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Exploring American Folk Music

Page 37

by Kip Lornell

Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee;

  California’s a garden of Eden,

  A paradise to live in or see;

  But, believe it or not,

  You won’t find it so hot.

  If you ain’t got the do, re, me!

  If you want to buy a home or farm,

  That can’t do nobody harm,

  Or take your vacation by the mountains or sea,

  Don’t swap your old cow for a car,

  You’d better stay right where you are,

  You’d better take this little tip from me.

  ’Cause I look through the want ad’s every day,

  But the headlines in the paper always say.

  Chorus

  This selection is from Smithsonian Folkways 40001.

  * * *

  For these protest singers, whose fervor was rekindled during the era of the McCarthy trials and again throughout the Vietnam War, folk music was the people’s music and it served a political end. The period at the beginning of World War II marked a renaissance, a focus on the music and culture that emphasized our underrepresented working class. Folk music came into vogue and could be heard in a variety of informal contexts. These musicians, most of them white and formally educated, performed at informal parties, Communist Party fund-raisers, and pro-union rallies. In New York City the Almanac Singers, who were formed in 1941 and originally consisted of Pete Seeger, Lee Hayes, Millard Lampbell, and John Peter Hawes, stood at the core of this movement. Shortly thereafter Woody Guthrie joined the group, which was dedicated to writing and singing topical “folk” songs favoring the progressive left wing. Their ranks also included black blues singer Josh White, who had moved to New York City from South Carolina in 1935 in search of a new audience. For this collective of performers, the terms “worker,” “folk,” and “people” meant much the same thing. They lived together in a communal house in Greenwich Village and everyone contributed to the expenses. The Almanac Singers represent the quintessence of the left-wing urban folk song movement of the late 1930s and early 1940s.

  The outbreak of World War II slowed down their activity as both Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie served their country overseas. But the message rang back clearly following first Germany’s and then Japan’s surrender in 1945. Most of these folks remained active into the 1950s, making the occasional commercial foray into mainstream America. This segment of American culture stood poised and ready to gain their greatest commercial viability when the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul & Mary, and Bob Dylan began to hit the big time.

  THE MASS MEDIA AND POPULAR CULTURE

  One obvious question is what caused this particular revival? As traditional music became more widely exposed through the mass electronic media, their base of commercial support moved far beyond the communities that spawned them. Music lovers eventually consumed greater amounts of music by way of their radios and phonograph records and, eventually, television. Urban in- migration, modernization, and the development of suburban tract homes placed more Americans even further from their rural roots.

  By the 1950s more people lived in suburban and urban centers than remained on farms in rural areas. Although major record companies never stopped selling traditional music, their interest in it stumbled three separate times: following the Depression’s wake when the record industry was all but devastated, in the middle 1950s as rock ’n’ roll was suddenly catapulted into the commercial spotlight, and in 1964 and 1965 when the British Invasion groups as disparate as Herman’s Hermits and the Beatles arrived in the U.S. marketplace. Such changes do not occur overnight, of course, but the banishment of blues, gospel, and of types of folk music from the powerful mass media that touches hundreds of millions of American citizens was swift and undeniable.

  The radio was one of the media that reacted most quickly to the changing forces in American popular and folk culture. Outside of urban centers the early-morning farm reports and live fifteen-minute country music shows continued hand-in-hand well into the 1950s. In upstate New York, for example, the vestiges of this era remained for many years. The last early-morning farm market report that I recall hearing on Schenectady’s 50,000-watt clear channel giant WGY occurred around 1966. In a few smaller markets, such as in Roanoke, Virginia, WDBJ-TV continued with local early-morning and weekend country and gospel music programming well into the 1960s; however, by the late 1960s most television stations around the United States had adopted the programming formats dictated by the networks. Except for local news and a handful of public affairs programs, local television programming was all but passé by 1970. The style and content of programming in both radio and television are, with only a handful of exceptions, very similar no matter where you travel in the United States.

