Fusion genre of American folk and rock music
This article is about folk rock in general, especially American folk rock. For 🤑 British folk rock in particular, see British folk rock
Folk rock is a genre of rock music with heavy influences from 🤑 English folk and American folk music.[1] Combining the elements of folk and rock music, it arose in the United States, 🤑 Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s.[2][3] In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival. Performers 🤑 such as Bob Dylan and the Byrds—several of whose members had earlier played in folk ensembles—attempted to blend the sounds 🤑 of rock with their pre-existing folk repertoire, adopting the use of electric instrumentation and drums in a way previously discouraged 🤑 in the U.S. folk community. The term "folk rock" was initially used in the U.S. music press in June 1965 🤑 to describe the Byrds' music.
The commercial success of the Byrds' cover version of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and their debut 🤑 album of the same name, along with Dylan's own recordings with rock instrumentation—on the albums Bringing It All Back Home 🤑 (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965), and Blonde on Blonde (1966)—encouraged other folk acts, such as Simon & Garfunkel, to use 🤑 electric backing on their records and new groups, such as Buffalo Springfield, to form. Dylan's controversial appearance at the Newport 🤑 Folk Festival on 25 July 1965, where he was backed by an electric band, was also a pivotal moment in 🤑 the development of the genre.
During the late 1960s in Britain and Europe, a distinct, eclectic British folk rock style was 🤑 created by Pentangle, Fairport Convention and Alan Stivell. Inspired by British psychedelic folk and the North American style of folk 🤑 rock, British folk rock bands began to incorporate elements of traditional British folk music into their repertoire, leading to other 🤑 variants, including the overtly English folk rock of the Albion Band and Celtic rock.
Definition and etymology [ edit ]
The term 🤑 "folk rock" refers to the blending of elements of folk music and rock music, which arose in the U.S. and 🤑 UK in the mid-1960s.[2] The genre was pioneered by the Byrds, who began playing traditional folk music and songs by 🤑 Bob Dylan with rock instrumentation, in a style heavily influenced by the Beatles and other British Invasion bands.[4][5] The term 🤑 "folk rock" was initially coined by the U.S. music press to describe the Byrds' music in June 1965, the month 🤑 in which the band's debut album was issued.[6][7] Dylan also contributed to the creation of the genre, with his recordings 🤑 utilizing rock instrumentation on the albums Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde.[8]
In a broader 🤑 sense, folk rock encompasses similarly inspired musical genres and movements in different regions of the world. Folk rock may lean 🤑 more towards either folk or rock in instrumentation, playing and vocal style, and choice of material. While the original genre 🤑 draws on music of Europe and North America, there is no clear delineation of which other culture's music might be 🤑 included as influences.
Antecedents [ edit ]
Folk revival [ edit ]
Pete Seeger entertaining Eleanor Roosevelt (center), at a racially integrated Valentine's 🤑 Day party.[9]
The American folk-music revival began during the 1940s; building on the interest in protest folk singers such as Woody 🤑 Guthrie and Pete Seeger, it reached a peak in popularity in the mid-1960s with artists such as Bob Dylan and 🤑 Joan Baez.[10][11] In 1948, Seeger formed the Weavers, whose mainstream popularity set the stage for the folk revival of the 🤑 1950s and early 1960s and also served to bridge the gap between folk, popular music, and topical song.[12] The Weavers' 🤑 sound and repertoire of traditional folk material and topical songs directly inspired the Kingston Trio, a three-piece folk group who 🤑 came to prominence in 1958 with their hit recording of "Tom Dooley".[12][13] The Kingston Trio provided the template for a 🤑 flood of "collegiate folk" groups between 1958 and 1962.[14][15]
Tom Dooley Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1958 and provided a template 🤑 for the nascent "collegiate folk" movement, which itself was one of the foundation stones of the mid-1960s folk rock boom. 🤑 An excerpt from the Kingston Trio's hit recording of the traditional folk song " Tom Dooley ". The song reached 🤑 #1 on theHot 100 chart in 1958 and provided a template for the nascent "collegiate folk" movement, which itself was 🤑 one of the foundation stones of the mid-1960s folk rock boom. Problems playing this file? See media help.
