80-567: The Brothers Four is an American folk singing group formed in 1957 in Seattle , Washington, and best known for their 1960 hit song " Greenfields ". Bob Flick, John Paine, Mike Kirkland, and Dick Foley met at the University of Washington , where they were members of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity in 1956 (hence the "Brothers" appellation). Their first professional performances were the result of
160-675: A Grammy award for Best Country & Western Performance at the awards' inaugural ceremony in 1959. At the time, no folk-music category existed in the Grammy's scheme. The next year, largely as a result of The Kingston Trio album and "Tom Dooley", the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences instituted a folk category and the Trio won the first Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording for its second studio album At Large . At one point, The Kingston Trio had four records at
240-624: A big hit in 1950 with the single of Lead Belly 's " Goodnight, Irene ". This was number one on the Billboard charts for thirteen weeks. On its flip side was " Tzena, Tzena, Tzena ", an Israeli dance song that concurrently reached number two on the charts. This was followed by a string of Weaver hit singles that sold millions, including " "So Long It's Been Good to Know You" ("Dusty Old Dust") (by Woody Guthrie) and " Kisses Sweeter Than Wine ". The Weavers' career ended abruptly when they were dropped from Decca 's catalog because Pete Seeger had been listed in
320-465: A business partnership with Jerry Dennon, built a radio station in Seaside, Oregon ( KSWB ) in 1968. The station was subsequently sold in 1972 to a group from Montana, and later to a self-proclaimed minister, and finally merged into a larger conglomerate of radio stations. Mike Kirkland left the group in 1969 and was replaced by Mark Pearson, another University of Washington alumnus. In 1971, Pearson left and
400-518: A college club called the Cracked Pot by Frank Werber , who became their manager and secured them a deal with Capitol Records . Their first hit was a rewritten rendition of an old-time folk murder ballad, " Tom Dooley ", which had been sung at Lead Belly 's funeral concert. This went gold in 1958 and sold more than three million copies. The success of the album and the single earned the Kingston Trio
480-622: A compliment. During World War II , she taught in an elementary school . Meanwhile, in 1946, whilst still in Kentucky, Ritchie was recorded performing traditional songs with her sisters Edna, Kitty and Pauline by Emily Elizabeth Barnacle and by Artus Moser . After graduating she got a job as a social worker at the Henry Street Settlement in New York , where she taught her Appalachian songs and traditions to local children. This caught
560-577: A contract with Columbia Records . Their second single, " Greenfields ", released in January 1960, hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 , sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA . Their first album, The Brothers Four , released toward the end of the year, made the top 20. Other highlights of their early career included singing their fourth single, " The Green Leaves of Summer ", from
640-475: A farm in Talcum , Knott County, Kentucky. He was the source of several of Jean Ritchie's songs and Cecil Sharp narrowly missed meeting him in 1917, stating in his diary that "they couldn't get hold of him". As the youngest of 14 siblings, Ritchie was one of ten girls who slept in one room of the farming family's farm house. Ritchie and her family sang for entertainment, but also to accompany their manual work. When
720-526: A few verses for them. In 1954, Ritchie released some of the British and Irish recordings on the album Field Trip , side by side with Ritchie family versions of the same songs; a broader selection was issued by Folkways on the two LPs Field Trip–England (1959) and As I Roved Out (Field Trip–Ireland) (1960). Some transcriptions and photographs were later published in Ritchie's book From Fair to Fair: Folksongs of
800-599: A four-year University of the Cumberlands ) in Williamsburg, Kentucky , and from there graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in social work from the University of Kentucky in Lexington in 1946. At college she participated in the glee club and choir as well as learning the piano . According to Ritchie, Maud Karpeles later said "[Ritchie] cannot be termed a folksinger, because she has been to college," which she took as
