The Folk Music Revival and the Counter Culture: Contributions and Contradictions Author(S): Jens Lund and R

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The Folk Music Revival and the Counter Culture: Contributions and Contradictions Author(s): Jens Lund and R. Serge Denisoff Source: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 334 (Oct. - Dec., 1971), pp. 394-405 Published by: American Folklore Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/539633 . Accessed: 22/09/2011 16:11

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http://www.jstor.org JENS LUND and R. SERGE DENISOFF

The Folk Music Revival and the Counter Culture: Contributionsand Contradictions'

OBSERVERS OF THE SO-CALLED "COUNTER CULTURE" have tended to portray this phenomenonas a new and isolated event. TheodoreRoszak, as well as nu- merousmusic and art historians,have cometo view the "counterculture" as a new reactionto technicalexpertise and the embourgeoismentof growing segmentsof the Americanpeople.2 This position,it would appear,is basicallyindicative of the intellectual"blind men and the elephant"couplet, where a social fact or event is examinedapart from otherstructural phenomena. Instead, it is our contentionthat the "counterculture" or Abbie Hoffman's"Woodstock Nation" is an emergent realityor a productof all that camebefore, sui generis.More simply,the "counter culture"can best be conceptualizedas partof a long historical-intellectualprogres- sion beginningwith the "Gardenof Eden"image of man. The theme of man removedfrom the state of naturehas recurredthroughout Judeo-Christian-Grecothought. Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke,Calvin, and nearlyall social philosophersand metaphysicianshave chosento idealizean existenceprior to primordialman when all was well, and life was simple and free of the "social nausea"ascribed to us by the existentialists. Socratesurged the young to adopt an asceticstyle of life. This sentimentwas repeatedby early Catholictheologians, particularly Francis of Assisi. The Euro- pean Romanticists,in the wake of Rousseau,lauded the "noblesavage." In North America,James Fenimore Cooper exhibited a preoccupationwith the hero of the wilderness.The transcendentalistsof the mid-nineteenthcentury, Thoreau and Emerson,deified the man behind the plow. The force of these argumentsled to some action. For example, the writings of such GermanRomanticists as Joseph von Eichendorffand Nikolaus Lenauproduced the Wandervoigeln,a movement

1 This is a revised and expanded revision of a paper originally presented at the Ohio-Indiana American Studies Association meetings at West Lafayette, Indiana, April 22-24, 1971. 2 Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition (Garden City, N. Y., 1969). THE FOLK MUSIC REVIVAL AND THE COUNTER CULTURE 395 which inspiredmany of Weimar Germany'syoung people to roam CentralEu- rope, begging for food, composingpoetry, and singing folk songs.3Mark Twain's HuckleberryFinn, on a lesserscale, had a similarimpact, as did popularromantici- zation of the cowboyand the hobo. The productsof John Steinbeck,and particularly, Jack Kerouac,Woody Guthrie,and Bob Dylan, have invited the young to experience"the road."In a sense, the "counterculture" can be considereda suc- cessorto all of theseintellectual and literary trends. Political thinkers, such as Marxists,anarchists, syndicalists, and even Social Darwinists,all includedin their sociopoliticaltheorems the state of nature.This "state of nature"coloration of man, reinforcedby Aldous Huxley's Savage in Brave New World, was widely acceptedby left-wing radicals,particularly after the successof the Bolshevikrevolution. American Communists, particularly those loyal to the Comintern,were no exception.During the late 1930s, the Communist Party-U.S. A. idealizedthe Americanrural folk as beingidentifiable with the pro- letariat.The Okies and Arkies were seen as charactersfrom a Gorkyplay, and ruralfolk music was declared"people's songs."4 It was in this ideologicalframe- work that "folk music"came to town, to be nurturedand cherishedfor several decadesby politicallyoriented intellectuals and the occasionalfolk musicbuff.5 After World War II the "people'sartists" trend was interdictedby the advent of the McCarthyera and the applicationof the mediablacklist to folk-styledsing- ers, such as Pete Seegerand the Weavers.As membersof People's Artists, Inc. were being summonedto testify before Congressionalsubcommittees, an artistic and literaryfad which exploredthe traditional"road" concepts of the American experience came into existence in the bohemian communitiesof several large metropolises.This movementwas called the Beat Generation,or by journalists suchas Herb Caen,"beatniks." The beatsproclaimed disaffiliation from American societyand its institutions.In place of the ProtestantEthic, they adoptedthe posture of the "White Negro," a concept coined by Norman Mailer. The "White Negro" idealized stereotypesof black behaviorand advocatedimitation of such traits.Jazz, the music of urbanblacks, became the languageof the Beat community, and the musicianthe ideal man.6Many of the foundersof jazz, such as Jelly Roll Morton,had begun their careersas house musiciansin Southern"red light" districts.They often affectedargot, dress,and life-stylesthat were ostentatiously unconventional.'At firstthe jazzmenand theirfollowers were generally black, but as the music'spopularity widened, it generatedan interracialsubculture. From the esoteric"bop" era of the late 1940s there emergeda highly definablesubculture known as the "jazzcommunity."s Many of the attitudesof this "community,"such