At roughly the 🤑 same time as these "collegiate folk" vocal groups came to national prominence, a second group of urban folk revivalists, influenced 🤑 by the music and guitar picking styles of folk and blues artist such as Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Brownie McGhee, 🤑 and Josh White, also came to the fore.[16] Many of these urban revivalists were influenced by recordings of traditional American 🤑 music from the 1920s and 1930s, which had been reissued by Folkways Records; Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music 🤑 was particularly influential.[16][17] While this urban folk revival flourished in many cities, New York City, with its burgeoning Greenwich Village 🤑 coffeehouse scene and population of topical folk singers, was widely regarded as the centre of the movement.[16][18] Out of this 🤑 fertile environment came such folk-protest luminaries as Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, and Peter, Paul and Mary, many of 🤑 whom would transition into folk rock performers as the 1960s progressed.[16]
Bob Dylan was the most influential of all the urban 🤑 folk-protest songwriters.
The vast majority of the urban folk revivalists shared a disdain for the values of mainstream American mass culture[21] 🤑 and led many folk singers to begin composing their own "protest" material.[22][23] The influence of this folk-protest movement would later 🤑 manifest itself in the sociopolitical lyrics and mildly anti-establishment sentiments of many folk rock songs, including hit singles such as 🤑 "Eve of Destruction", "Like a Rolling Stone", "For What It's Worth", and "Let's Live for Today".
During the 1950s and early 🤑 1960s in the UK, a parallel folk revival referred to as the second British folk revival, was led by folk 🤑 singers Ewan MacColl and Bert Lloyd.[24] Both viewed British folk music as a vehicle for leftist political concepts and an 🤑 antidote to the American-dominated popular music of the time.[24][25] However, it was not until 1956 and the advent of the 🤑 skiffle craze that the British folk revival crossed over into the mainstream and connected with British youth culture.[24][26] Skiffle renewed 🤑 popularity of folk music forms in Britain and led directly to the progressive folk movement and the attendant British folk 🤑 club scene.[24] Among the leading lights of the progressive folk movement were Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, who would later 🤑 form the folk rock band Pentangle in the late 1960s.[27] Other notable folk rock artists with roots in the progressive 🤑 folk scene were Donovan, Al Stewart, John Martyn and Paul Simon.[28][29][self-published source?]
The Beatles and the British Invasion [ edit ]
"They 🤑 were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid. You 🤑 could only do that with other musicians. Even if you're playing your own chords you had to have other people 🤑 playing with you. That was obvious. And it started me thinking about other people." —Bob Dylan reflecting on how the 🤑 Beatles influenced his decision to record with an electric backing band[30]
Beginning in 1964 and lasting until roughly 1966, a wave 🤑 of British beat groups, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Dave Clark Five, Gerry & the Pacemakers, the Kinks, 🤑 and Herman's Hermits amongst others, dominated the U.S. music charts.[31][32] These groups were all heavily influenced by American rock 'n' 🤑 roll, blues, and R&B—musical genres they had been introduced to via homegrown British rock 'n' roll singers, imported American records, 🤑 and the music of the skiffle craze.[31][33] These UK groups, known collectively as the British Invasion, reintroduced American youth culture 🤑 to the broad potential of rock and pop music as a creative medium and to the wealth of musical culture 🤑 to be found within the United States.
Of particular importance to the development of folk rock by the British Invasion were 🤑 the subtle folk influences evident in such Beatles' compositions as "I'll Be Back", "Things We Said Today", and "I'm a 🤑 Loser",[34] with the latter song being directly inspired by folk singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.[35] In the opinion of Roger McGuinn of 🤑 the Byrds, writers who attempt to define the origins of folk rock "don't realise that the Beatles were responsible as 🤑 far back as 1963". He cites "She Loves You" as one of the first examples where the Beatles introduced folk 🤑 chord changes into rock music and so initiated the new genre.[36] These songs were all influential in providing a template 🤑 for successfully assimilating folk-based chord progressions and melodies into pop music. This melding of folk and rock 'n' roll in 🤑 the Beatles' music became even more explicit during 1965, with the release of "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away", 🤑 a folk-derived song with introspective lyrics, again influenced by Dylan.[37][38] Although the Beatles themselves utilized folk as just one of 🤑 many styles evident in their music, the underlying folk influences in a number of their songs would prove to be 🤑 important to folk rock musicians attempting to blend their own folk influences with beat music.
