at Harvard, Boston University, and MIT, just on the cusp of the hippie generation, and hungry to break free of the confines of 1950s America. In general, they were intellectual, and most important, scornful of the slick commercialism of pop music at the time. The revivalists didn't want to hear "My baby's so fine, doo wop, doo wop"; they wanted to hear the gritty songs of death, jealous lovers, and coal mining disasters. Abandoning the sterility of top 40 radio, they embraced the bluegrass, country, and blues sounds and styles of Leadbelly, Odetta, Josh White, Woody Guthrie, Mississippi John Hurt, and the Carter Family. The civil rights movement fanned the fire, adding a political dimension to the folk scene. Coffeehouses and folk festivals provided a rare meeting ground for blacks and whites, who shared the stage and sang the same songs together, extraordinary for that time.

Odetta

Unraveling

The arrival of Beatlemania and the British invasion were not kind to folk music – that is, in the minds of the folk music purists. Many have heard the now legendary story of the Great Folk Scare of 1965, when Bob Dylan electrified his band at the Newport Folk Festival, prompting some boos from the audience. According to the detailed account of Dylan's performance in the book Baby Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years, Pete Seeger was so incensed that he threatened to cut the power cables and put an end to what he considered heretical. But many others were fascinated, and history proved that folk rock had staying power despite its detractors. With the advent of folk rock, bands wanted to play in clubs that had strobe lights, a dance floor, and yes, alcohol, and these factors contributed heavily to the demise of coffeehouses. Also, the music scene had begun to shift – stylistically and geographically – to the psychedelic sound in San Francisco. Folk music, in its purest form, was not captivating most young people anymore. By the time Bonnie Raitt showed up at Radcliffe in the fall of 1967, a decision she had made partly because of Club 47, her dream of playing there remained unfulfilled; the club closed in 1968, lying in a dormant state until its resurrection as Passim in 1970, ushering in the beginning of the new singer-songwriter era.

The Mamas and the Papas, folk rockers

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