880-555: A full-time singer, folksong collector, and songwriter. Elektra records signed her and she released her first album of family songs, Singing the Traditional Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family (1952), which included family versions of such songs as " Gypsum Davy ", " The Cuckoo ", and " The Little Devils ", a song which had particularly fascinated Cecil Sharp when he heard it from Una and Sabrina Ritchie in 1917. In 1952, Ritchie
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#1733085238753960-471: A goose-feather quill. Her father Balis (1869–1958) had played the Appalachian dulcimer but forbade his children to touch it, but aged five or six, Ritchie defied this prohibition and covertly played the instrument. Then, by the time her dad decided to teach her how to play, she was already accustomed to the instrument so father labeled her as a "natural born musician". By 1949, her dulcimer playing had become
1040-531: A hallmark of her style. After her husband George Pickow made her one as a present, the couple decided there might be a potential market for them, and Morris Pickow, Pickow's uncle, set up an instrument workshop for them under the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn . At first they were shipped to New York in an unfinished state by Ritchie's Kentucky relative, Jethro Amburgey, back then the woodworking instructor at
1120-564: A handful of artists releasing records. Barred from mainstream outlets, artists like Seeger were restricted to performing in schools and summer camps, and the folk-music scene became a phenomenon associated with vaguely rebellious bohemianism in places like New York (especially Greenwich Village ) and San Francisco 's North Beach , and in the college and university districts of cities like Chicago , Greater Boston (especially Cambridge, Massachusetts ), Denver , Minneapolis and elsewhere. Ron Eyerman and Scott Baretta speculate that: [I]t
1200-675: A host of groups that were similar in some respects like the Brothers Four , Peter, Paul and Mary , The Limeliters , The Chad Mitchell Trio , The New Christy Minstrels , and more. As noted by critic Bruce Eder in the All Music Guide , the popularity of the commercialized version of folk music represented by these groups emboldened record companies to sign, record, and promote artists with more traditionalist and political sensibilities. The Kingston Trio's popularity would be followed by that of Joan Baez , whose debut album Joan Baez reached
1280-593: A man. Nottamun Town (which Ritchie had learned from her uncle Jason and performed in 1954 on Kentucky Mountains Songs and in 1965 on A Time For Singin ) was covered by Shirley Collins (1964), Bert Jansch (1966) and Fairport Convention (1969), and the tune was used by Bob Dylan for his 1963 song " Masters of War " on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan . From her uncle Jason (actually her father's first cousin), Ritchie had learnt to alter tunes and lyrics from verse-to-verse and performance-to-performance, viewing elements of improvisation and variation as
1360-518: A natural part of traditional music. Her versions of family songs and original compositions vary slightly between performances, and she often created new songs by using bits of material from existing ones or adding newly composed verses to flesh out song fragments she recalled from her childhood. Unfortunately, Cecil Sharp had failed to arrange a meeting with Jason Ritchie when he stayed in Knott County in 1917. Her record None But One (1977), which won
1440-508: A prank played on them in 1958 by a rival fraternity, who had arranged for someone to call them, pretend to be from Seattle's Colony Club, and invite them to come down to audition for a gig. Even though they were not expected at the club, they were allowed to sing a few songs and were subsequently hired. Flick recalls them being paid "mostly in beer". They left for San Francisco in 1959, where they met Mort Lewis, Dave Brubeck 's manager. Lewis became their manager and later that year secured them
1520-475: A reduced scale. Through the luminary young singer-songwriters of the 1960s, the American folk-music revival has influenced songwriting and musical styles throughout the world. Jean Ritchie Jean Ruth Ritchie (December 8, 1922 – June 1, 2015) was an American folk singer , songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player, called by some the "Mother of Folk". In her youth she learned hundreds of folk songs in
1600-604: A rich soprano with vibrato. Her popularity (and that of the folk revival itself) would place Baez on the cover of Time magazine in November 1962. Unlike the Kingston Trio, Baez was openly political, and as the civil rights movement gathered steam, she aligned herself with Pete Seeger, Guthrie and others. Baez was one of the singers with Seeger, Josh White , Peter, Paul and Mary , and Bob Dylan who appeared at Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington and sang " We Shall Overcome ",