The effect that the music of 🤑 these British bands, and the Beatles in particular, had on young Americans was immediate; almost overnight, folk—along with many other 🤑 forms of homegrown music—became passé for a large proportion of America's youth, who instead turned their attention to the influx 🤑 of British acts.[33][39] The influence of these acts also impacted on the collegiate folk and urban folk communities, with many 🤑 young musicians quickly losing interest in folk music and instead embracing the rock 'n' roll derived repertoire of the British 🤑 Invasion.[39] Future members of many folk rock acts, including the Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, the Lovin' Spoonful, the Mamas & the 🤑 Papas, and Buffalo Springfield, all turned their backs on traditional folk music during 1964 and 1965 as a direct result 🤑 of the influence of the Beatles and the other British Invasion bands. Author and music historian Richie Unterberger has noted 🤑 that the Beatles' impact on American popular culture effectively sounded the death knell for the American folk music revival.[39]
In addition 🤑 to The Beatles, the two British groups that were arguably the most influential on the development of folk rock were 🤑 the Animals and the Searchers. The Animals released a rock interpretation of the traditional folk song "The House of the 🤑 Rising Sun" in the U.S. in August 1964. The song reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart 🤑 and stayed there for three weeks, selling over a million copies in just five weeks in the U.S.[40] The band's 🤑 arrangement of "The House of the Rising Sun", which transmuted the song from an acoustic folk lament to a full-bore 🤑 electric rock song, would go on to influence many folk rock acts but none more so than Dylan himself, who 🤑 cited it as a key factor in his decision to record and perform with an electric rock band in 1965.[41]
Electric 🤑 Twelve-String Guitar in Folk Music [ edit ]
The Searchers were influential in popularizing the jangly sound of the electric twelve-string 🤑 guitar.[42][43] Many musicians in the collegiate and urban folk movements were already familiar with acoustic twelve-string guitars via the music 🤑 of folk and blues singer Lead Belly. However, the Searchers' use of amplified twelve-strings provided another example of how conventional 🤑 folk elements could be incorporated into rock music to produce new and exciting sounds. The Beatles' lead guitarist, George Harrison, 🤑 also influenced this trend towards jangly guitars in folk rock with his use of a Rickenbacker twelve-string guitar on the 🤑 Beatles' mid-1960s recordings. This relatively clean, jangly sound—without distortion or other guitar effects—became a cornerstone of folk rock instrumentation and 🤑 was used in many American folk rock records made during 1965 and 1966.[citation needed]
Other precursors [ edit ]
"We were a 🤑 group, but not professional musicians. I had to de-complicate my music and get it simpler and simpler, so that we 🤑 could play it and make it sound like a popular thing. Whenever you have a format like that, it sounds 🤑 folky, because it's not glitzed over with anything. We only had acoustic and electric guitars, so every chance we got, 🤑 we'd try to add some variety. The only way you could get variety was to go to a harmonica during 🤑 this song, or get an acoustic in this space; get different moods that way." —Ron Elliott of The Beau Brummels 🤑 on the origins of the band's folk-flavored sound
Although folk rock mainly grew out of a mix of American folk revival 🤑 and British Invasion influences,[10] there were also a few examples of proto-folk rock that were important in the development of 🤑 the genre. Of these secondary influences, Unterberger has cited the self-penned, folk-influenced material of San Francisco's the Beau Brummels as 🤑 arguably the most important. Despite their Beatlesque image, the band's use of minor chords, haunting harmonies, and folky acoustic guitar 🤑 playing—as heard on their debut single "Laugh, Laugh"—was stylistically very similar to the later folk rock of the Byrds.[44][nb 1] 🤑 Released in December 1964, "Laugh, Laugh" peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1965, while its 🤑 similarly folk-flavored follow-up, "Just a Little", did even better, reaching number 8 on the U.S. singles chart.[44][45][46] The high-profile success 🤑 of the Beau Brummels' music was important in demonstrating that a hybrid of folk and rock could potentially be translated 🤑 into mainstream commercial success.[44]