3Irmgard Hunt, "Towards Soul: The American Hippie-A German Romantic?" Journal of Popular Culture, 3 (Spring, 1970), 736-749. 4See William Wolff, "Use Traditional Tunes for New Union Songs," Daily Worker, November 16, 1939, p. 7; and Marjorie Crane, "The Folksongs of Our People," Sunday Worker, September 21, 1941, p. 4 (section 2). 5 R. Serge Denisoff, Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left (Urbana, Ill., 6 i971). Norman Mailer, "The White Negro," in The Beat Generation and the Angry Young Men, ed. Gene Feldman and Max Gartenberg (New York, 1959), 371-394. 7 Alan Lomax, Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and "Inventor of Jazz" (New York, 1950), xi-xii. 8 Alan P. Merriam and R. W. Mack, "The Jazz Community," Social Forces, 38 (1960), 211-222. 396 JENS LUND and R. SERGE DENISOFF as the use of marijuanaas a social drug and aversenessto conventionalfashion, survivetoday in the "counterculture." It has also contributedmany termsto the contemporaryyouth culture,including the word "hippie"itself, which was originally derogatory.9For the Beat, the noble savageof the fifties was the blackjazz musician,in time to be replacedby the folk singer. During the time New York's GreenwichVillage was the East Coast'sversion of San Francisco'sNorth Beach,beats encountered the remainingleftists and in- tellectualsinterested in folk music.Various songfests were still held in the Village as rent-partiesor fund-raisingevents to fight Pete Seeger's congressionalcon- tempt citation or to help finance the shaky Sing Out! magazine.In time, these sporadicevents were routinizedinto weeklyaffairs held in the Village'sWashing- ton SquarePark. In GreenwichVillage, the beats and the folk-aficionadoscame into contact with each other, resulting in a synthesisof attitudesand appearances.For the neophytebeats, a loosely definedform of "folk music"took the place of jazz as the dominantmusical genre. This was, in part, due to the increasingcommerciali- zation of the music and the "CrowJim" attitudesof those jazz musiciansbeing attractedto black nationalism.The personinterested in folk musicoften affected the bohemian appearanceand life-style, and the blacklistedperformers thus found themselveswith a new audience.Alan Lomax,the distinguishedfolklorist, perhapsbest enunciatedthe life-style aspect in his paper, "The Folkniks-And the Songs They Sing." Lomaxdeclared, "To be folk, you live folk. 10 Many col- legiates and bohemianstook this dictum quite seriously.Time magazine,in its profile of Joan Baez, made note of the life-style associatedwith the nonstudents at Boston'sHarvard Square: "Drifters, somewhat beat, with Penguinclassics pro- truding from their bluejeans . . . 'they just lie in their pads, smoke pot, and do stupid things like that.' "11 The fact that such individualsexisted as earlyas 1962 seemedto be a harbingerof what would lateroccur on campusesacross the nation on a muchlarger scale. The "folkniks"were, of course,still a veryesoteric minority, while the majority of popularmusic concerneditself over ninetypercent of the time with themesof courtshipand everlastinglove.12 Even the ostensiblyoffensive offerings of Elvis Presleyusually ended in a vine-coveredcottage. The magic of the early Presley yearswas soon dissipatedby the conscriptionof its namesake,public hostility to his black counterpartsand the misfortunesthat befell his imitators.For the "taste culture"of this period,a vacuumwas createdwhich allowedfolk musicto capture the attentionof the disgruntledrock-and-roll fan. This void was firstfilled by the Kingston Trio. The Kingston Trio was originallya pop-calypsogroup organized to cash in on the brief calypso fad generatedby Harry Belafonte in 1957. In