1680-441: A rock-band line-up. Before long, the public appetite for the more acoustic music of the folk revival began to wane. "Crossover" hits ("folk songs" that became rock-music-scene staples) happened now and again. One well-known example is the song " Hey Joe ", copyrighted by folk artist Billy Roberts and recorded by rock singer/guitarist Jimi Hendrix just as he was about to burst into stardom in 1967. The anthem " Woodstock ", which
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#17330852387531760-554: A song that had been introduced by People's Songs. Harry Belafonte was also present on that occasion, as was Odetta , whom Martin Luther King introduced as "the queen of folk music" when she sang "Oh, Freedom". ( Odetta Sings Folk Songs was one of 1963's best-selling folk albums). Also on hand were the SNCC Freedom Singers , the personnel of which went on to form Sweet Honey in the Rock . The critical role played by Freedom Songs in
1840-441: Is credited with bringing national and international attention to the Appalachian dulcimer as the main initiator of the "dulcimer revival". Distinct from the hammer dulcimer , the Appalachian dulcimer (or "mountain dulcimer") is an intimate indoor instrument with a soft, ethereal sound, probably first played by Appalachian Scotch-Irish immigrants in the early half of the nineteenth century. The Ritchies strummed their dulcimers with
1920-594: Is interesting to consider that had it not been for the explicit political sympathies of the Weavers and other folk singers or, another way of looking at it, the hysterical anti-communism of the Cold War, folk music would very likely have entered mainstream American culture in even greater force in the early 1950s, perhaps making the second wave of the revival nearly a decade later [i.e., in the 1960s] redundant. The media blackout of performers with alleged communist sympathies or ties
2000-520: The Hindman Settlement School . George placed a finish and Jean tuned the dulcimers, and soon they had sold 300 dulcimers. Later they manufactured them themselves from start to finish. Ritchie's use of the dulcimer and her tutorial, The Dulcimer Book (1974), inspired folk revival musicians both in the US and Britain to record songs using the instrument. Because fans kept asking her "Which album has
2080-576: The House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955. Despite this, a Christmas Weaver reunion concert organized by Harold Leventhal in 1955 was a smash success and the Vanguard LP album of that concert, issued in 1957, was one of the top sellers of that year, followed by other successful albums. Folk music, which often carried the stigma of left-wing associations during the 1950s Red Scare , was driven underground and carried along by
2160-593: The John Wayne movie The Alamo , at the 1961 Academy Awards , and having their third album, BMOC: Best Music On/Off Campus , go top 10. They also recorded the title song for the Hollywood film Five Weeks in a Balloon in 1962 and the theme song for the ABC television series Hootenanny , "Hootenanny Saturday Night", in 1963. They also gave " Sloop John B " a try, released as "The John B Sails". The British Invasion and
2240-482: The Reverend Gary Davis , and Bill Monroe came to have something more than a regional or ethnic reputation. The revival turned up a tremendous wealth and diversity of music and put it out through radio shows and record stores . Living representatives of some of the varied regional and ethnic traditions, including younger performers like Southern-traditional singer Jean Ritchie , who had first begun recording in
2320-454: The " Old Regular Baptist " church she attended in Jeff, Kentucky . These were sung as "lining out" songs, in a lingering soulful way, including the song " Amazing Grace ", which she helped popularize. Family versions of "Amazing Grace" and the hymn "Brightest And Best " were released on the 1959 album Jean Ritchie Interviews Her Family, With Documentary Recordings . Ritchie directed and sang at
2400-508: The 1920s and 1930s were published by major record labels. The expanding market in LP records increased the availability of folk-music field recordings originally made by John and Alan Lomax , Kenneth S. Goldstein , and other collectors during the New Deal era of the 1930s and 40s. Small record labels, such as Yazoo Records , grew up to distribute reissued older recordings and to make new recordings of
