folk rock

Folk rock is a musical genre, combining elements of folk music and rock music.

In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and Canada around the mid-1960s. The sound was epitomized by tight vocal harmonies and a relatively "clean" (effects- and distortion-free) approach to electric instruments epitomized by the jangly twelve string sound of the Byrds' guitarist Roger McGuinn as used sparingly by George Harrison in 1964 and 1965. The repertoire was drawn in part from folk sources, but even more from folk-influenced singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan. Roger McGuinn of the Byrds has also stated the Beatles inspired him to mix folk with rock music. Allmusic also credits the Beatles for fusing folk with rock in 1964.^[1]

This original folk rock directly led to the distinct, eclectic style of electric folk (a.k.a. British folk rock) pioneered in the late 1960s by Pentangle and Fairport Convention. Starting from a North-American style folk rock, Pentangle, Fairport and other related bands deliberately incorporated elements of traditional British folk music. At the same time, in Brittany, Alan Stivell began to mix his Breton roots with Irish and Scottish roots and with rock music. Very shortly afterwards, Fairport bassist Ashley Hutchings formed Steeleye Span in collaboration with traditionalist folk musicians who wished to incorporate electrical amplification, and later overt rock elements, into their music.

This, in turn, spawned several other variants: the self-consciously English folk rock of the Albion Band and some of Ronnie Lane's solo work, and the more prolific current of Celtic rock, incorporating traditional music of Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, and Brittany. Through at least the first half of the 1970s, Celtic rock held close to folk roots, with its repertoire drawing heavily on traditional Celtic fiddle, pipe and harp tunes including traditional vocal styles, but making use of rock band levels of amplification and percussion.

In a broader sense, folk rock includes later similarly-inspired musical genres and movements in the English-speaking world (and its Celtic fringes) and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in Europe. As with any genre, the borders are difficult to define. Folk rock may lean more toward folk or toward rock in its instrumentation, its playing and vocal style, or its choice of material; while the original genre draws on music of Europe and North America, there is no clear delineation of which folk cultures music might be included as influences. Still, the term is not usually applied to rock music rooted in the blues-based or other African American music (except as mediated through folk revivalists), nor to rock music with Cajun roots, nor to music (especially after about 1980) with non-European folk roots, which is more typically classified as world music.

Folk rock arose mainly from the confluence of three elements: urban/collegiate folk vocal groups; singer-songwriters and the revival of North American rock and roll after the British Invasion. Of these, the first two owed direct debts to Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and the Popular Front culture of the 1930s.

The first of the urban folk vocal groups was the Almanac Singers, whose shifting membership during the late 1930s and early 1940s included Guthrie and Bob Sagit and Lee Hays. In 1947 Seeger and Hays joined Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman to form the Weavers, who popularized the genre and had a major hit with a cleaned-up cover of Leadbelly's "Goodnight, Irene", but fell afoul of the U.S. Red Scare of the early 1950s. Their sound, and their broad repertoire of traditional folk material and topical songs inspired other groups such as the Kingston Trio (founded 1957), the Chad Mitchell Trio, New Christy Minstrels, and the (usually less political) "collegiate folk" groups such as The Brothers Four, The Four Freshmen, The Four Preps, and The Highwaymen. All featured tight vocal harmonies and a repertoire at least initially rooted in folk music and (in some cases) topical songs. The successors of such groups were bands such as We Five and The Mamas & the Papas (1965-8).

When the term singer-songwriter was coined in the mid-1960s, it was applied retroactively to Bob Dylan, Fred Neil, and other (mainly New York-based) folk-rooted songwriters. Paul Simon, Australian Bruce Woodley of The Seekers, and the Scottish songster Donovan also fit this mould. 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.

None of this would likely ever have intersected with rock music, though, if it had not been for the impulse of the British Invasion. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and numerous other British bands reintroduced to America the broad potential of rock and roll as a creative medium. One of the first bands to craft a distinctly American sound in response 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, in turn, had learned it from the Weavers.

However, there are a few antecedents to folk rock in pre-British Invasion American rock; one could cite Link Wray (a full-blooded Apache drawing upon tribal drum rhythms) in "Fatback and Beans", as well as some of the later recordings of Buddy Holly, which strongly influenced artists like Dylan and the Byrds, and to some extent some recordings by country-influenced performers like The Everly Brothers. This was not a recognized trend at the time, and probably would have not been noticed if not for subsequent events.