9 It has even been suggested that the word may have African origins. Paul Oliver, Savannah Syn- copators: African Retention in the Blues (New York, 1970), 93, cites the Wolof word hipi, meaning "to have one's eyes opened." to Alan Lomax, "The Folkniks-And the Songs They Sing," Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine, 9 (Summer, 1959), 30-31. 11 "Folksinging: Sibyl with a Guitar," Time, November 23, 1962, p. 52. 12 Donald Horton, "The Dialogue of Courtship in Popular Songs," American Journal of Soci- ology, 62 (May, 1957), 569-578. THE FOLK MUSIC REVIVAL AND THE COUNTER CULTURE 397 1958 they rearrangeda North Carolinaballad, "Tom Dula," whichbecame a phe- nomenalsuccess under the title, "Tom Dooley." This helped to set the stage for the commercial"folk" boom of the sixties, but did not, as some have suggested, causeit. Originally,the successof the Trio was not transferableto otherendeavors. The sponsorsof the Newport (R.I.) JazzFestival attempted to stage similarpro- ductions around the folk genre in 1959 and 1960. The first was an economic failureand the secondnot successfulenough to weatherthe conflictsthat appeared in the wake of the 1961 JazzFestival disturbances. "Folkniks," on the otherhand, roundly condemnedthe Trio for their commercializationand for their use of "Tom Dula" which had been gleaned from FrankProffitt, a North Carolinatra- ditional musician.This triggered,even at this early stage, the firstvalue conflict of the folk musicrevival. The conflictwas betweenthe "ethnics"or "purists"who advocatedthe romanticideal of "traditional"music, as opposed to the faddish Kingston Trio, Limeliters,and BrothersFour fans. For the "purists"in Green- wich Village and Cambridge,Berkeley, and other majorcosmopolitan university communities,"folk music" was symbolic of much more than just the hand- clappingentertainment that the popularizerswere implementing.With the steady acceptanceof folk-styledmaterial by increasingsegments of the record-buying public, this one-sidedpolemic was minimizedsince all tasteswere being served. The popularizers,despite their ddclasse posture in "folknik"circles, helped to pay for the less well-knownperformers on recordsand at folk-festivals. With the infusion of the popularizers,the folk-festivals,particularly Newport, resumedin 1963 and helped to transformthe esoteric"folknik" subculture into part of the popularculture. The "Hootenanny"craze of 1963, centeredaround the ABCtelevision show, was butone exampleof this process. Anotherresult of the growinginterest in folk musicwas the reemergenceof the topical songwriterin the so-called "Seeger-Guthrie"tradition.13 Most of these individualshad begun by singing old-left songs, but many of them becamein- volved in the civil rights movement,which had its own songs of protest.Those who went Southas volunteersfound themselvesinvolved in confrontatorydemon- strationswith the forcesof authority,thus linking the idea of demonstrationsand folksinging in the minds of both the participantsand the public. Most of the protestsingers were eventuallywriting original material. The topicalsongwriters, especiallythose to be found in the pages of Broadside(NYC) were to be the prophetsof protestwho would, in time, leave the fold for the more exciting and rewardingpastures of Rock.The Dylans,Paxtons, Skys, Chandlers and othersdid not subscribeto the socialistmodels of the past. Rarelydid the word "we" enter their lyrics.This was in juxtapositionto the well-knownsongs of the civil rights movementwith whichmany New York "folk-singers"identified. More and more, the singular"I" predominated."Hattie Carroll," "Masters of War," and "With God on Our Side"were individualstatements not conduciveto groupsinging. In-

13 Compare Gordon Friesen, "Something New Has Been Added," Sing Out!, I3 (October- November, 1963), 12-23. For the scholastic aspect of the revival see Dick Reuss, "So You Want to be a Folklorist?," Sing Out!, 15 (November, 1965), 40-42; Donald M. Winkleman and Ray B. "Folklore Browne, Study in Universities," Sing Out!, I4 (September, 1964), 47, 49; and Irwin Silber, "Traditional Folk Artists Capture the Campus," Sing Out.!, 14 (April-May, 1964), 8-14. 398 JENS LUND and R. SERGE DENISOFF deed, they took many liberties with the traditionalistic values of the "folkniks." Nevertheless, the topical songwriters, by the summer of 1964, were the vanguard of the folk music revival. The significance of this quasi resurrection of the "people's singer" was the injection of political ideology into the revival. The topical writers of this period were certainly not akin to the Almanacs or their succes- sors, but they did suggest yet another criterion for evaluating singers and their material-their dedication to civil rights and antiwar causes. Bob Dylan changed all of this in the summer of 1965 when he adopted the techniques and styles of rock-and-roll. For many this was heresy. For others it signaled the end of the folk music revival.1- The birth of the "counter culture" has been correlated with the emergence of the so-called "hippie" phenomenon that stressed a casual ideology of human love, respect for life, and the experiential tenets of hallucinogenic drug use. Large self- conscious groups of young people identified as "hippies" first began to appear on the streets of New York and San Francisco about 1965-1966. They learned about the experimental use of hallucinogens and eagerly sought the experience for themselves. They were also faithful followers of the trends that had given new vitality to popular rock-and-roll, in particular Bob Dylan's use of this music as a vehicle for personal statement (he had already abandoned political protest), and the fresh musical innovations of such English groups as the Beatles and the Roll- ing Stones. The large-scale appearance of an LSD black market in some urban areas and the open advocacy of its use by former Harvard researchers and some avant-garde intellectuals gave the movement sacraments and even demagogues. The first "hippies" were by-and-large apolitical, much to the distress of the mentors of folk music and protest songs. Irwin Silber, for nearly fifteen years the editor of the influential folk music magazine Sing Out!, originally perceived the blossoming of the "counter culture" with trepidation. In a piece subtitled "Concerning Marshall McLuhan, Al Capp, Timothy Leary, Joan Baez, the CIA, and the End of the World ..." he wrote: "Give them just enough room to be as 'kooky' as they can imagine, harass them enough to let them feel they're an 'underground' and that you're really worried about them, and let nature (and acid) take its course."''5Silber restated his "opiate is the religion of the people" position on several occasions. In yet another column entitled "Fan the Flames" (an old IWW slogan), he indicated: "One does not call love into being by mesmerizing oneself with a sound or a cube of sugar. If you think that you can wish love into being by changing your mind with trying to change-and, if necessary, destroy-the disease-rackedsociety which has killed love, then your love will be an illusion.""6 Silber's antipathy toward the "counter culture" did not reflect the dominant mood of many of Sing Out! readers. More importantly, he did not survive an editorial board disagreement and was ousted. Nonetheless, Silber did represent the