  Record companies followed a similar path. The eclectic, local, traditional performers that were documented prior to 1930, including such delights as Luke Highnight, Six Cylinder Smith, Carter Brothers & Sons, and Emery Glenn, were now considered anachronistic and noncommercial. As the demand to shore up the corporate bottom line increased, major companies stuck with proven sellers, most of whom were not folk musicians. A handful of small companies, such as Timely and Asch (in New York City), emerged in the late 1930s. They stepped in to help fulfill this need, but they only issued a handful of records before World War II virtually ground their business to a halt. And they were plagued by limited distribution and little media exposure.

  Hundreds of small, short-lived companies sprang up across the United States following World War II: Macys in Houston; Mutual in Bassett, Virginia; J.V.B. in Detroit; or RPM in Los Angeles. The majority of them suffered from undercapitalization and went bankrupt because of the cash-flow drain; however, they were more willing to gamble on untried talent of all descriptions and they fundamentally replaced the major companies in marketing folk music and records with regional appeal, including polka music, blues, and white gospel music.

  As the interest of large, corporate entities in American roots traditions declined, there was a concurrent rise in the number and popularity of interpreters of vernacular music. Doris Day, Patti Page, and Tennessee Ernie Ford moved out of their usual pop music territory during the 1950s to provide record companies with their own versions of traditional material. Groups like the Weavers, which helped propel Pete Seeger’s performing career to a wider audience, proved immensely successful in the early 1950s. Between 1950 and 1952 this group sold over four million copies of records for Decca with their interpretations of Lead Belly’s “Goodnight Irene”; Woody Guthrie’s “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You”; two African-inspired tunes, “Tzena, Tzena” and “Wimoweh”; as well as “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine.” The lush orchestrations of noted arranger Gordon Jenkins adorned most of the Weavers’ records, a far cry from the music’s roots but symptomatic of its blanching. Such an aesthetic compromise appeared to be necessary to make the music palatable to the widest possible audience. For better or for worse, Pete Seeger had become a viable commercial entity and he found it problematic to negotiate this exceptionally treacherous path.

  The early 1950s can now be seen as a dark, ominous period in American politics that affected our entire society. Joseph McCarthy led the Communist witchhunt, resulting in a muted creative period in all of the arts. The blacklisting of television and radio writers because of their (perceived or real) left-wing sympathies resonated with the “red-taint” of the late 1930s and disrupted the careers of many authors and actors. As recently as 1999 the Academy Awards were mired in a controversy related to Mr. McCarthy. The debate centered on a proposed Lifetime Achievement Award for Elia Kazan, who cooperated with McCarthy in ways that left many of his fellow screenwriters, directors, and actors uneasy.

  Moses Asch, the founder and director of Folkways Records (1960). Courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution.

  In terms of the folk music scene one bright light, the Anthology of American Folk Music, blazed forth in 1952. Ed
ited by the eccentric and brilliant Harry Smith, this six-record set was one of the cornerstones of the folk revival that was in full blossom a decade later. Dave Van Ronk told me it was like his bible of folk music and Roger McGuinn (a founding member of the Byrds) remarked that it opened up a whole new world for him. The set was divided into three volumes, “Ballads,” “Social Songs,” and “Songs,” containing performances originally recorded for commercial record companies in the 1920s and 1930s.

  The anthology was released by Moses Asch on Folkways Records and helped to introduce such regional folk performers as Blind Willie Johnson, Uncle Dave Macon, Hoyt Ming and his Pep Steppers, Columbus Fruge, Ramblin’ Thomas, and the Memphis Jug Band to an audience that was all but unaware of their contributions to American music. This set was largely responsible for keeping songs such as “White House Blues” (originally recorded by Charlie Poole and his North Carolina Ramblers), “Fishing Blues” (from Henry Thomas’s canon), and “Minglewood Blues” (by way of Cannon’s Jug Stompers) in the repertoire of singers across the United States. In 1997 the anthology reemerged in the form of a remastered multi-CD set (including an interactive compact disc devoted to the eccentric Harry Smith), an expanded booklet, great critical acclaim, and surprising popular appeal. NARAS (The National Academy of Recording Arts Science) awarded the set three Grammys, further adding to its mystique and popularity.