2480-523: The 1940s, also enjoyed a resurgence of popularity through enthusiasts' widening discovery of this music and appeared regularly at folk festivals. Ethnic folk music from other countries also had a boom during the American folk revival. The most successful ethnic performers of the revival were the Greenwich Village folksingers, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem , whom Billboard magazine listed as
The Brothers Four - Misplaced Pages Continue
2560-657: The 1963 and 64 Newport Folk Festivals . For example, traditionalist Clarence Ashley introduced folk revivalists to the music of friends of his who still actively played the older music, such as Doc Watson and The Stanley Brothers . During the 1950s, the growing folk-music crowd that had developed in the United States began to buy records by older, traditional musicians from the Southeastern hill country and from urban inner-cities. New LP compilations of commercial 78-rpm race and hillbilly studio recordings stretching back to
2640-582: The 1977 critics’ award in Rolling Stone magazine , introduced her music to a younger audience, and secured her place in mainstream folk music. Her 50th anniversary album was Mountain Born (1995), which features Peter and Jonathan, her two sons. Ritchie was the subject of the 1996 documentary Mountain Born: The Jean Ritchie Story , which was made for Kentucky Educational Television . Ritchie
2720-399: The Appalachian dulcimer to singing, often singing entire ballads in his head along with his dulcimer playing. In 1917, the folk music collector Cecil Sharp collected songs from Jean's older sisters May (1896–1982) and Una (1900–1989), whilst her sister Edna (1910–1997) also learnt the old ballads, much later releasing her own album of traditional songs with dulcimer accompaniment. Most of
2800-652: The British Isles (1966). Whilst in Britain, Ritchie sang at concerts for the English Folk Dance and Song Society , including its annual Royal Albert Hall festival, and presented several BBC radio programmes, appearing on "Ballad Hunter" which was presented by her friend Alan Lomax. On one occasion, Maud Karpeles took Ritchie and Pickow to visit Ralph Vaughan Williams and his wife Ursula , for whom she sang " Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies "; Pickow photographed
2880-464: The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Chad Mitchell Trio , The Limeliters , The Brothers Four , The Highwaymen , and others, featured songs in Spanish (often from Mexico), Polynesian languages, Russian, French, and other languages in their recordings and performances. These groups also sang many English-language songs of foreign origin. The British Invasion of the mid-1960s helped bring an end to
2960-479: The Ritchie siblings seemed dedicated to performing and preserving traditional music. Many of the Ritchies attended the Hindman Settlement School , a folk school where students were encouraged to cherish their own backgrounds and where Sharp found many of his songs. It is possible that many of the Ritchies' songs were absorbed from neighbors, relatives, friends, school mates and even books, as well as being passed through
3040-671: The Spring Fever Hootenanny . By October 1949, she was a regular guest on Oscar Brand 's Folksong Festival radio show on WNYC . In 1949 and 1950, she recorded several hours of songs, stories, and oral history for Lomax in New York City. All of Lomax's recordings of Ritchie are available online courtesy of the Lomax Digital Archive. She was recorded extensively for the Library of Congress in 1951. By 1951, Ritchie became
3120-516: The United States and bore little resemblance to its folk origins. After Bob Dylan began to record with a rocking rhythm section and electric instruments in 1965 (see Electric Dylan controversy ), many other still-young folk artists followed suit. Meanwhile, bands like The Lovin' Spoonful and the Byrds , whose individual members often had a background in the folk-revival coffee-house scene, were getting recording contracts with folk-tinged music played with
3200-451: The Wind ". That trio also brought Pete Seeger's and the Weavers' " If I Had a Hammer " to nationwide audiences, as well as covering songs by other artists such as Dylan and John Denver . It was not long before the folk-music category came to include less traditional material and more personal and poetic creations by individual performers, who called themselves "singer-songwriters". As a result of
3280-506: The album Trio recorded by Linda Ronstadt , Dolly Parton , and Emmylou Harris . Judy Collins recorded some of Ritchie's traditional songs, "Tender Ladies" and " Pretty Saro ", and also used a photograph by George Pickow on the front of her album " Golden Apples of the Sun " (1962). In 1963, Ritchie recorded an album with Doc Watson entitled Jean Ritchie and Doc Watson Live at Folk City (1963). The traditional Appalachian song " Shady Grove "