14 Compare Happy Traum, "The Swan Song of Folk Music," Rolling Stone, May I7, 1969, pp. 7-8; Ed Budeaux, "The Spectacle Moves On," Sing Out!, i7 (August-September, 1967), 11-14; and R. Serge Denisoff, "Folk-Rock: Covert Protestor Commercialism ?," Journal of Popular Culture, 3 (1969), 214-230. 15 Irwin Silber, "Fan the Flames," Sing Out!, 17 (April-May, 1967), 33. 16 Irwin Silber, "Fan the Flames," Sing Out!, 18 (March-April, 1968), 39. THE FOLK MUSIC REVIVAL AND THE COUNTER CULTURE 399 thinking of a number of folk music enthusiasts, especially those with an Old Left tradition. For a time Pete Seeger included in his vast repertory an antidrug song, "Bag on the Table," which was directed at the "counter culture." On the other hand, Sing Out! itself was not averse to courting the drug culture by printing the words and music of a blatantly pro-drug song, David Peel's "Have a Marijuana," complete with praises for "a new party to take the place of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party-the Pot Party." This song, with a small drawing of a Cannabis plant sprouting the word "Salvation" appeared in Sing Out! late in 1968.17 Ideologically, then, the folk music revival and the "counter culture" exhibited several links, though highly contradictory and selective. This mixed relationship is further evidenced in the structural differences and interrelationships between the two phenomena. B. A. Botkin, in his oft-quoted piece, "The Folk Song Revival: Cult or Culture?" landed in the middle of his rhetorical title. He acknowledged that the revival possessed many of the qualities of a religious cult with "conversion, salvation, mass hysteria, and fanaticism. There are also rituals and festivals, notably the Sunday afternoon singing and strumming in Washing- ton Square Park."'s Moreover, the revival, for Botkin, was a take-off point toward a greater political and intellectual awareness, particularlyby the young. Given the perspective of 1964, the folklorist was not far off the mark in saying, "Every revival contains within itself the seed not only of its own destruction ... but also of new revivals." Despite the arguments of some critics the folk music revival was not a totally political phenomenon. Protest was only one avenue of concern. The other major component was the so-called "ethnic" or "purist" strain. The "ethnics" had generally been introduced to material of traditional origin by nontraditional performers. Pete Seeger's role in carrying on the leftist folk-revival also served to popularize actual traditional songs, singing styles, and instrumental styles. Second generation "folk-singers," such as Joan Baez, needed only to provide guitar- accompaniment to a Child ballad to make it acceptable on the coffeehouse circuit. The first performing group in the urban "folk" scene to specialize in material of traditional rural origin was the New Lost City Ramblers.19They were organized in 1958 by Mike Seeger, youngest son of the famous ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger; John Cohen, Yale-educated photographer; and Tom Paley, a New York mathematician and photographer. The earlier literary organs of the folk movement took an ambivalent attitude towards the music of the white South, extolling it when it could be used for progressive social purposes, but denigrating the re- corded examples of "hillbilly" music. This was unfortunate because most of the "hillbilly" records of the twenties and thirties were genuine folk songs of a far greater authenticity than anything heard at the early urban "folk-festivals." Fur- a thermore, number of the early "hillbilly" artists were still performing to a rather esoteric audience within the country and western genre, and many others were

