What - and who - constitutes folk music to you?

[Don_Draper]

I put the Spotify ‘folk music’ channel on this morning and was a bit amused by what qualifies as folk music. In the first place, it was more like the “folk rock” channel, which wasn’t too surprising. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Buffalo Springfield, and the Mamas & the Papas all came up in the course of an hour. But so did “Leather & Lace” by Stevie Nicks/Don Henley, as did John Denver (country), Dolly Parton (country), and “Dog & Butterfly” by Heart. Yes…Heart qualifies as “folk music” according to Spotify.

I have a hunch this isn’t just a Spotify thing. It seems to me that to modern audiences “folk music” means any song at all that features an acoustic guitar. Even as I was turning off the station, I did scroll down the feed to look at some of the ‘upcoming selections’ – “Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac, “Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne, and lots of the Eagles.

To be fair, the channel did play some songs by the Seekers, Phil Ochs, and the McGarrigle Sisters, so it wasn’t a total joke. They even played a Fred Neil tune!

But that led me to wonder – what defines “folk music”? I realize there’s a lot of overlap between folk and country, but where does one genre begin and the other end? What distinguishes it from easy listening and 'adult contemporary? And does it matter at all any more in the 21st century technotronic age?

Your thoughts?

[eschereal]

“Genre” does not have clearly defined boundaries. What is Rocky Racoon? Rock? Pop? Folk? What about Behind Blue Eyes? Is that rock or blues? Heavy Lounge? Where do you put Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die? Long Haired Country Boy? Wish You were Here?

[silenus]

To me, once you plug in that guitar, you are no longer playing folk music.

[Annie-Xmas]

You never heard of folk rock?

Wiki on Contemporary folk music

[Chronos]

John Denver and Dolly Parton both fit a lot better in a “folk” category than they do in the same category that includes Garth Brooks and Billy Ray Cyrus. “Country” is not one single thing, being divided (at least) into Folk Country and Pop Country.

[Helena]

Since I’m married to a folklorist, I would say that folk music has to come out of an oral tradition (can’t be an original composition). Probably not helpful in this case.

[Two_Many_Cats]

To me, it’s traditional foreign, or else very old domestic.

My favorite foreign would be Tuvan throat singing, as by the group Huun-Huur-Tu.

My favorite domestic style would be Bobby Horton and his “homespun” Civil War songs. I liked the late Oscar Brand too.

[Gatopescado]

Hard to define, but there is probably a banjo somewhere and a couple bearded, smelly guys involved.

[silenus]

@Annie-Xmas

You never heard of folk rock?

Wiki on Contemporary folk music

Folk rock isn’t folk. It’s rock.

[blondebear]

First thing I think of when you say Folk Music is A Mighty Wind. Sure, it’s “comedy” folk, but those songs are as enjoyable to me as “real” folk music any day.

[silenus]

“Blood on the coal…”

[Thudlow_Boink]

@blondebear

First thing I think of when you say Folk Music is A Mighty Wind. Sure, it’s “comedy” folk, but those songs are as enjoyable to me as “real” folk music any day.

Good call.

When I think of “folk music,” I think of people like Pete Seeger, Peter Paul & Mary, the Kingston Trio, Woody Guthrie, The New Christie Minstrels, and, yes, the Smothers Brothers. And I think it’s acts like those that the creators of “A Mighty Wind” had in mind.

[koeeoaddi]

My definition is the way Pandora defined my musical preference: “acoustic and euphonious.”

I’m a folkie of long standing, but not in any way a purist.

[silenus]

“Remember the great folk music scare of the 60s? That shit almost caught on!” - Martin Mull

[Common_Tater]

It’s like pornography, I know it when I hear it. John Denver was a member of the Chad Mitchell Trio, they would probably qualify. Smithsonian Folkways was probably part of the resurgance in the 1950s, rediscovering some of the folk and blues greats. “Mississippi” John Hurt, although from a blues background is one example. Ralph Rinzler suggested to Arthel “Doc” Watson that he could make a living playing acoustic folk music to college audiences.

[jaycat]

“All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song.”

― Louis Armstrong

[Tim_R.Mortiss]

@Helena

Since I’m married to a folklorist, I would say that folk music has to come out of an oral tradition (can’t be an original composition). Probably not helpful in this case.

This was always my understanding. The “folk” in “folk music” comes from the same place as the “folk” in “folklore.”