The Brothers Four - Misplaced Pages Continue
3360-648: The ascendance of edgier folk rock musicians such as Bob Dylan put an end to the Brothers Four's early period of success, but they kept performing and making records, doing particularly well in Japan and on the American hotel circuit. The group attempted a comeback by recording a highly commercialized version of Dylan's " Mr. Tambourine Man ", but were unable to release it because of licensing issues; The Byrds eventually licensed an agreement for their own version, with their Billboard No. 1 hit released in April 1965. The group, in
3440-462: The attention of folk singers, scholars, and enthusiasts based in New York, and she befriended Woody Guthrie , Oscar Brand , Pete Seeger , and Alan Lomax. To many, Ritchie represented the ideal traditional musician, due to her rural upbringing, dulcimer playing, and the fact her songs came from within her family. In 1948, Ritchie shared a stage with The Weavers , Woody Guthrie , and Betty Sanders at
3520-538: The banjo on their Grammy-nominated 1961 album, A Spontaneous Performance Recording , and Bob Dylan later cited the group as a major influence on him. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem also sparked a folk-music boom in Ireland in the mid-1960s, illustrating the world-wide effects of the American folk-music revival. Books such as the popular best seller, the Fireside Book of Folk Songs (1947), which contributed to
3600-724: The basis of the first scholarly work on the British ballads in America, a doctoral thesis by Professor Josiah Combs of Berea College for the Sorbonne University published in Paris in 1925). Jean's father Balis had printed up a book of old songs entitled Lovers' Melodies in 1910 or 1911, which contained the most popular songs in Hindman at that time, including " Jackaro ," " Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender ," " False Sir John and May Colvin " and " The Lyttle Musgrave ." However, Balis preferred playing
3680-452: The career of The Weavers , formed in November 1948 by Pete Seeger , Lee Hays , Fred Hellerman , and Ronnie Gilbert of People's Songs , of which Seeger had been president and Hays executive secretary. People's Songs, which disbanded in 1948–49, had been a clearing house for labor movement songs (and in particular the CIO , which at the time was one of the few if not the only union federation that
3760-466: The development of country and western , blues , jazz , and rock and roll music. The folk revival in New York City was rooted in the resurgent interest in square dancing and folk dancing there in the 1940s as espoused by instructors such as Margot Mayo , which gave musicians such as Pete Seeger popular exposure. The folk revival more generally as a popular and commercial phenomenon begins with
3840-512: The eleventh best-selling folk musicians in the United States. The group, which consisted of Paddy Clancy , Tom Clancy , Liam Clancy , and Tommy Makem , predominantly sang English-language, Irish folk songs, as well as an occasional song in Irish Gaelic . Paddy Clancy also started and ran the folk-music label Tradition Records , which produced Odetta's first solo LP and initially brought Carolyn Hester to national prominence. Pete Seeger played
3920-545: The family gathered to sing songs, they chose from a repertoire of over 300 songs including hymns , old ballads , and popular songs by composers such as Stephen Foster , which were mostly learnt orally and sung unaccompanied. The Ritchies would sing improvised harmonies to accompany some of their songs, including " Pretty Saro ". Ritchie graduated from high school in Viper and enrolled in Cumberland Junior College (now
4000-605: The family. The paternal ancestors of the Ritchie family, Alexander Ritchie (1725–1787) and his son James Ritchie Sr. (1757–1818) of Stewarton , East Ayrshire , Scotland , emigrated to the United States. James Ritchie Sr. fought in the Revolutionary War in 1776 (including at the Siege of Yorktown ), and lived in Virginia before settling on Carr Creek Lake in what is now Knott County , Kentucky, with his family. When he drowned in
4080-630: The financial success of high-profile commercial folk artists, record companies began to produce and distribute records by a new generation of folk revival and singer-songwriters— Phil Ochs , Tom Paxton , Eric von Schmidt , Buffy Sainte-Marie , Dave Van Ronk , Judy Collins , Tom Rush , Fred Neil , Gordon Lightfoot , Billy Ed Wheeler , John Denver , John Stewart , Arlo Guthrie , Harry Chapin , and John Hartford , among others. Some of this wave had emerged from family singing and playing traditions, and some had not. These singers frequently prided themselves on performing traditional material in imitations of
