Table Of ContentTHE NORTH AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC REVIVAL:
NATION AND IDENTITY IN THE UNITED STATES
AND CANADA, 1945–1980
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The North American Folk Music
Revival: Nation and Identity in the
United States and Canada,
1945–1980
GILLIAN MITCHELL
University of Wales, Bangor, UK
© Gillian Mitchell 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Gillian Mitchell has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Gower House Suite 420
Croft Road 101 Cherry Street
Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405
Hampshire GU11 3HR USA
England
Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Mitchell, Gillian
The North American folk music revival : nation and identity
in the United States and Canada. – (Ashgate popular and
folk music series)
1.Folk music – United States – 20th century – History and
criticism 2.Folk music – Canada – 20th century – History
and criticism 3.National characteristics, American
4.National characteristics, Canadian
I.Title
781.6’21’009045
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mitchell, Gillian.
The North American folk music revival : nation and identity in the United States and Canada,
1945–1980 / Gillian Mitchell.
p. cm.—(Ashgate popular and folk music series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-5756-9 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-7546-5756-6 (alk. paper)
1. Folk songs, English—United States—History and criticism. 2. Folk songs, English—
Canada—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series.
ML3550.5.M58 2007
781.62’100904—dc22
2006016619
ISBN 978-0-7546-5756-9
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.
Contents
General Editor’s Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 Defining the People’s Songs: National Identity and the Origins of the
North American Folk Music Revival to 1958 25
2 Visions of Diversity: Cultural Pluralism and the ‘Great Boom’ of the Folk
Revival, 1958–1965 67
3 Folk Music and Community in ‘The Village’: Greenwich Village and
Yorkville in the 1960s 111
4 The Post-Revival Folk: Canadian Dreams and American Nightmares in
the Late 1960s and 1970s 135
5 Folk Since the 1970s: Diversity and Insularity 169
Conclusion 183
Bibliography 187
Selected Discography 209
Index 211
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General Editor’s Preface
The upheaval that occurred in musicology during the last two decades of the
twentieth century has created a new urgency for the study of popular music alongside
the development of new critical and theoretical models. A relativistic outlook has
replaced the universal perspective of modernism (the international ambitions of
the 12-note style); the grand narrative of the evolution and dissolution of tonality
has been challenged, and emphasis has shifted to cultural context, reception
and subject position. Together, these have conspired to eat away at the status of
canonical composers and categories of high and low in music. A need has arisen,
also, to recognize and address the emergence of crossovers, mixed and new genres,
to engage in debates concerning the vexed problem of what constitutes authenticity
in music and to offer a critique of musical practice as the product of free, individual
expression.
Popular musicology is now a vital and exciting area of scholarship, and the
Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series aims to present the best research in the field.
Authors will be concerned with locating musical practices, values and meanings
in cultural context, and may draw upon methodologies and theories developed in
cultural studies, semiotics, poststructuralism, psychology and sociology. The series
will focus on popular musics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is designed
to embrace the world’s popular musics from Acid Jazz to Zydeco, whether high tech
or low tech, commercial or non-commercial, contemporary or traditional.
Professor Derek B. Scott
Chair of Music
University of Salford
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Acknowledgements
I wish to express my gratitude to the many people who have helped me in the
research and writing of this book. To Dr Neil Rosenberg, the external examiner of
my doctoral thesis, for his advice and assistance at the preliminary stage of research
and for his helpful and extensive comments on the finished thesis; to John Leeder, for
helping me to track down a number of interviewees; to Brian Walsh, Merrick Jarrett,
Michael Van Dusen, Nicholas Jennings, the late Estelle Klein, Ken Whiteley, Brian
Hollander, Happy Traum, Tom Pacheco, Arthur Wenk and Richard Flohil for taking
the time to share their reminiscences of the folk revival with me; to Rob Bowman,
Bob Bossin, Peter Goddard and Scott Richards for the information they provided
on the Canadian music scene; to all those who provided suggestions during the
thesis research process, particularly Dr Judith Cohen, Dr Pauline Greenhill, and Dr
Terry Donaldson; to the staff at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress,
Washington, DC, and at the National Library and Archives of Canada, Ottawa, for
their help during my research visits there, and to Rennie Cantine and family for their
hospitality during my visit to Woodstock, New York.
I also wish to thank Edward McGhee for sharing his opinions on the folk music
revival in Britain and in North America, and for his encouragement of my interest
in popular music history, and the members of the communities of Wycliffe College,
Toronto, and St Brendan’s, Saltcoats, Scotland, particularly Mrs Isabel Garrett and
Miss Bernadette Doyle, for their support, generosity and kindness.
I wish especially to thank my committee members Dr John Ingham and Dr
Cecilia Morgan for their insightful suggestions and feedback, and my supervisor,
Dr Elspeth Brown, for her extensive and helpful comments on the various drafts of
the thesis, and for her generosity and hospitality; these were greatly appreciated. I
am also most grateful to Dr Wil Griffith, Prof. Duncan Tanner, Dr Ceri Sullivan and
all colleagues at the Department of History and Welsh History, University of Wales,
Bangor, for their help and support, and to Mrs Stephanie Dolben of WISCA at the
University of Wales, Bangor, for her assistance in the preparation and formatting of
the manuscript.
Lastly, the greatest debt of gratitude is owed to my family – to my parents, John
and Rose Ann Mitchell, my sisters Hilary and Roslyn, my brother-in-law John, and
my uncle, Thomas Kirk, for their unfailing encouragement and support. It is to them
that this work is dedicated, with much love.
