A new "folk" music?

[Cibby]

Good topic...how many posters grew up durning this period of folk/ protest music...I have my hand raised...times have changed,the way we do things has changed...Baby boomers are a huge generation us post WW2 kids and back then when you turned 18 you got a draft card(males). If you were drafted in the mid 60's from 64 to 70 you were on your way to Nam 6 months or so later. That single fact alone put this huge generation to work turning out the protest music and then what became a unpopular war. That is one issue alone of many.. The civil rights movement was another huge issue that put the folk song writers to work. Then the assassination of John Kenndy, Martin Luther King,Bobby Kenndy. There were not the outlets to voice issues like we have today. No talk radio,no FM radio either,no all news stations going 24-7. You got your news at 6:30pm from Walter Cronkite or one of the other 2 TV stations. So many of these issues were voiced in songs. That is just a little slice of those days. Wow things are so different now. I listened to that music on a small transistor radio mostly at night so you could pick up one of the 50,000 watt power houses out of Chicago or NewYork. That was then...

[Bikewer]

I listen to a lot of what our local radio host calls "alternative country and contemporary folk". There's quite a lot of this material mixed in....

Tom Russell, one of our favorites, has tunes like "Who's gonna build your wall" and "Stealing Electricity" and a variety of others about the lot of the poor, the immigrants, and other such...

Dave Alvin, James McMurtry, Steve Earl... All pretty well known for doing topical, current-events related stuff.

[mmasters]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdaYVxYF1Ok

My favorite folk group at the moment.

[JanVigne]

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdaYVxYF1Ok

My favorite folk group at the moment."




No doubt! but I'm still waiting for someone do "Joe Hill" with accordion accompaniment.

[JonPR]

I posted this recently in some other thread, but...

Interviewer to Louis Armstrong: "Would you describe jazz as a kind of folk music?"
Louis Armstrong: "Sure it is. Ain't never heard a horse play it!"

[posternutbag]

I think that there is still socially conscious music being made but with 2 caveats:
1) It isn't the Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez musician and his/her guitar any more and
2) The message may not be what a lot of people want to hear.

I think contemporary Rap/Hip-Hop musicians like Jay-Z and Common have plenty to say. In fact, to my generation (Gen Xers), Rap and Hip-Hop held appeal in large part because it had something to say. A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots, Arrested Development, Tupac, early Ice-T and Ice-Cube and even Snoop were all writing about their experiences as "common folk." They weren't West Virginia coalminers or Oakies during the dustbowl, but the lyrics of these and many other artists still told their story.

Rage Against the Machine was the quintessential political band from my generation, and if you want singer/songwriter acoustic guitar music with social commentary, then Tom Morello's the Nightwatchman is highly recommended.

As to why there isn't "anti-war" protest music like was seen in the 1960s, ask the Dixie Chicks what happens when you question the war machine.

[ombudsman]

Originally Posted by posternutbag

The message may not be what a lot of people want to hear.

Right, which was the case with the older material as well when it was made.

Out of date socially relevant material becomes safe, nostalgic, and broadly acceptable (or, in some cases, goes the other direction and becomes hate speech) in a way that contemporary material can never be. Context is everything.

[stanron]

Equating 60's protest stuff with folk music required blinkered or inaccurate thinking even back then. To equate today's commercialised youth culture with folk music requires it's own unique set of blinkers. Although now it appears to be almost a given that Dylan, Paxton, Ochs et al were folk music the reality is that they were producing an offshoot of popular music that got called 'Folk'.

I can't comment on rap. For me rap has a silent C in the same way that psychology has a silent P and for that matter Art has a silent F. There are people making nice money out of all these things, thank you very much and they probably wont appreciate the light of honesty being beamed on their endeavours. Folk music does exist but not on big stages or under bright lights. You can play it too and it wont cost you more than the price of a drink or two. I find it to be very rewarding and occasionally humbling.

[Mile1]

Great thread. I don't think it's a lack of protest songs so much as a more diverse population. The songs are there, as many posters above have noted. The issues young people face today are more varied than those of us of a certain age faced; whites are a minority or close to it today. Different world.

[Davis Webb]

Rap and related musical forms are now Pell Mell moneymakers. They have lost any socially relevant lyrics and most of the rappers are wealthy. Songs about killing police and having lots of sex don't really liberate us.

When rap started, so many decades ago, it had social relevance. Not so any more, its derivative.

[posternutbag]

To say that all contemporary Rap and Hip-Hop is derivative represents a blithe indifference to and lack of understanding of the genre.

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by Davis Webb

Rap and related musical forms are now Pell Mell moneymakers. They have lost any socially relevant lyrics and most of the rappers are wealthy. Songs about killing police and having lots of sex don't really liberate us.

When rap started, so many decades ago, it had social relevance. Not so any more, its derivative.

Just the commercial stuff...vapid, just like commercial rock, country, etc.

Check out the Coup, Jean Grae, El-p, Cannibal Ox, Mr. LIF, MF grimm, shoot, there's HUNDREDS....

saying "most" of the rappers have made their money means you gotta check out the non mainstream hip hop world...it's great!

[GHS]

The folk singers of days gone by had real vocal talent, their songs were relevant to their cause (like it or not) and they are still played and known today, 30 to 50 years later. I doubt most rap songs will be remembered in the near future. Rap is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art.

[mr. beaumont]

Yeah, I'll believe rap is more than a fad when it's around for thirty something years. Oh, wait...

[Davis Webb]

Rap is sooo 1982. Time to move on.