Pre-dating the Beau Brummels' commercial breakthrough by almost two years, singer-songwriter Jackie DeShannon's April 1963 single "Needles 🤑 and Pins" marked, according to Unterberger, the earliest appearance of the ringing guitar sound that would become a mainstay of 🤑 early folk rock.[34] This use of cyclical, chiming guitar riffs was repeated on DeShannon's late 1963 recording of her own 🤑 composition "When You Walk in the Room".[34] The following year, both songs would become hits for the Liverpudlian band the 🤑 Searchers, who chose to place even greater emphasis on the jangly guitar playing in the songs.[34] In addition, a number 🤑 of DeShannon's songs from the period, including "When You Walk in the Room", displayed a greater degree of lyrical maturity 🤑 and sensuality than was usual for pop songs of the time.[34] This heightened degree of emotional introspection was inspired by 🤑 her love of Bob Dylan's folk songwriting and represents one of the first attempts by an American artist to absorb 🤑 folk sensibilities into rock music.[34]
In the UK, the folk group the Springfields (featuring Dusty Springfield) had been releasing folk-oriented material 🤑 featuring full band arrangements since the early 1960s, including renditions of "Lonesome Traveler", "Allentown Jail", and "Silver Threads and Golden 🤑 Needles".[47] Although these records owed more to orchestral pop than rock, they were nonetheless influential on up-and-coming folk rock musicians 🤑 on both sides of the Atlantic.[47] In mid-1965, folk singer-songwriter Donovan was also experimenting with adding electrified instrumentation to some 🤑 of his folk and blues-styled material, as evidenced by songs such as "You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond" and 🤑 "Sunny Goodge Street".[48] In spite of his folky persona and repertoire, Donovan himself had always considered himself a pop star, 🤑 rather than a folk singer.[49] As a result, he had been thinking of a way in which to introduce folk 🤑 styled acoustic guitars and socially conscious lyrics into pop music for several years prior to his 1965 breakthrough as a 🤑 recording artist.[49] By January 1966, he had recorded the self-penned hit "Sunshine Superman" with a full electric backing band.[50][51]
Other bands 🤑 and solo artists who were blurring the boundaries between folk and rock in the early 1960s include Judy Henske,[52] Richard 🤑 and Mimi Fariña,[53] and the Mugwumps, the latter of which were a New York band featuring future members of the 🤑 Lovin' Spoonful and the Mamas & the Papas.[54] Also of note are the Australian band the Seekers, who had relocated 🤑 to England in 1964 and reached number 1 on the UK Singles Chart with "I'll Never Find Another You" in 🤑 February 1965.[55][56] Unterberger has noted that, although it was not strictly a folk song, "I'll Never Find Another You" was 🤑 heavily influenced by Peter, Paul and Mary and featured a cyclical, twelve-string guitar part that sounded similar to the guitar 🤑 style that Jim McGuinn of the Byrds would popularize later that same year.[49][57]
There are also a few antecedents to folk 🤑 rock present in pre-British Invasion American rock 'n' roll, including Elvis Presley's 1954 cover of the Bill Monroe bluegrass standard 🤑 "Blue Moon of Kentucky";[58] Buddy Holly's self-penned material, which strongly influenced both Dylan and the Byrds;[58][59] Ritchie Valens' recording of 🤑 the Mexican folk song "La Bamba";[58] Lloyd Price's rock 'n' roll adaptation of the African-American folk song "Stagger Lee" (originally 🤑 recorded by Mississippi John Hurt in 1928);[58][60] Jimmie Rodgers' rock 'n' roll flavored renditions of traditional folk songs;[61] and the 🤑 folk and country-influenced recordings featured on the Everly Brothers' 1959 album Songs Our Daddy Taught Us.[58]
1960s [ edit ]
The Byrds 🤑 [ edit ]
The moment when all of the separate influences that served to make up folk rock finally coalesced into 🤑 an identifiable whole was with the release of the Byrds' recording of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man".[8][62][63][64] The term "folk 🤑 rock" was coined by the U.S. music press to describe the band's sound in June 1965, at roughly the same 🤑 time as "Mr. Tambourine Man" peaked at number 1 on the Billboard chart.[6][7] Within three months it had become the 🤑 first folk rock smash hit,[66] reaching number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart.[67][68] The 🤑 single's success initiated the folk rock boom of 1965 and 1966, during which a profusion of Byrds-influenced acts flooded the 🤑 American and British charts.[8][62][nb 2] In particular, the Byrds' influence can be discerned in mid-1960s recordings by acts such as 🤑 the Lovin' Spoonful, Barry McGuire, the Mamas & the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel, Jefferson Airplane, the Turtles, We Five, Love, 🤑 and Sonny & Cher.[8][62][78][79][80][text–source integrity?]
