Contemporary folk music

Contemporary folk music refers to a wide variety of genres that emerged in the mid 20th century and afterwards which were associated with

While the Romantic nationalism of the first folk revival had its greatest influence on art music, the "second folk revival" of the later 20th century brought a new genre of popular music with artists marketed through concerts, recordings and broadcasting. One of the earliest figures in this revival was Woody Guthrie, who sang traditional songs in the 1930s and 1940s as well as composing his own. In the UK, the folk revival fostered a generation of singer-songwriters such as Donovan, who achieved initial prominence in the 1960s. The folk revival spawned Canada's first folk wave of internationally successful artists such as Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, and Buffy Sainte-Marie.

Major performers who emerged from the 1940s to the early 1960s included Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan. The mid-1960s through the early 1970s was associated with large musical, political, lifestyle, and counterculture changes. Folk music underwent a related rapid evolution, expansion and diversification at that same time. Major changes occurred through the evolution of established performers such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Peter, Paul and Mary, and also through the creation of new fusion genres with rock and pop. During this period, the term "protest music" was often used to characterize folk music with topical political themes. The Canadian performers Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Cockburn and Joni Mitchell represented such fusions and enjoyed great popularity in the U.S. Starting in the 1970s folk music was fueled by new singer-songwriters such as Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and Harry Chapin.

Other subgenres of folk include

• In general, it is Anglo-American, embracing acoustic and/or tradition-based music from the U.K. and the United States.
• Musically, it is mainly Western European in its origins; linguistically, it is predominantly English-based. Other musical modes and languages, rightly or wrongly, tend to get separated out and grouped under "World Music", even if they are considered traditional within their respective cultures.
• The few exceptions to this model are derived mainly from prevailing political/historical conditions in the Anglo-American world and the demographics of folk fans:
  Native American music, and Klezmer
  .

Beginning in the post World War II era, folk revivals occurred in Europe, Canada, and the United States, and developed through the 1960s, with the subject matter of this music influenced by the political and social climates of the day. According to The North American Folk Music Revival, "the folk music revival began... as a North Eastern American urban phenomenon, and spread from city to city throughout the entire continent and beyond, to Wester Europe", with "enthusiasts" generally being middle-class university students. While instrumentation of folk music varies across countries and regions, music of the North American folk revival tended to use "acoustic guitar, harmonica, banjo, mandolin, autoharp, violin, and accordion".^[5]

While the Romantic nationalism of the folk revival had its greatest influence on art-music, the "second folk revival" of the later 20th century brought a new genre of popular music with artists marketed through concerts, recordings and broadcasting. This is the genre that remains as "contemporary folk music" even when traditional music is considered to be a separate genre. One of the earliest figures in this revival was Woody Guthrie, who sang traditional songs in the 1930s and 1940s as well as composing his own. Among Guthrie's friends and followers as a collector, performer, and composer was Pete Seeger.

Notable figures of the American folk revival include Elizabeth Cotten and Odetta. Cotten, a guitar and banjo player who developed the "Cotten style" of guitar fingerpicking, released her first album, Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tune, in 1958 with the help of Mike Seeger, which also illuminates the use of guitars tuned to open keys, another common element found in folk music.^[6] Odetta, who is known for blending her operatic vocal background with blues and folk songs, was notably active in the Civil Rights Movement, which is reflected in her music.^[7] Both Cotten and Odetta performed at the first Newport Folk Festival.

In the 1930s,

In the United Kingdom, the folk revival fostered young artists like the Watersons, Martin Carthy and Roy Bailey and a generation of singer-songwriters such as Bert Jansch, Ralph McTell, Donovan and Roy Harper; all seven achieved initial prominence in the 1960s. Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Tom Paxton visited Britain for some time in the early 1960s, the first two especially making later use of the traditional English material they heard.

In 1950, prominent American folklorist and collector of traditional songs

In much of rural Canada, traditional and country-folk music were the predominant styles of music until the 1950s, ahead even of the globally popular jazz and swing. Traditional folk took this predominance into early Canadian television with many country-themed shows on its early airwaves. All Around the Circle (1964–1975) showcased the traditional Irish- and English-derived music of Newfoundland, for example. But by far the most important of these was Don Messer's Jubilee (1957–1973), which helped to bridge the gap between rural country-folk and the folk revival that was emerging from urban coffee shops and folk clubs. The show helped to launch the careers of country-folk singers Stompin' Tom Connors and Catherine McKinnon.

The folk revival spawned Canada's first folk wave of internationally successful artists such as

During the Great Depression, folk music reflected social realities of poverty and disempowerment of common people through vernacularized lyrics expressing the harsh realities of hard times and poverty. Often newly composed songs in traditional style by writers like Guthrie also featured a humorous and satirical tone. Most of the audience for folk music in those years were part of the working class, and many of these songs expressed resistance to the social order and an anger towards the government.^[9]

The mid-1960s through the early 1970s

The large musical, political, lifestyle, and counterculture changes most associated with "the 60s" occurred during the second half of the decade and the first year or two of the 1970s. Folk music underwent a related rapid evolution, expansion and diversification at that same time. Major changes occurred through the evolution of established performers such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, the Seekers and Peter Paul and Mary, and also through the creation of new fusion genres with rock and pop. Much of this evolution began in the early 1960s and emerged into prominence in the mid and late 1960s. One performance "crucible" for this evolution was Greenwich Village New York. Dylan's use of electric instruments helped inaugurate the genres of folk rock and country rock, particularly by his album John Wesley Harding.^[10][11]

These changes represented a further departure from traditional folk music.

The Canadian performers Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Cockburn and Joni Mitchell represented such fusions and enjoyed great popularity in the U.S.; all four were eventually invested with the Order of Canada. Many of the acid rock bands of San Francisco began by playing acoustic folk and blues. The Smothers Brothers television shows featured many folk performers, including the formerly blacklisted Pete Seeger.^[16]

Bonnie Koloc is a Chicago-based

The mid to late Sixties saw the development of

Starting in the 1970s, folk music was fueled by new singer-songwriters such as Steve Goodman, John Prine, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, John Denver, Harry Chapin, and many more. In the British Isles, the Pogues in the early 1980s and Ireland's the Corrs in the 1990s brought traditional tunes back into the album charts. The Corrs were active from 1990 to 2006 and performed Celtic and pop music, and created a blend of the two. Carrie Newcomer emerged with Stone Soup in 1984 and has been performing individually since 1991. Brandi Carlile, Patty Griffin, and Rising Appalachia are popular folk artists c. 2019.

In the 1980s, the

In the second half of the 1990s, once more, folk music made an impact on the mainstream music via a younger generation of artists such as Eliza Carthy, Kate Rusby and Spiers and Boden. Canada's biggest-selling folk group of the 1990s and 2000s was the Celtic, rock-tinged Great Big Sea from Newfoundland, who have had four albums certified platinum in Canada.