  In early 1956 Elvis Presley burst into American popular culture, helping to dispel some of the gloom with his brazen, timeless message of teenage angst, love, and sensual lust. Elvis and his Sun Record cohorts—Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Roy Orbison—played rockabilly and pioneered rock ’n’ roll. Their raucous and controversial stylings helped to move this grassroots-based music further away from its wellspring and into a more commercial and international realm.

  FIELD RESEARCH

  Of course the scholarly interest in vernacular music never totally dissipated. A few dedicated researchers continued scouting the countryside, particularly in the South, for undiscovered talent. Harold Courlander, for instance, spent a considerable amount of time away from Washington, D.C., and in Alabama recording black folk musicians during the early to mid- 1950s. He stayed in one central Alabama community for an extended period of time, concentrating on every expression of folk music that he could locate within a limited geographic boundary. The Guggenheim Foundation sponsored Courlander’s field research, resulting in a well-respected book, Negro Folk Music U.S.A., and several long-playing phonograph records on Folkways that serve as an important and influential model for the presentation of field research.

  Alan Lomax returned from his self-imposed European exile in 1956 and soon resumed his American fieldwork. In 1958 and 1959 Lomax reprised his Library of Congress approach that began on the trips with his father in 1933. These sweeping trips carried Lomax across the entire South, resulting in the “Southern Folk Heritage” series on Atlantic and Prestige’s “Southern Journey” set of records. These recordings (now back in print courtesy of Rounder Records—refer to chapter 1) brought important singers like Mississippi blues man Fred McDowell to the attention of the general public just as the folk revival was beginning.

  Motivated by an interest in early New Orleans jazz, Samuel Charters moved to New Orleans in 1950 and slowly involved himself in researching blues music. One of the pioneers in the field, Charters recalls these heady days as a young white man in the South looking for the lost blues legends that had appeared on race records some thirty years before:

  It is impossible to imagine how much that seemed like a lost world—it was like Atlantis! We had no idea what this world was like, what it represented, and if we would find people from it. When I suddenly began finding that these men were relatively young and that many of them were still alive, I was stunned. The first book that I wrote, The Country Blues [1959], I wrote in a very exaggerated, purposefully over-romanticized style. I did it on purpose to emphasize the romance of finding old blues singers. At that point in the ’50s I had the South to myself. Nobody else was doing this. I didn’t have any money. I didn’t have any university affiliation. I was simply on the road in battered old cars that I borrowed. (Personal interview, Storrs, CT, December 29, 1988)

  These men simply reconfirmed what is now abundantly clear: regional folk music had not expired, it merely (all but) disappeared from the commercial marketplace. Contra-dances in Vermont never stopped, not all of Montana’s cowboy singers had ridden into their final sunset, nor had the all-day African American shape note singings in the Deep South entirely ceased. Although they have been staples of regional American culture, many years would pass before Tex-Mex cuisine, blackened fish, and Cajun two-step dancing eventually became chic in New York City. Such traditions are submerged from the view of most Americans, who remain largely ignorant of the regional traditions across the United States outside of their immediate view or own experience.

  THE 1960S FOLK REVIVAL

  The corporate interest in the folk revival really began in 1958 when the Kingston Trio recorded “Tom Dooley,” a murder ballad that Frank Warner had collected in western North Carolina from banjo player and singer Frank Profitt. Their version sold a million copies and its success motivated others to reexamine folk music in a more commercial light. Such trends led to an upswing in folk music gatherings and the development of groups such as the Brothers Four, the Limelighters, and other neofolkies. By the early 1960s the revival was in full swing and the more enterprising people once more began marketing this music to a mass audience. This also occurred on college campuses as it gradually became fashionable to listen to this music and once again study the printed legacy of James Francis Child and John Lomax’s early work with cowboy singers.