It was during the rehearsals at World Pacific that the band began to develop the blend 🤑 of folk music and Beatles-style pop that would characterize their sound.[81] However, this hybrid was not deliberately created; it evolved 🤑 organically out of some of the band members' own folk music roots and their desire to emulate the Beatles.[74] The 🤑 band's folk influences, lack of experience with rock music forms, and Beatleseque instrumentation all combined to color both their self-penned 🤑 material and their folk derived repertoire.[8][74][82] The band themselves soon realized that there was something unique about their music and, 🤑 with Dickson's encouragement, they began to actively attempt to bridge the gap between folk and rock.[74][83]
Mr. Tambourine Man's blend of 🤑 abstract lyrics, folk-influenced melody, complex harmonies, jangly 12-string Rickenbacker guitar playing, and Beatles-influenced beat, resulted in a synthesis that effectively 🤑 created the subgenre of folk rock.[70][84] The song's lyrics alone took rock and pop songwriting to new heights; never before 🤑 had such intellectual and literary lyrics been combined with rock instrumentation by a popular music group.[85]
Dylan's material would provide much 🤑 of the original grist for the folk rock mill, not only in the U.S. but in the UK as well, 🤑 with many pop and rock acts covering his material in a style reminiscent of the Byrds.[62] Their reworking of "Mr. 🤑 Tambourine Man", along with the Animals' rock interpretation of "The House of the Rising Sun" (itself based on Dylan's earlier 🤑 cover), helped to give Dylan the impetus to start recording with an electric backing band.[86]
As the 1970s dawned, folk rock 🤑 evolved away from the jangly template pioneered by the Byrds, but their influence could still be heard in the music 🤑 of bands like Fairport Convention and Pentangle.[4][8][87] The Byrds themselves continued to enjoy commercial success with their brand of folk 🤑 rock throughout 1965, most notably with their number 1 single "Turn! Turn! Turn!". By the start of 1966, however, the 🤑 group had begun to move away from folk rock and into the new musical frontier of psychedelic rock. The folk 🤑 rock sound of the Byrds has continued to influence many bands over the years, including Big Star, Tom Petty and 🤑 the Heartbreakers, R.E.M., the Long Ryders, the Smiths, the Bangles, the Stone Roses, and Teenage Fanclub, among others.[88]
Bob Dylan [ 🤑 edit ]
Bob Dylan in 1963.
Five days before the Byrds entered Columbia Studios in Hollywood to record his song "Mr. Tambourine 🤑 Man", Bob Dylan completed the recording sessions for his fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home.[89] Of the eleven tracks 🤑 on the album, seven featured Dylan backed by a full electric rock band, in stark contrast to his earlier acoustic 🤑 folk albums.[89] Dylan's decision to record with an electric backing band had been influenced by a number of factors, including 🤑 the Beatles' coupling of folk derived chord progressions and beat music, the Byrds' rock adaptation of "Mr. Tambourine Man" (which 🤑 Dylan had heard at a Byrds' rehearsal in late 1964), and the Animals hit cover of "The House of the 🤑 Rising Sun".[41][90][91]
Bringing It All Back Home was released on 22 March 1965,[92] peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Top 🤑 LPs chart and #1 on the UK Album Chart.[93][94] The album's blend of rhythm and blues-derived rock and abstract, poetic 🤑 lyrics was immediately influential in demonstrating that intelligent lyrical content could be wedded with rock 'n' roll.[95] The songs on 🤑 the album saw Dylan leaving folk music far behind.[96] Even with this folkier, acoustic material, Dylan's biting, apocalyptical, and often 🤑 humorous lyrics went far beyond those of contemporary folk music,[96] particularly the folk-protest music with which he had been previously 🤑 associated.