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#17330852387534160-595: The first Newport Folk Festival in 1959, and served on the first folklore panel for the National Endowment for the Arts . Her album Ballads from Her Appalachian Family Tradition (1961) compiled many traditional Ritchie family versions of Child Ballads , including False Sir John , Hangman , Lord Bateman , Barbary Allen , There Lived an Old Lord (Two Sisters) , Cherry Tree Carol and Edward . Her traditional version of "My Dear Companion" ( Roud 411 ) appeared on
4240-405: The folk song revival, featured some material in languages other than English, including German, Spanish, Italian, French, Yiddish, and Russian. The repertoires of Theodore Bikel , Marais and Miranda , and Martha Schlamme also included Hebrew and Jewish material, as well as Afrikaans . The Weavers' first big hit, the flipside of Lead Belly's " Good Night Irene ", and a top seller in its own right,
4320-490: The folk song-like sentimental ballad "Scarlet Ribbons" (composed in 1949). The Kingston Trio , a group originating on the West Coast, were directly inspired by the Weavers in their style and presentation and covered some of the Weavers' material, which was predominantly traditional. The Kingston Trio avoided overtly political or protest songs and cultivated a clean-cut collegiate persona. They were discovered while playing at
4400-519: The four of them together. In 1955, Ritchie wrote a book about her family called Singing Family of the Cumberlands . The book documented the role of the family songs in everyday life, such as accompanying everyday tasks on the farm and in the home, or being sung when gathered on the porch in the evening to “sing the moon up”. Singing Family of the Cumberlands is widely regarded as an American classic, and continues to be used in American schools. As well as work songs and ballads, Ritchie knew hymns from
4480-418: The increasingly unpopular Vietnam War . Young singer-songwriter Bob Dylan , playing acoustic guitar and harmonica, had been signed and recorded for Columbia by producer John Hammond in 1961. Dylan's record enjoyed some popularity among Greenwich Village folk-music enthusiasts, but he was "discovered" by an immensely larger audience when Peter, Paul & Mary had a hit with a cover of his song " Blowin' in
4560-412: The instrument on her albums and writing tutorial books. She also spent time collecting folk music in the United States and in Britain and Ireland, in order to research the origins of her family songs and help preserve traditional music. She inspired a wide array of musicians, including Bob Dylan , Joan Baez , Shirley Collins , Joni Mitchell , Emmylou Harris and Judy Collins . Jean Ritchie
4640-646: The lake in 1818, his family moved back to Virginia except his son Alexander Crockett Ritchie Sr. (1778–1878), Jean Ritchie's great-great-grandfather. Most of the Ritchies later fought on the Confederate Side in the Civil War, including Jean's paternal grandfather Justice Austin Ritchie (1834–1899), who was 2nd Lieutenant of Company C of the 13th Kentucky Confederate Cavalry. Alan Lomax wrote that: They were quiet, thoughtful folks, who went in for ballads, big families and educating their children. Jean's grandmother
4720-472: The mainstream popularity of American folk music as a wave of British bands overwhelmed most of the American music scene, including folk. Ironically, the roots of the British Invasion were in American folk, specifically a variant known as skiffle as popularized by Lonnie Donegan ; however, most of the British Invasion bands had been extensively influenced by rock and roll by the time their music had reached
4800-455: The mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White , Burl Ives , Woody Guthrie , Lead Belly , Big Bill Broonzy , Richard Dyer-Bennet , Oscar Brand , Jean Ritchie , John Jacob Niles , Susan Reed , Paul Robeson , Bessie Smith , Ma Rainey and Cisco Houston had enjoyed a limited general popularity in the 1930s and 1940s. The revival brought forward styles of American folk music that had in earlier times contributed to
4880-555: The most dulcimer?", she finally recorded an album called The Most Dulcimer in 1984, which included the dulcimer on every song. Ritchie was married to photographer George Pickow from 1950 until his death in 2010, with whom she had two sons, Peter (1954–) and Jonathan (1958–2020). She lived in Baxter Estates , New York , and was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2008. In early December 2009, Ritchie