17 Sing Out!, 18 (December, 1968-January, 1969), 6-7. 18s B. A. Botkin, "The Folk Song Revival: Cult or Culture?," in The American Folk Scene: Dimensions the Folk of Song Revival, ed. David A. DeTurk and A. Poulin, Jr. (New York, 1967), 95. 19 Jon Pankake, "Ten Years in New Lost City," Sing Out!, i8 (October-November, 1968), 30-31, 73, 75, 78. 400 JENS LUND and R. SERGE DENISOFF living in retirementor semiretirementstill quite willing to play "the old songs" for anyonewho caredto listen. The New Lost City Ramblersplayed fiddles, mandolins,guitars, and banjos in careful imitationof the early Southernrecording artists, always crediting the originsof eachsong. Comparedto the "hootenanny"craze, the Ramblers'audience remainedquite esoteric,and their ugly black albumson the Folkwayslabel sold at $5.95 back when most popularalbums could be had for $2.98 monauralor $3.98 in stereophonic.But the Ramblersappeared at Newportin 1963, theirrepu- tation alreadyestablished by numbersof concertsat New York City'sTown Hall. The Ramblerscharacterized their type of music as "old timey,"after the name assignedto earlyrural recordings by the recordcompanies during the 192os. Al- though their music was generally apolitical,they attemptedto satisfy the folk revival's social consciousnessby identifying themselveswith the Depressionin ruralAmerica. One of their most successfulrecord albums was Songs of the De- pression,which provideda commonground on which the "ethnic"and "protest" folkniks could meet. Speakingof the earlyfolkniks, John Cohenof the Ramblers wrote, "Thereis an elementin youngpeople todaywhich feels a yearningfor the thirtiesas a desireto havea clearand humanecause to fight for."20 EarlyRamblers concertswere sometimesadvertised with the Blue Eagle of the N.R.A., and the slogan, "I am lost. Takeme backto 1935.'"21 Aside from "old timey" music, another form of rural, traditionallyderived musiccame to the attentionof the "ethnic"folkniks, namely, bluegrass. Bluegrass music was a type of commercialcountry music which appearedduring the 1940s. It was a reactionagainst electrificationand the cowboy image which by then permeatedthe countrymusic industry.Originated by Bill Monroe, a Kentucky mandolinist,it becamepopular in the urban"hillbilly" ghettos of the North.22 Its soundwas dominatedby the five-stringbanjo, especially as playedby EarlScruggs. The firstcollege bluegrassconcert, the OsborneBrothers at OberlinCollege, was a smashing success, and the promotionof the five-stringbanjo by the Starday RecordCompany put countryalbums into the collectionsof numerouscollegiate folk-musicbuffs.23 Home-grown bluegrass groups were organizedat colleges and bohemianenclaves in the North and West. At manyuniversities, notably Harvard and Yale, the folk subculturebecame completely enraptured with bluegrass.Yale's Grey Sky Boys, Harvard'sCharles River Valley Boys, and GreenwichVillage's GreenbriarBoys were a fixtureat bothcommercial "hootenannies" and "in-group" parties.The most successfulsouthern-authentic bluegrass band, Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy MountainBoys, were double-billedwith Joan Baez at Carnegie Hall in 1963. Even more remarkably,northern collegiate groups enteredmusi- cians' conventionsin the South and capturedprizes. A namelessGreenwich Vil-