On 20 July 1965, Dylan released the groundbreaking "Like a Rolling Stone", a six-minute-long scathing put-down, directed at a down-and-out 🤑 society girl, which again featured Dylan backed by an electric rock band.[97][98] Released just as the Byrds' cover of "Mr. 🤑 Tambourine Man" topped the charts in the United States, the song was instrumental in defining the burgeoning folk rock scene 🤑 and in establishing Dylan as a bona fide rock star, rather than a folksinger.[97] "Like a Rolling Stone" managed to 🤑 reach the Top 5 on both sides of the Atlantic.[94][99] Five days after the release of "Like a Rolling Stone", 🤑 on 25 July 1965, Dylan made a controversial appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, performing three songs with a full 🤑 band.[97] He was met with derisive booing and jeering from the festival's purist folk music crowd, but in the years 🤑 since the incident, Dylan's 1965 Newport Folk Festival appearance has become widely regarded as a pivotal moment in the synthesis 🤑 of folk and rock.[97][101][102]
Dylan followed "Like a Rolling Stone" with the wholly electric album Highway 61 Revisited and the non-album 🤑 single "Positively 4th Street", which itself has been widely interpreted as a rebuke to the folk purists who had rejected 🤑 his new electric music. Throughout 1965 and 1966, hit singles like "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Like a Rolling Stone", "Positively 4th 🤑 Street", and "I Want You" among others, along with the Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde 🤑 on Blonde albums, proved to be hugely influential on the development and popularity of folk rock.[103] Although Dylan's move away 🤑 from acoustic folk music served to outrage and alienate much of his original fanbase, his new folk rock sound gained 🤑 him legions of new fans during the mid-1960s. The popularity and commercial success of the Byrds and Bob Dylan's blend 🤑 of folk and rock music influenced a wave of imitators and emulators that retroactively became known as the folk rock 🤑 boom.[8]
Tom Wilson [ edit ]
Although he started out as a jazz musician, the young, African-American Columbia Records producer Tom Wilson 🤑 became known as the "mid-wife of folk-rock" for his seminal work behind the scenes. As Bob Dylan's producer during the 🤑 key transitional albums The Times They Are A-Changin, Another Side of Bob Dylan, and Bringing It All Back Home, he 🤑 was a key architect of Dylan's electric sound. He is perhaps even better known, however, for first discovering Simon & 🤑 Garfunkel at the tail end of the folk movement and then transforming them into folk-rock superstars with the unauthorized rock 🤑 remix that made a number one hit out of their previously underappreciated song, "The Sound of Silence".[104][105]
Other musicians [ edit 🤑 ]
Folk rock musicians Simon & Garfunkel performing in Dublin
Music critic Richie Unterberger has noted that the commercial success of the 🤑 Byrds' cover version of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man", along with Dylan's own contributions to the genre on the albums Bringing 🤑 It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde, initiated an explosion of emulators and imitators.[8][62] Their success 🤑 led record producer Tom Wilson to add electric guitar, bass, and drums overdubs to "The Sounds of Silence", a song 🤑 which had been recorded by the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel in 1964 and first released on their album Wednesday 🤑 Morning, 3 A.M.. The reissued single rose to number 1 on the Billboard pop chart in late 1965, became a 🤑 hit around the world, and set the duo on one of the most successful careers in pop and rock music. 🤑 Simon and Garfunkel have been described as "folk-rock's greatest duo, and one whose fame and influence would persist well beyond 🤑 folk-rock's heyday."[106]
One of the first bands to craft a distinctly American sound in response to the British Invasion was the 🤑 Beach Boys; while not a folk rock band themselves, they directly influenced the genre and at the height of the 🤑 folk rock boom in 1966 had a hit with a cover of the 1920s West Indian folk song "Sloop John 🤑 B", which they had learned from the Kingston Trio, who had learned it from the Weavers.[107]
Much of the early folk-rock 🤑 music emerged during a time of general global upheaval, the Vietnam War, and new concerns for the world by young 🤑 people. In the United States, the heyday of folk rock was arguably between the mid-sixties and the mid-seventies, when it 🤑 aligned itself with the hippie movement and became an important medium for expressing radical ideas. Cities such as San Francisco, 🤑 Denver, New York City and Phoenix became centers for the folk rock culture, playing on their central locations among the 🤑 original folk circuits. The "unplugged" and simplified sound of the music reflected the genre's connection to a critical view of 🤑 a technological and consumerist society. Unlike pop music's escapist lyrics, arguably a fantasy distraction from the problems in life, folk 🤑 artists attempted to communicate concerns for peace, global awareness, and other touchstones of the era. Bands whose music was significantly 🤑 folk rock in sound during the mid-to-late 1960s included Donovan, the Lovin' Spoonful, the Mamas & the Papas, the Youngbloods, 🤑 Love, and, in their early years, Jefferson Airplane.
In the mid-1960s, singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot began moving his folk songs into a 🤑 folk-rock direction with recordings such as the percussion-driven "Black Day in July" about the 1967 Detroit riot. He would rise 🤑 to top the charts in the 1970s with a number of his folk-rock recordings such as "Sundown" and "Carefree Highway" 🤑 and eventually become known as a folk-rock legend.[109] Some artists who originally produced with a harder edged rock sound found 🤑 the ability to communicate more easily and felt more genuine in this method of delivery. In this category was Cat 🤑 Stevens, who began in London much like the Byrds did in the United States but toned down the sound more 🤑 frequently with acoustic instruments. He performed songs that contained concern for the environment, war, and the future of the world 🤑 in general. The Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell won many Grammy Awards with her folk rock/pop songs.
