# What - and who - constitutes folk music to you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 25, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-and-who-constitutes-folk-music-to-you/780757 "2017-02-25T17:52:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-and-who-constitutes-folk-music-to-you/780757/21 "2017-02-26T03:30:28Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > 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. I believe this is correct for the etymology of the term… > [@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. …but I believe this is more accurate as a descriptor of the genre. IMO folk music is primarily typified by acoustic instruments and voices with lyrical subject matter about or from the point of view of non-wealthy and non-societally-powerful individuals (as **Horatio** says: the poor, workers (as opposed to the employers), and other marginalized people). For instance, folk music has been an integral part of the labor movement in the US for decades. [Roy Zimmerman - The Unions Are To Blame](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imouDc5u3as) is a recent example, although purists may quibble that the up-tempo metre of the song places it outside the “folk” genre, IMO it fits fine. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-and-who-constitutes-folk-music-to-you/780757/22 "2017-02-26T04:56:27Z")
> [@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. Not a fan I take it. ---
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-and-who-constitutes-folk-music-to-you/780757/23 "2017-02-26T05:33:08Z")
Spotify sounds like the Netflix catalog. Every movie is listed under nearly every genre. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-and-who-constitutes-folk-music-to-you/780757/24 "2017-02-26T06:04:57Z")
Folk has a very specific sound. Pete Seeger, woody guthrie, Peter, Paul & Mary. Anyone that sings If I had a Hammer or This Land Is Your Land, Michael Row Your Boat. Classic folk songs. Jim Croce and John Denver started their careers as folk singers. Croce and his wife Ingrid recorded a folk album that didn’t sell. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-and-who-constitutes-folk-music-to-you/780757/25 "2017-02-26T11:49:19Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > 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. To which I’d add Pentangle, Renaissance, Lindisfarne, Steeleye Span, and Fairport Convention. Folk can be difficult to define and I freely acknowledge my tastes wander into folk rock. Some of Crosby Still Nash and Young feels very like folk, as does some Jethro Tull. For example their album Songs From the Wood. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-and-who-constitutes-folk-music-to-you/780757/26 "2017-02-26T12:15:35Z")
> [@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. Sounds about right, although I would include new songs based on those traditions, eg, Dylan’s acoustic songs lifted a lot from the folk tradition in terms of basic approach and specific chords, themes and lyrics, while innovating wonderfully. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-and-who-constitutes-folk-music-to-you/780757/27 "2017-02-26T15:14:39Z")
Joni Mitchell’s first album was pure folk music. As she made more albums she slowly transitioned to folk-rock, and then to rock (sadly). ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-and-who-constitutes-folk-music-to-you/780757/28 "2017-02-26T15:28:16Z")
To the general public, if you’re white, play an acoustic guitar, and sing without a drawl, you’re folk. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-and-who-constitutes-folk-music-to-you/780757/29 "2017-02-26T16:14:51Z")
Folk music, to me is the opposite of “the eye of the beholder”. It is in the heart of the performer. To paint with a broad brush, folk music is music that owes its existence, then and now, not to accomplished musicians, but to “folks” who performed for the love of performing and then went back to work A “folk song” can be played by a symphony orchestra (Dvorak, Rimsky-Korsaskov, Copland), but it ceases to be folk music in any other sense than a recognizable melody. At the same time, “Kokomo” can be “folk music” if performed at a barn dance by amateurs with a fiddle and mouth organ, in the spirit of gregariousness in the context of the moment. To be sure, “folk songs” can be composed, from Stephen Foster to Stan Rogers, and bear a neonatal legitimacy when performed the next morning. The listener doesn’t need to know how long ago the song was born, as long as the composer and performer are true to the spirit and can make the audience believe it belongs in the folk genre. Pure folk music exists, but some of us may have never actually heard any. The circumference around pure folk music is nebulous, and the genre leaks in all directions (which is why I’m probably contradicting myself). How far Spotify is willing to roam outside the circle is an economic judgment, made by their accountants, not their A&R people. It’s funny, in writing this, every folk singer I could think of was Canadian – Rogers, Joni Mitchell, Gord Lightfoot, Ian Tyson. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-and-who-constitutes-folk-music-to-you/780757/30 "2017-02-26T16:39:44Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > To which I’d add Pentangle, Renaissance, Lindisfarne, Steeleye Span, and Fairport Convention. Well, 4 out of the 5 I’d agree with. But Renaissance, no matter what the configuration, wasn’t folk. They were prog rock from the day McCarty and Relf had the idea. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-and-who-constitutes-folk-music-to-you/780757.md?page=1)