20 John Cohen, in liner notes to Folkways Records FH 5264, Songs of the Depression by the New Lost City Ramblers. 21 Mike Seeger and John Cohen, eds., The New Lost City Ramblers Songbook (New York, 1965), 245. 22 Russel B. Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: A History of the Popular Arts in the United States (New York, 1970), 346-347. 23 Neil V. Rosenberg, "Don Pierce: The Rise and Fall of Starday and the Perplexing Patriot Problem," Bluegrass Unlimited, i (May, 1967), 5. THE FOLK MUSIC REVIVAL AND THE COUNTER CULTURE 401 lage bluegrassband took the grand prize at the Union Grove, North Carolina, Fiddler'sConvention in 1964 afterquickly dubbing itself the New YorkRamblers for want of a bettername. To this day the annualUnion Grove and Galax, Vir- ginia, Fiddlers'Conventions have attractedmobs of Northern devotees,many of whom have appearedin full counter-culturalregalia to the amazementand be- wildermentof the localpeople in thosetwo communities.24 In manyways the bluegrassexplosion on campuswas no less a fad thangoldfish- swallowingor telephone-booth-stuffing.It did producea numberof verytalented musicians-talented enough to compete successfullywith people raised on the music in the South. It also producedsome valuablefolk-music scholars, notably Ralph Rinzler, former GreenwichVillage GreenbriarBoy, who now directsthe annualFestival of AmericanFolklife for the SmithsonianInstitution. When the folk revivalmerged with the new rock, a numberof formerbluegrass musicians went along, affectingmuch of the countryflavor of such rockgroups as the Byrds. In New York City, an organizationknown as the Friends of Old Time Music brought "old timey" to Town Hall in New York, where they experiencedbrief periods of celebritywith their new urbanfans.25 Their contactwith the "beatniks" was often less than pleasant.Singer and banjoistRoscoe Holcomb was re- portedlyhounded at his home in EasternKentucky by college girls offeringhim wine and conversation,and he has since withdrawnin bewildermentfrom the campusand folk-festivalcircuit.26 D. K. Wilgus told an AmericanFolklore So- ciety seminarabout an embarrassingparty which he attendedat which two southern bluegrassmusicians were obviouslysuffering from acuteself-consciousness in the midst of a raciallyintegrated group of college liberals.27Bluegrass originator Bill Monroe was reportedlyinfuriated by the audienceat his first Newport ap- pearancein 1963, but he has since takena very tolerantattitude towards his new fans, possiblybecause his selectionto the CountryMusic Hall of Famewas largely effectedby the appearanceof a new audiencefor his music. On the other hand, bluegrassbanjoist Earl Scruggs'rapport with the "counterculture" reached the point where he actuallyperformed at a MoratoriumMarch on Washingtonpro- testingthe VietnamWar. Sucha case,however, is highlyunusual. The campusbluegrass revival is, of course,over on a large scale, but vestiges of it still survive.Harvard University's Boston Area Friendsof Old Timey and BluegrassMusic still packs the FreshmanUnion Auditoriumwith its monthly concertsfeaturing mostly southernbluegrass bands. Bill Monroe'sannual Bean Blossom Festivalin southernIndiana draws a large shareof its crowdfrom uni- versitiesand hippie ghettos. One of the authorsof this paperwalked through the parkinglot of the 1968 Berryville,Virginia, Bluegrass Festival, and lost countof the numberof cars bearingeither McCarthyor Wallace stickers,but nothing in between.The amountof fraternizationbetween "freaks"and "rednecks"at these 24 Perry Deane Young, "Let Us Now Praise the Old-Time Fiddlers at Union Grove," Rolling Stone, July 22, 1971, pp. 28-32. 25 "The Friends of Old Time Music," Sing Out!, ii (February-March, 1961), 63. 26 John Cohen, "Roscoe Holcomb at Zabriskie Point-Some Twentieth Anniversary Thoughts," Sing Out!, 20 (September-October, 1970), 20-21. 27 D. K. Wilgus, quoted in "Discussion From the Floor," following D. K. Wilgus, "Country- Western Music and the Urban OF Hillbilly," JOURNAL AMERICANFOLKLORE, 83 (I970), 183-184. 402 JENS LUND and R. SERGE DENISOFF events is truly remarkable. In an interview for Newsweek magazine last summer, Bill Monroe remarked, "My hippie fans know when the music is played right. And the college kids are my biggest audience."28Indeed, the college audience for Bill Monroe's music is even mentioned in the inscription on the plaque placed in his honor at Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame.29 Somewhat later in the folk music revival an infatuation with the blues appeared among the "ethnic" faction. In many ways this was more justifiable philosophically than were the "old timey" and bluegrass crazes, as blues has primarily been a music of social dissatisfaction. This is not to suggest that white country music does not contain this factor as well, but the blues makes dissatisfaction a more central concern. It was perhaps easier for many of the "folkniks" to romanticize rural blacks than rural whites, thus avoiding the problem of dealing with the thorny questions of prejudice and reaction except from the morally superior position of the black. In any event, by 1964 country blues had "come to town." A few blues artists, such as Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter and Josh White had been prominent in the old-leftist folk music circles, and injustice against blacks had always been a social ill to which the Communist Party-U. S. A. called attention. A number of English jazz enthusiasts, including Paul Oliver and Brian Rust, had rediscovered the blues of the old "race records" during the fifties. This developed into an English blues following complete with periodicals, clubs, and specialized record stores. The American blues revival, however, came as part of the general folk- music revival. Part of this was undoubtedly due to field trips to the South by northern white folklorists, record producers, and general enthusiasts who were seeking to rediscover lost rural talent or perhaps even to find an artist that had never before been noticed out of his own county. Mississippi John Hurt, Mance Lipscomb, Son House, and Bukka White were among the many southern blacks brought to northern folk festivals, colleges, and coffee houses. The identification with a stereotypical image of the black which had occurred during the jazz-beatnik years experienced a rebirth among urban-collegiate white blues singers. "To be folk, you live folk," acquired new meaning among middle-class guitarists, some of whom imitated black southern dress and speech patterns. In an article sharply satirical of the new "white Negroes," Ken Spiker sarcastically wrote, "consider the question of image at this point. It is of great advantage to your status if you can carry off a consistent and plausible image . . you must think, feel, live, be like ... a Southern Negro, . . . or whatever ... But don't go too far; you may limit your vocabulary to the point where you will no longer be able to communi- cate."'30 One of the major controversies of the folk-music revival years, almost rivalling "ethnic" versus "protest," was the problem of whether or not white folksingers of comfortable middle-class background had the right to imitate poor, rural, black musicians. The fact that the former often made more money doing so than the