Related movements [ edit ]
British 🤑 folk rock [ edit ]
British folk rock developed in Britain during the mid to late 1960s by the bands Fairport 🤑 Convention, and Pentangle.[110][111] It uses traditional British music and self-penned compositions in a traditional style, and is played on a 🤑 combination of traditional and rock instruments.[112] This incorporation of traditional British folk music influences gives British folk rock its distinctly 🤑 British character and flavour.[110] It evolved out of the psychedelia-influenced folk rock of British acts such as Donovan, the Incredible 🤑 String Band, and Tyrannosaurus Rex, but was also heavily influenced by such American folk rock bands as the Byrds, Love, 🤑 and Buffalo Springfield.[111] British folk rock was at its most significant and popular during the late 1960s and 1970s, when, 🤑 in addition to Fairport and Pentangle, it was taken up by groups such as Steeleye Span and the Albion Band.[27][113]
Steeleye 🤑 Span, founded by Fairport Convention bass player Ashley Hutchings, was made up of traditionalist folk musicians who wished to incorporate 🤑 electrical amplification, and later overt rock elements, into their music.[114] This, in turn, spawned the conspicuously English folk rock music 🤑 of the Albion Band, a group that also included Hutchings.[115] In Brittany folk rock was developed by Alan Stivell (who 🤑 began to mix his Breton, Irish, and Scottish roots with rock music) and later by French bands like Malicorne.[116][117] During 🤑 this same period, folk rock was adopted and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, and 🤑 Cornwall, to produce Celtic rock and its derivatives.[118][117]
Country folk [ edit ]
Merle Haggard and others influenced the sound of artists 🤑 such as Bob Dylan, Ian and Sylvia, and the Byrds who adopted the sound of country music in the late 🤑 1960s.
A subgenre originally arising from the early 1960s folk and country-influenced music of singer-songwriter artists such as Bob Dylan and 🤑 Bobby Bare, as well as from folk revivalist vocal groups like the Kingston Trio.[119][120][121] During the late 1960s, many folk 🤑 rock artists including Dylan, Ian and Sylvia, and the Byrds began to incorporate a strong country influence into their music, 🤑 drawing heavily on Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, and Buck Owens amongst others, resulting in the concurrent offshoot of country rock.[122][123] 🤑 This successful blending of country, folk and rock styles led to pioneering country folk records by folk-influenced singer-songwriters such as 🤑 John Denver and Neil Young during the 1970s.[124] Country folk music usually displays a softer, more "laid-back" feel than the 🤑 majority of country music and is often complemented by introspective lyrics, thus preserving its folk singer-songwriter roots.[119] Since the 1970s, 🤑 the country folk subgenre has been perpetuated by artists including John Prine, Nanci Griffith, Kathy Mattea, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and 🤑 Iris DeMent.[125][126]
Celtic rock [ edit ]
A subgenre of folk rock that combines traditional Celtic instrumentation with rock rhythms, often influenced 🤑 by a wide variety of pop and rock music styles.[127] It emerged from the electric folk music of the late 🤑 1960s and was pioneered by bands such as Horslips, who blended Gaelic mythology, traditional Irish music and rock.[118] The British 🤑 singer-songwriter Donovan was also influential in developing Celtic rock during the late 1960s, with his albums The Hurdy Gurdy Man, 🤑 Barabajagal, and Open Road, the latter of which actually featured a song entitled "Celtic Rock".[128][129]
The subgenre was further popularised in 🤑 1973 by Thin Lizzy, who had a hit with "Whiskey in the Jar", a traditional Irish song performed entirely in 🤑 the rock idiom.[118][130] Throughout the 1970s, Celtic rock held close to its folk roots, drawing heavily on traditional Celtic fiddle, 🤑 pipe, and harp tunes, as well as traditional vocal styles, but making use of rock band levels of amplification and 🤑 percussion.[118][131] In the 1980s and beyond, Celtic rock was perpetuated by bands such as the Pogues, the Waterboys, Runrig, Black 🤑 47, and the Prodigals. A more recent folk rock band based in England is the BibleCode Sundays.[127][132] Celtic rock is 🤑 also popular in Spain where bands such as Celtas Cortos have had a large following since the early 1990s.