ETA: not that I can stand to listen to more than a song or two, so I’m no expert.

[erysichthon]

If someone says “folk music,” the first thing I think of is Tom Lehrer’s song, “The Folk Song Army.”

We are the folk song army.
Everyone of us cares.
We all hate poverty, war, and injustice,
Unlike the rest of you squares.

But, seriously, if I had to name some folk performers, I’d probably say Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Peter, Paul and Mary, and the Seekers. I realize that they all perform original compositions that aren’t “official” folk music.

[Horatio_Hellpop]

My sister is very active in the Northern Virginia folk scene, and we’ve had a few discussions about where its stylistic lines are drawn. Definitely acoustic, “traditional,” left-leaning, live performances in coffeehouses and church basements. Thematically, the songs tend to be in solidarity with the poor and the workers and the marginalized. Instrumentation is usually limited to what a sharecropper might have been able to afford and play.

[Bridget_Burke]

@Helena

Since I’m married to a folklorist, I would say that folk music has to come out of an oral tradition (can’t be an original composition). Probably not helpful in this case.

Yeah, something recorded by the Lomaxes in a prison Down South. (Hey, Alan’s wide-ranging recordings are online!) But I remember the Great Folk Music Scare with some affection. From Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, back in Village days:

It was getting late and me and Delores were about to leave when I suddenly spotted Mike Seeger in the room. I hadn’t noticed him before and I watched him walk from the wall to the table. When I saw him my brain became wide awake and I was instantly in a good mood. I’d seen Mike play previously with The New Lost City Ramblers at a schoolhouse on East 10th Street. He was extraordinary, gave me an eerie feeling. Mike was unprecedented. He was like a duke, the knight errant. As for being a folk musician, he was the supreme archetype. He could push a stake through Dracula’s black heart. He was the romantic, egalitarian and revolutionary type all at once— had chivalry in his blood. Like some figure from a restored monarchy, he had come to purify the church. You couldn’t imagine him making a big deal out of anything. I also heard him play on his own up in Alan Lomax’s loft on 3rd Street. Lomax used to have parties twice a month where he’d bring in folksingers to play. They weren’t really parties or concerts. I don’t know what you’d call them… soirees? You might see Roscoe Holcomb or Clarence Ashley or Dock Boggs, Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Pete Williams or even Don Stover and The Lilly Brothers— sometimes, even real live section gang convicts that Lomax would get out of state penitentiaries on passes and bring to New York to do field hollers in his loft. The invitees to these gatherings would most likely be local doctors, city dignitaries, anthropologists, but there’d always be some regular folk there, too.

I’d been there once or twice and that’s where I saw Mike play without The Ramblers. He played “The Five Mile Chase,” “Mighty Mississippi,” “Claude Allen Blues” and some other songs. He played all the instruments, whatever the song called for— the banjo, the fiddle, mandolin, autoharp, and the guitar, even harmonica in the rack. Mike was skin-stinging. He was tense, poker-faced and radiated telepathy, wore a snowy white shirt and silver sleeve bands. He played on all the various planes, the full index of the old-time styles, played in all the genres and had the idioms mastered— Delta blues, ragtime, minstrel songs, buck-and-wing, dance reels, play party, hymns and gospel— being there and seeing him up close, something hit me. It’s not as if he just played everything well, he played these songs as good as it was possible to play them. I was so absorbed in listening to him that I wasn’t even aware of myself. What I had to work at, Mike already had in his genes, in his genetic makeup. Before he was even born, this music had to be in his blood.

So Bob decided to start writing his own songs.

Later, John Lomax III tried to manage Townes van Zandt & Steve Earle; I’d accept some of the singer-songwriters as “folk”. Here, John Nova Lomax (fourth in the line) from an article analyzingthe codeine connection in Houston music–from Townes to D J Screw.

…before Van Zandt, our local folksingers were like those everywhere else: Kingston Trio knock-offs or rote copiers of hoary old tunes from the British, Irish, Scottish and Appalachian songbooks. After Van Zandt, local folksingers wrote original tunes about their own lives and the lives of others around them, or hell, whatever else took their fancy. What’s more, Van Zandt raised the bar exponentially for original songwriters, and his tough love for his contemporaries separated the wheat – people like Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell and Steve Earle – from the forgotten chaff.

In short (heh), it’s highly personal.