28 Bill Monroe, quoted in "Pickin' and Singin'," Newsweek, June 29, 1970, p. 10o. 29 Cover photograph on Bluegrass Unlimited, 5 (December, 1970), i. 30 Ken Spiker, "A Study in the Interpersonal Dynamics of a Subculture Structured on Traditional Music--or: Folkmanship in Berkeley, California," in American Folk Music Occasional Number One ,964, ed. Chris Strachwitz (Berkeley, Calif., 1964), 44. THE FOLK MUSIC REVIVAL AND THE COUNTER CULTURE 403 latter did, purveyingthe genuine item, made the imitationeven less flattering. Two articlesin Sing Out! in 1964 illustratethe point well. The first,by Paul Nel- son, titled "CountryBlues Comesto Town," began with a series of biographical capsulesof such white folksingersas John Hammond,Jr., Dave Ray, Dave Van Ronk,and others.It concluded,in termsmildly suggestive of NormanMailer, with a philosophicalexplanation of the white middle class's new blues infatuation, completewith logical justificationsfor this contradictoryspectacle and heaps of praise for the new performers'musicianship and spirit.31The second articleap- pearedtwo months later. It was written by the black, militant folksingerJulius Lesterand titled, "CountryBlues Comesto Town?: The View From the Other Side of the Tracks."32In somewhatoverstated terms, he castigatedthe Nelson article for its presumptuousness,referring particularly to a statementby Barry Hansen of The Little SandyReview ("it seems inevitablethat by 1970 most of the blues worthhearing will be sung by white men") thatNelson had quotedand accepted.""Lester pointed out manyof the fallaciesof assumingthat white middle- class youngsterscould "be like" poor, ruralblacks. He also bitterlycalled attention to the exploitationinherent in the financiallyprofitable imitation of the folk musicof people who receivelittle or no profitfor their originalexpressions. As with any lengthy infatuation,fads within a fad appearedon the "folk- scene."There was a brief period of interestin what was called "jugbandmusic." Some of the traditional jazz material of the 192os and 1930s jugbands was re- vived as part of this craze,but it was generallyjust an excuse for "old timey"/ bluegrass"ethnics" to cooperatewith blues "ethnics"in groupmusic making. As the protestsingers drifted into the new rock,many of the blues enthusiasts,such as John Hammond,Jr., and RichardFarifia, rediscovered and canonizedas "genuine" folk, the rhythm-and-bluesmusic that had spawnedearly rock-and-roll.By experimentingwith rhythm-and-bluesforms, many white blues "folksingers" were making the transitionfrom folk to rock which would add considerable vitalityto the later"new rock"bands. The breakingof the tabooagainst electrified instrumentsallowed many "old timey"bluegrass "ethnics" to begin to appreciate a broader spectrumof white countrymusic. Many of the musiciansamong them actuallylearned to play country-and-westernmusic, thus giving countrymusic a backdoor of its own into the "newrock." The popularityof JohnnyCash, and now Merle Haggard,among the "counter culture"can be tracedback to some of the attitudesprominent in the folk music revival. Indeed, Cash'sfamilial tie to the CarterFamily, and Haggard'sstylistic similarityto the "SingingBrakeman," Jimmie Rodgers, bestowed the mantle of traditionupon both. Haggard'scurrent popularity within the "counterculture," while providinga historicallink to the revival,also underscoressome of the con- tradictionsand conflictsbetween the two. Merle Haggard'sclaim to urbanand collegiate fame is partly based upon his controversial song "Okie From Musko-

