I was always confused about this. Is folk music only about the rustic American countryside or are those two crooning singers also considered folk artists?

I shared this thread on my hi5 group !

Regards

Finn129

Nick Drake, like Leonard Cohen, was an emerging singer-songwriter at the time that folk music was getting a wider appeal in the 1950’s and 60’s. Nick, especially, was writing and performing in the style of folk music. Nick was not aligned with the politics and repertoire of the folk movement, however.

Singer-songwriters is considered a sub-genre of Folk. Infinite debate can take place when discussing genres, and I myself am a critic of the whole process. Mississippi John Hurt is often categorized as Delta Blues, which is not correct. How does one classify Doc Watson?

Iron & Wine, same story as Nick Drake, 50 years later. Sounds like folk.

Folk, to me, tells stories. Stories that the newspapers won’t print, either because their keepers don’t want it to be told or the masses won’t find it interesting enough to make the papers a lot of money. So mothers sing it to their daughters. The stories of the poor, and those of us who lack influence.

I also believe that Folk is any music we sing for no reason. Around the house, around a camp fire, with friends and family. If it’s made to sell records, some thought would have to be put to the classification.

Now days, anything with an acoustic guitar might be considered folk. But it’s not about the guitar at all. When the words knock me out, I start considering it.

To add a bit to the vexatious topic of defining folk—not that it’s all that important, I mean it only, uhhh, determines what folkhosts feel they can put in their setlists and stuff—the debate about what counts as truly folk goes back a little over 200 years, to the Brothers Grimm and like-minded collectors, and from what I can tell, the terms of the controversy haven’t changed much.
    One definition frequently used for “true” folk is oral transmission and “collective authorship”—performers do not compose new material; they reshape traditional material that they have heard from someone else. By that criterion, very little of what is played on the Folk Show is really “folk” (not to mention Nick Drake…) Dave Van Ronk was thinking of that definition when he suggested that very little of what was happening in Greenwich Village in the 60s was folk, and that he preferred to call it the “New Song” movement, which is roughly a translation of the Latin American “nueva canción.”
    One big difficulty with definition is that the same song can go up and down the scale between folk and elite or professional music, and travel from the city out to the country or vice versa. We think of the Carter Family songs as “rustic” or “folk,” and some are transmitted orally, but many of them originally came out of Tin Pan Alley or minstrel shows and were composed by professional songwriters targeting the middle-class urban sheet-music market. Everything is changing all the time in the musical world, and so I think some flexibility in approach is warranted.   
    Rather than saying that I am presenting “folk” I prefer terms like “roots” or “culturally substantive” music. Not that those terms are easier to define… Thanks for listening…uhh, reading!

Very well said Tom. 

I got thinking further tonight and began to ponder classifying an artist as Folk as apposed to an album or a song. Is everything Dylan put out Folk? Ani DiFranco? Tom Paxton? Are we putting these folks in little boxes? (now that’s a folk song)

In the end, I just post the lyrics to my Web site and if no one sues me, it’s Folk.

Ah, the “F word.” (FOLK!)

I think the definitions of “folk” end up being as varied as the people who use them.  I strenuously resist getting into arguments about what is and isn’t folk music because some people have VERY myopic viewpoints and/or very strong opinions, and it starts to feel terribly academic… to me, the very antithesis of the heart and soul of acoustic music.

For many people, the label “folk” has negative connotations; “folk isn’t cool.” And yet, they hear, say, a Josh Ritter song performed solo acoustic, or Iron & Wine (which probably had a starker, folkier feel than the Richard Shindell CD I’m currently listening to!) and it really resonates with them. To me, the Ritter is as much folk as listening to a Child ballad. (Just my opinion, mind you.)

So my advice is this: don’t fret too much over the definition of the word; by no means start arguing about it (unless you’re really into that whole sort of thing!) and just enjoy the music - whether you’re playing or listening to it! And when in doubt, just call it Acoustic and nobody will get their panties in a bunch! Now, who wants to start talking about if it really isn’t bluegrass “if it ain’t the way Bill Monroe done it?!”

It sometimes irritates me that people try to pigeon hole music lovers into “Folkies”, “Prog Rockers” etc.

When I was at school many years ago I was a fan of all types of music. I loved some Folk artists - Bob Dylan was called a Folk Artist then, and also loved Northern Soul and Led Zepellin!

I think you should just be able to enjoy what you like and not be restrained by a genre.

Cheers
Keith in snowy Derby in the UK

I agree about not pigeonholing listeners into any one category… while threads tend to branch out and evolve, though, this thread was originally about the performing artists, not the listeners.

I think of myself as more of a fan of good songwriting than fitting in any one box. For me personally, my iPod has the Clash, Clive Gregson, Ramones, Violent Femmes, Sinatra, Chris While, Woody Guthrie, Be Bop Deluxe, Archie Fisher, Pete Seeger and Johnny Cash all living quite comfortably together. (Although it can make for some jarring juxtapositions when it’s on shuffle sometimes!)

I kind of feel the same way about motorcycles, but that would be diverting this thread in a very different direction!