Medieval folk 🤑 rock [ edit ]
Medieval folk rock developed as a subgenre of electric folk from about 1970 as performers, particularly in 🤑 England, Germany and Brittany, adopted medieval and renaissance music as a basis for their music, in contrast to the early 🤑 modern and nineteenth century ballads that dominated the output of Fairport Convention. This followed the trend explored by Steeleye Span, 🤑 and exemplified by their 1972 album Below the Salt. Acts in this area included Gryphon, Gentle Giant and Third Ear 🤑 Band.[133] In Germany Ougenweide, originally formed in 1970 as an acoustic folk group, opted to draw exclusively on High German 🤑 medieval music when they electrified, setting the agenda for future German electric folk.[134] In Brittany, as part of the Celtic 🤑 rock movement, medieval music was focused on by bands like Ripaille from 1977 and Saga de Ragnar Lodbrock from 1979.[135] 🤑 However, by the end of the 1970s almost all of these performers had either disbanded or moved, like Gentle Giant 🤑 and Gryphon, into the developing area of progressive rock.[136][self-published source?] In the 1990s, as part of the wider resurgence of 🤑 folk music in general, new medieval folk rock acts began to appear, including the Ritchie Blackmore project Blackmore's Night, German 🤑 bands such as In Extremo, Subway to Sally or Schandmaul and English bands like Circulus.[137]
Progressive folk rock [ edit ]
In 🤑 Britain the tendency to electrify brought several progressive folk acts into rock.[138] This includes the acoustic duo Tyrannosaurus Rex, who 🤑 became the electric combo T. Rex.[139] Others, probably influenced by the electric folk pioneered by Fairport Convention from 1969, moved 🤑 towards more traditional material, a category including Dando Shaft, Amazing Blondel, and Jack the Lad, an offshoot of northern progressive 🤑 folk group Lindisfarne, who were one of the most successful UK bands of the early 1970s.[140] Examples of bands that 🤑 remained firmly on the border between progressive folk and progressive rock were the short lived (but later reunited) Comus and, 🤑 more successfully, Renaissance, who combined folk and rock with elements of classical music.[141]
Folk metal [ edit ]
Folk metal is a 🤑 fusion genre of heavy metal music and traditional folk music that developed in Europe during the 1990s. It is characterised 🤑 by the widespread use of folk instruments and, to a lesser extent, traditional singing styles (for example, Dutch Heidevolk, Danish 🤑 Sylvatica and Spanish Stone of Erech). It also sometimes features soft instrumentation influenced by folk rock.
The earliest folk metal bands 🤑 were Skyclad from England, Cruachan from Ireland and Mago de Oz from Spain. Skyclad's debut album The Wayward Sons of 🤑 Mother Earth was released in 1991 and would be considered a thrash metal album with some folk influences, unlike Cruachan's 🤑 early work which embraced the folk element as a defining part of their sound. It was not until 1994 and 🤑 1995 that other early contributors in the genre began to emerge from different regions of Europe and beyond. Among these 🤑 early groups, the German band Subway to Sally spearheaded a different regional variation that over time became known as medieval 🤑 metal. Despite their contributions, folk metal remained little known with few representatives during the 1990s. It was not until the 🤑 early 2000s when the genre exploded into prominence, particularly in Finland with the efforts of such groups as Finntroll, Ensiferum, 🤑 Korpiklaani, Turisas, and Moonsorrow.
The music of folk metal is characterised by its diversity with bands known to perform different styles 🤑 of both heavy metal music and folk music. A large variety of folk instruments are used in the genre with 🤑 many bands consequently featuring six or more members in their regular line-ups. A few bands are also known to rely 🤑 on keyboards to simulate the sound of folk instruments. Lyrics in the genre commonly deal with fantasy, mythology, paganism, history 🤑 and nature.
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Sources
Sweers, Britta (2004) Electric Folk: The Changing Face of 🤑 English Traditional Music . Oxford University Press
. Oxford University Press Unterberger, Richie (2003) Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock's Flight from Haight-Ashbury 🤑 to Woodstock . Backbeat Books
. Backbeat Books Unterberger, Richie (2002) Turn! Turn! Turn!: the '60s Folk-Rock revolution . Backbeat Books
. 🤑 Backbeat Books Walker, Michael (2006) Laurel Canyon. Macmillan
Further reading [ edit ]