31 Paul Nelson, "Country Blues Comes to Town," Sing Out!, 14 (July, 1964), 14-15, 17, 19- 20, 23-24. 32 Julius Lester, "Country Blues Comes to Town?: The View From the Other Side of the Sing Tracks," Out!, 14 (September, 1964), 37-39. Also see LeRoi Jones, Blues People: Negro Music in White America (New York, 1963). 33Nelson, 23; and Lester, 37. 404 JENS LUND and R. SERGE DENISOFF gee," a strong denunciation of the counter culture, campus protest, mod fashions, and, particularly, the use of drugs. The song opens with the line, "We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee, we don't take our trips on LSD ... ." The follow- up to "Muskogee" was the "Fightin' Side of Me," a song which took an even more militant stance against dissenters. Both songs received extensive underground airplay. Arlo Guthrie and Phil Ochs use "Okie From Muskogee" in their concert performances. Merle Haggard has been the subject of a feature article in Sing Out!, hardly a conservative journal.34The "folk freaks," as they are now called, sing many of Haggard's songs such as "Mama Tried," "Swinging Doors," and "Working Man Blues." This practice, not unexpectedly, has generated considerable criticism from those still adhering to the "Seeger-Guthrie" tradition. Haggard, himself, has shown a typical entertainer's perception of how to avoid alienating a disparate audience. When interviewed by the press, he avoids utter- ances which could be construed as hostile to his "counter culture" fans. In a recent Look magazine interview, he even went as far as to say, "If I were to come out with another song like 'Okie' or 'Fightin' Side', I'd be jeopardizing my career."35 Broadside (NYC) has been most articulate and outspoken in criticism of the "folk freaks' " interest in country and western singers. Gordon Friesen, in several editorial statements, has roundly condemned the relationship of the "topical song movement" to Cash and Haggard. Friesen outlined his position in a critique of Sing Out!: "The sad disintegration of the magazine can be seen in recent issues, with laudatory articles about Johnny Cash, who supports Nixon's blood and slaughter, and Merle Haggard, writer of inciting Birch-type songs against war dissenters."36 While this was only one of many such pieces directed at performers who have supported the war, gone to the White House, or transgressed in some way against the antiwar movement, it did hit upon a rather tender nerve for the politically involved, both in the revivalist days and contemporarily.37 The fact that most country and western singers supported George Wallace or Richard Nixon was conspicuously ignored by the folk revivalists in both 1964 and 1968.38 Indeed, the racial policies of the rural South, so decried in the songs of New York folksingers were rarely, if ever, associated with southern performers. Folklorist and labor historian Archie Green has for some years argued that the relationship of northern political protesters to country music has been a most curious one, considering the fundamentally conservative and, at times, racist nature of the music and its proponents. At a recent lecture at the University of Chicago Folk Festival titled "Politics and Country Music," Professor Green played a tape of a number of politically oriented country songs. Included was a "coon" song, a World War II anti-"Jap" song, Haggard's "Okie From Muskogee," and a number of songs expressive of a more contemporarily acceptable protest, in-

4 Alice Foster, "Merle Haggard," Sing Out!, 19 (March-April, 1970), 11-17. 35 Merle Haggard, quoted in Christopher S. Wren, "Merle Haggard: He Sings for the Folks Who Fought World War II," Look, July 13, 1971, p. 37. 36 Gordon Friesen, "Editorial," Broadside (NYC), 107 (June, 1970), ro. 7 See Irwin Silber, "An Open Letter to Bob and Evelyne Beers, Folksingers," Broadside (NYC), 104 (January, 1970), 5; "An Open Letter to Irwin Silber," Broadside (NYC), io6 (April-May, 1970), 5-6; and Gordon Friesen, "Editorial," Broadside (NYC), io8 (July-August, 1970), 10o. " 38 'Name' Artists Come To the Aid of the Party," Billboard, November 16, 1968, p. 30. THE FOLK MUSIC REVIVAL AND THE COUNTER CULTURE 405 cluding Fiddlin' John Carson's"The FarmerIs the Man." The reactionof the predominantlycollegiate-"hippie" audience to some of these songs was one of extremediscomfort.39 The counterculture, while subsumingaspects of the folk revival such as the outdoor festival, gathering of the committed,and the like, is a much broader phenomenon.It is not one-dimensionalor focused at a specificgenre of music, politics, fashion,or ideology. As Roszaknotes: the counterculture "finds its own identityin a nebuloussymbol or songs that seemsto proclaim.., .we are outward bound from the old corruptionsof the world."40As such, the counterculture per se exhibitslitle interestin promulgatinga specificmusical form or politicalideol- ogy. The counterculture is eclecticin both tasteand politics,and time bound.One day found them at Woodstockor Altamont,the next at the WashingtonMonu- ment protestingthe expansionof the Indo-Chinawar or celebratingthe adventof Earth Day. The folk revival was a public group of interestedindividuals with commonfoci of attention,and almosta subculturein the sense that it constituted a quasi culturewithin a culture.41The notion of an alternativeculture is a far cry from just popularizinga musical genre in an existent culture. Interestin folk music did not numericallyaffect an entiregeneration. Folkniks were by-and-large politicallyreformist, believing in the possibilityof socialchange. Conversely, those in the counterculture lack this singularityof purpose,resolve, or the belief in the efficacyof change.Theirs is a quest for a new style of life: a stateof natureonly suggestedby the revivalists.

Bowling GreenState University Bowling Green,Ohio

Archie 39 Green, "Politics and Country Music," lecture delivered at University of Chicago Folk Festival, January 31, 1971. 40 Roszak, 49. 41 J. Milton Yinger sees the "counter culture" as in conflict with the dominant society, while a "subculture" is "separate and different" but not in opposition. See "Counter Culture and Sub- culture," American Sociological Review, 25 (October, 1960), 625-635.