  Traditional music suddenly found itself back in demand among the general public. Younger people, in particular, exposed to this music for the first time picked up a guitar or banjo and learned their rudiments in order to become a “folk singer.” The music was called “folk” because of its southern background, its roots in traditional forms, the fact that it was largely played on acoustic instruments, and for lack of any other convenient term. To be a folk singer was in vogue and trendy, even sexy.

  Subscriptions to magazines such as Sing Out! (founded in 1952) increased dramatically. Broadside, which featured topical and left-wing protest songs, premiered in 1962. Simultaneously the more clean-cut and pop-oriented Hootenanny became a new addition to newsstands across the United States. Not all of the performers caught up in this movement were white-bread, clean-cut college students singing and playing in their local coffeehouses. In addition to the authentic folk musicians, other singers fit into the mold of Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People, a collection of American protest songs from the 1930s to the 1950s. This was the new generation of protest singers in the tradition of Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, and Pete Seeger, who looked at music as a vehicle for social change.

  The civil rights movement and the slowly expanding Vietnam War provided the perfect fodder for Broadside readers as well as topical performers such as Mark Spoelstra, Peter La Farge, Buffy Saint-Marie, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, and Tom Paxton. Suddenly musicians with acoustical instruments and songs with difficult themes attracted record contracts, some with major companies like Columbia. While the large companies wanted a slice of the folk music pie, they remained skeptical of the movement’s political implications. The McCarthy era had begun less than one decade before and major American corporations are inherently conservative. In the late 1950s independent record companies, such as Electra, Broadside, and Folkways, moved in to fill this void.

  Folkways Record Company actually began in 1939 when Moses Asch, a Polish-born immigrant who arrived in the United States at the end of World War I, started the Asch Record Company. It all but shut down in 1941 due to the shellac shortage caused by World War II. When the war abated Asch countered first with the Disc Record Company of America and then with Folkways in 1947. His purpose was to record all typ
es of oral material including jazz, poetry, ethnic traditions, the sounds of insects, and grassroots music. Asch himself muses about his work:

  To do a record is to create art, content, and package. I had to do something that would work visually. I issued folk music, which was the bastardized pop of the day, to an audience who would appreciate it even though the guy who sang it was an old black country musician. I had to show this had value and content.

  Woody Guthrie came to New York City. He came to me and said, “This is my home and I want to express myself here.” We understood each other. Woody was a true hippie, illustrative of Walt Whitman . . . He had a frame and he used the music of American folk song as the base for his words. Woody would fit it into what he wanted to say. (Tracey Shwartz, interview with Moses Asch, 1971)

  By the height of the revival (circa 1963) Moses Asch had already issued over a score of records by Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and the New Lost City Ramblers. His stable also included several multirecord sets that surveyed American folk music and history in songs. Albums by blues performers such as Brownie McGhee and Lead Belly and country music pioneer Ernest Stoneman dotted the growing catalogue. Asch himself estimated that Pete Seeger’s Folkways records annually sold between 30,000 and 40,000 copies during the early 1960s. Seeger performed regularly at hootenannies, clubs, and churches. His peripatetic lifestyle brought him across the entire country and much of the world.

  * * *

  MUSICAL EXAMPLE

  When the Harvesters (Ethel Raim, Joyce Gluck, Walter Raim, and Ronnie Gluck) recorded this selection in 1959, they had just arrived in Hollywood after a long drive from New York City. They were a prototype folk group; Ethel Raim worked for Sing Out! and taught at the Neighborhood Music School, while Walter had been an assistant conductor of the (Harry) Belafonte Folksingers. The Glucks worked at other full-time jobs and played music on the side. The Jewish Young Folksingers Chorus served as an important, common bond and one of their aims was to perform songs from around the world in Yiddish, Spanish, and Hebrew. This selection, however, is one of Woody Guthrie’s best-known songs and speaks of his dream for a truly United States of America.

 

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