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#17330852387534960-463: The publication Red Channels as a probable subversive. Radio stations refused to play their records and concert venues canceled their engagements. A former employee of People's Songs, Harvey Matusow , himself a former Communist Party member, had informed the FBI that the Weavers were Communists, too, although Matusow later recanted and admitted he had lied. Pete Seeger and Lee Hays were called to testify before
5040-512: The same time among the top 10 selling albums for five consecutive weeks in November and December 1959 according to Billboard magazine's "Top LPs" chart, a record unmatched for more than 50 years and noted at the time by a cover story in Life magazine. The huge commercial success of the Kingston Trio, whose recordings between 1958 and 1961 earned more than $ 25 million for Capitol records or more than $ 250 million in 2024 dollars, spawned
5120-626: The so-called beatnik scene, and dedicated singers of folk songs (as well as folk-influenced original material) traveled through what was called "the coffee-house circuit" across the U.S. and Canada, home also to cool jazz and recitations of highly personal beatnik poetry. Two singers of the 1950s who sang folk material but crossed over into the mainstream were Odetta and Harry Belafonte , both of whom sang Lead Belly and Josh White material. Odetta, who had trained as an opera singer, performed traditional blues, spirituals, and songs by Lead Belly . Belafonte had hits with Jamaican calypso material as well as
5200-429: The strip-mining techniques of coal firms. These songs included "Blue Diamond Mines", "Black Waters" and " The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore ", which was covered by Johnny Cash , after he heard his wife, June Carter Cash , singing it. Ritchie had written numerous songs about mining under the pseudonym "'Than Hall", to avoid troubling her non-political mother, and believing they might be better received if attributed to
5280-468: The style of the source singers whom they had discovered, frequently by listening to Harry Smith 's celebrated LP compilation of forgotten or obscure commercial 78rpm "race" and "hillbilly" recordings of the 1920s and 30s, the Folkways Anthology of American Folk Music (1951). A number of the artists who had made these old recordings were still very much alive and had been "rediscovered" and brought to
5360-562: The survivors among these artists. This was how many urban white American audiences of the 1950s and 60s first heard country blues and especially Delta blues that had been recorded by Mississippi folk artists 30 or 40 years before. In 1952, Folkways Records released the Anthology of American Folk Music , compiled by anthropologist and experimental film maker Harry Smith . The Anthology featured 84 songs by traditional country and blues artists, initially recorded between 1927 and 1932, and
5440-549: The top ten in late 1960 and remained on the Billboard charts for over two years. Baez's early albums contained mostly traditional material, such as the Scottish ballad " Mary Hamilton ", as well as many covers of melancholy tunes that had appeared in Harry Smith 's Anthology of American Folk Music , such as "The Wagoner's Lad" and "The Butcher Boy" . She did not try to imitate the singing style of her source material, however, but used
5520-525: The traditional way (orally, from her family and community), many of which were Appalachian variants of centuries old British and Irish songs, including dozens of Child Ballads . In adulthood, she shared these songs with wide audiences, as well as writing some of her own songs using traditional foundations. She is ultimately responsible for the revival of the Appalachian dulcimer , the traditional instrument of her community, which she popularized by playing
5600-675: The voter registration drives, freedom rides, and lunch counter sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1950s and early '60s in the South gave folk music tremendous new visibility and prestige. The peace movement was likewise energized by the rise of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the UK, protesting the British testing of the H-bomb in 1958, as well as by the ever-proliferating arms race and
5680-410: Was a prime mover in the Old Regular Baptist Church , and all the traditional hymn tunes came from her. Jean's Uncle Jason was a lawyer, who remembers the big ballads like " Lord Barnard ". Jean's father taught school, printed a newspaper, fitted specs, farmed and sent ten of his fourteen children to college. Her "uncle" Jason (1860–1959), who was actually her father's cousin, practiced law while owning
