Folk revival

Folk music is born in the 1940s–50s; after a quiet early-1950s spell it revives in the late 1950s. The key acts are the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary.

Folk has a curious path in U.S. pop. This lecture covers the late-1950s–1960s folk revival. When we reach the Beatles and the British Invasion we will also meet Britain’s skiffle revival—America never really has that style. Britain’s revival runs slightly earlier: Lonnie Donegan’s “Rock Island Line” in 1957; U.S. acts like the Kingston Trio truly start around 1958–59.

Folk is already popular before the late-1950s revival; what matters here is how revival splits the new teen market again. Remember 1955–59: a teen market for youth records, not just any mainstream pop. Do not think Sinatra-type traditionalists stop selling because rock exists—rock is part of the mainstream, not all of it. The teen market has already peeled off; now it splits again. Former Elvis fans—teens, high-schoolers, preteens—are college age, want to shed childishness and look serious. Folk is one home; many college students also take to jazz (beat-generation music and poetry) or classical. Folk lets you (if you are a man) stroke a beard over heavy lyrics—serious topics beyond teen romance and perfect boyfriends. Kids read Nietzsche, grow beards, smoke, wear sweaters, want to be taken seriously; folk meets that hunger. Populism resonates: folk’s idea that people are equal, its non-commercial image—even when sold as pop it markets itself as non-commercial, often with social conscience, even a radical tint.

Roots run from the 1940s into the early 1950s: the Weavers, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger—music about social issues and belonging. The Weavers hit No. 1 with 1950’s “Goodnight Irene” and No. 2 with 1951’s “On Top of Old Smoky.” Then McCarthyism: hunt and purge suspected communists and sympathizers regardless of motive or method. Many folk musicians are watched as communists or fellow travelers—some are, not all—and mainstream sales suffer. Folk goes quieter in the early 1950s; by the late-1950s revival, politics is largely off the table.

The revival’s central band is San Francisco’s Kingston Trio—named in a calypso boom after Harry Belafonte’s “Jamaica Farewell” and “Banana Boat Song (Day-O)”; “Kingston” is fashionable, though their music is not calypso or Jamaican. Three voices with guitar and banjo sound casual but are highly professional—crafted records, clever arrangements. Example: 1959’s No. 1 “Tom Dooley,” a 19th-century murder ballad that avoids civil-rights or contemporary politics by staying historical—safe. On Capitol in L.A. they place ten Top 40 singles from 1959–65. Ask what folk means before Dylan and Roger McGuinn’s folk-rock around 1965 and you may answer: Kingston Trio—or Peter, Paul and Mary next.

Note that Dylan is not yet a real star before 1965, though he records. Folk nearly equals the Kingston Trio and kin: the Highwaymen, the Rooftop Singers, and perhaps most importantly the New Christy Minstrels—polished, cheerful folk far from political camps. Christopher Guest’s A Mighty Wind (2003) satirizes the scene with surprising accuracy even when characters are comic inventions.

Peter, Paul and Mary sit at the revival’s high end, akin to the Kingston Trio. Formed 1961 in Greenwich Village—folk’s home for years from the early 1960s—they cut hits such as 1962’s “If I Had a Hammer,” “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” and Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Few know Dylan’s own cut then; their version is the famous one. Early Dylan is more writer than star. Though we later call Dylan and Joan Baez central 1960s folk figures, they matter more in the later half; early-1960s folk is milder and more commercial—while still claiming not to be. Kingston Trio and PP&M have beautiful blend and careful arrangements; Dylan’s voice and harmonica can sound amateur next to that polish—fine for Village cafés, less so beside early-1960s folk’s public image—so he is largely cast as a gifted songwriter for others. By 1963–64 folk ties more tightly to the civil-rights movement: at King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, PP&M, Dylan, and Baez stand linked before the Lincoln Memorial. Politics returns via civil rights and later anti–Vietnam War work; by 1967–68 folk recovers the engaged stance McCarthyism had chilled. In this neutral middle stretch, social subjects creep back. Next: rockabilly’s path and key names in this period.