5760-803: Was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to trace the links between American ballads and the songs from England, Scotland and Ireland. As a song-collector, she began by setting down the 300 songs that she already knew from her mother's knee. Then, Ritchie and her husband, George Pickow , spent 18 months tape recording, interviewing and photographing singers, including Elizabeth Cronin , Tommy and Sarah Makem , Leo Rowsome , and Seamus Ennis in Ireland; Jeannie Robertson and Jimmy MacBeath in Scotland; and Harry Cox and Bob Roberts in England. When people asked what sort of songs they were looking for, Ritchie would sometimes ask them if they knew Barbara Allen and sing
5840-581: Was born to Abigail (née Hall) Ritchie (1877–1972) and Balis Wilmar Ritchie (1869–1958) of Viper , an unincorporated community in Perry County in the Cumberland Mountains of southeastern Kentucky . The Ritchies of Perry County were one of the two "great ballad-singing families" of Kentucky celebrated among folk song scholars (the other was the Combs family of adjacent Knott County , whose repertoire formed
5920-557: Was credited with making a large amount of pre-War material accessible to younger musicians. (The Anthology was re-released on CD in 1997, and Smith was belatedly presented with a Grammy Award for his achievement in 1991.) Artists like the Carter Family , Robert Johnson , Blind Lemon Jefferson , Clarence Ashley , Buell Kazee , Uncle Dave Macon , Mississippi John Hurt , and the Stanley Brothers , as well as Jimmie Rodgers ,
6000-481: Was in Hebrew (" Tzena, Tzena, Tzena ") and they, and later Joan Baez, who was of Mexican descent, occasionally included Spanish-language material in their repertoires, as well as songs from Africa, India, and elsewhere. The commercially oriented folk-music revival as it existed in coffee houses, concert halls, radio, and TV was predominantly an English-language phenomenon, though many of the major pop-folk groups, such as
6080-426: Was popularized by Doc Watson after he most likely learnt it from Jean Ritchie, who in turn learnt it from her father Balis Ritchie. As folk music became more popular in the 1960s, new political songs overshadowed the traditional ballads. Whilst Ritchie largely stuck to the traditional songs, she wrote and recorded Kentucky-themed songs with wider implications, such as the destruction of the environment by loggers and
6160-495: Was racially integrated), and in 1948 had thrown all its resources to the failed presidential campaign of Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace , a folk-music aficionado (his running mate was a country-music singer-guitarist). Hays and Seeger had formerly sung together as the politically activist Almanac Singers , a group which they founded in 1941 and whose personnel often included Woody Guthrie , Josh White , Lead Belly , Cisco Houston , and Bess Lomax Hawes . The Weavers had
6240-423: Was replaced by Bob Haworth, who stayed until 1985 and was replaced by a returning Pearson. Dick Foley left the group in 1990 and was replaced by Terry Lauber. The group is still active after 66 years in the business. Founding former member Kirkland died of cancer on August 20, 2020, at age 82. American folk music revival The American folk music revival began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in
6320-595: Was so effective that Israel Young , a chronicler of the 1960s Folk Revival who was drawn into the movement through an interest in folk dancing, communicated to Ron Eyerman that he himself was unaware for many years of the movement's 1930s and early '40s antecedents in left-wing political activism. In the early and mid-1950s, acoustic-guitar-accompanied folk songs were mostly heard in coffee houses , private parties, open-air concerts, and sing-alongs, hootenannies , and at college-campus concerts. Often associated with political dissent, folk music now blended, to some degree, with
6400-513: Was written and first sung by Joni Mitchell while her records were still nearly entirely acoustic and while she was labeled a "folk singer", became a hit single for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when the group recorded a full-on rock version. By the late 1960s, the scene had returned to being more of a lower-key, aficionado phenomenon, although sizable annual acoustic-music festivals were established in many parts of North America during this period. The acoustic music coffee-house scene survived at
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