Music for the People: the Folk Music Revival
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MUSIC FOR THE PEOPLE: THE FOLK MUSIC REVIVAL AND AMERICAN IDENTITY, 1930-1970 By Rachel Clare Donaldson Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in History May, 2011 Nashville, Tennessee Approved Professor Gary Gerstle Professor Sarah Igo Professor David Carlton Professor Larry Isaac Professor Ronald D. Cohen Copyright© 2011 by Rachel Clare Donaldson All Rights Reserved For Mary, Laura, Gertrude, Elizabeth And Domenica ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would not have been able to complete this dissertation had not been for the support of many people. Historians David Carlton, Thomas Schwartz, William Caferro, and Yoshikuni Igarashi have helped me to grow academically since my first year of graduate school. From the beginning of my research through the final edits, Katherine Crawford and Sarah Igo have provided constant intellectual and professional support. Gary Gerstle has guided every stage of this project; the time and effort he devoted to reading and editing numerous drafts and his encouragement has made the project what it is today. Through his work and friendship, Ronald Cohen has been an inspiration. The intellectual and emotional help that he provided over dinners, phone calls, and email exchanges have been invaluable. I greatly appreciate Larry Isaac and Holly McCammon for their help with the sociological work in this project. I also thank Jane Anderson, Brenda Hummel, and Heidi Welch for all their help and patience over the years. I thank the staffs at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the Kentucky Library and Museum, the Archives at the University of Indiana, and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress (particularly Todd Harvey) for their research assistance. I have also had the good fortune of working with and learning from fellow graduate students, namely Kurt Johnson, David Gruber, Claire Goldstene, Lee Crane, LeeAnn Reynolds, Deborah Walden, and Robert Chester. My parents, Robert and Mel Donaldson, and my sister Leah continued to be the amazing support team that they have always been and I cannot thank them enough. Finally, I could not have made it through had it not been for a person I met during my first year of school: my sounding board, editor, drinking buddy, and husband, Josh. He vowed to help me enjoy life and it is because of him that I do. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... iii INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 Chapter I. TUNING UP........................................................................................................ 20 II. HEARING THE PEOPLE ................................................................................... 38 The Rise of Folk Festivals ........................................................................... 44 The New Deal Revivalists ........................................................................... 52 Regionalism, Pluralism, and Race................................................................ 62 The Left Side of the Revival........................................................................ 67 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 85 III. THE PEOPLE’S WAR........................................................................................ 88 Making America Safe for Democracy.......................................................... 89 Festivals Join the Fight ...............................................................................103 Singing—and Teaching—Democracy.........................................................111 Conclusion .................................................................................................126 IV. THE TRIUMPH AND FAILURE OF THE LEFT..............................................129 Radical Revivalists, Unite! ........................................................................ 131 A Time to Gain...........................................................................................141 A Time to Lose...........................................................................................157 Conclusion .................................................................................................163 V. KEEPING THE TORCH LIT.............................................................................166 Negotiating the Cultural and Political Terrain.............................................168 Sharpening the Political Edge .....................................................................173 The Cultural Rebellion ...............................................................................188 The Personal, The Educational, And the Political.........................................................................................194 Setting the Stage.........................................................................................210 Conclusion .................................................................................................215 VI. THE BOOM .......................................................................................................218 Commercialization and the Revival ...............................................................222 The Political Connection ...............................................................................243 Conclusion ....................................................................................................266 VII. A BUST AND A BEGINNING ..........................................................................268 The Turn .....................................................................................................270 The End.......................................................................................................286 The Beginning.............................................................................................291 Conclusion ..................................................................................................305 CONCLUSION ...........................................................................................................308 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................313 INTRODUCTION In 1965, the musician Pete Seeger published an article in which he articulated why he liked folk music. Seeger was sixteen when he heard folk music for the first time at the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1935. As the child of two classically trained musicians and a member of his high school jazz band, Seeger was no stranger to different genres of music; yet the festival, he said, introduced him to something entirely new. It was then that Seeger fell in love with what would become his musical trademark: the five-string banjo. The banjo, however, was not all that drew Seeger’s attention; he quickly became enamored with all facets of the music that he heard that day—the rhythms, melodies, and, most of all, the song lyrics. Seeger explained: Compared to the trivialities of the most popular songs, the words of these songs had all the meat of human life in them. They sang of heroes, outlaws, murders, fools. They weren’t afraid of being tragic instead of just sentimental. They weren’t afraid of being scandalous instead of giggly or cute. Above all, they seemed to be frank, straightforward, honest. Folk songs, Seeger learned, told a great deal about the people who played and sang them. His subsequent experiences with folk music over the next thirty years led him to conclude that these songs could help Americans “learn about ourselves, and…learn about each other.” As the music of the people, folk music provided a way to understand “where we came from, the trials and tribulations of those who came before us, and the good times and the bad.” Seeger explained that the music also enabled Americans to understand their fellow citizens—the ones with whom they most likely would never interact—by asking, “How many white people have rediscovered their own humanity through the singing of American Negro songs? How many town dwellers have 1 learned a bit about a rougher outdoor life from songs created by men with calloused hands?”1 In short, folk music introduced Americans of many walks of life to each other, thus rendering the “imagined” national community more real. Seeger published this piece shortly after folk music peaked in popular culture. During the early 1960s, in the years between the end of the 1950s rock and roll rebellion and before the British Invasion, the folk had become a mainstream musical fad commonly referred to as the folk music revival. The real revival, however, was much more expansive than merely a “boom” of folk music in popular culture. It was, in fact, a social movement that began in the early 1930s, in the depths of the Depression. The folk music revival brought public folklorists, cultural preservationists, scholars, musicians, political activists, musical entrepreneurs, and folk music fans together in the effort to protect and preserve, as well as promote and popularize, the genre of folk music. While the revival was a national movement, the locus of activity was along the East Coast—in cities and towns, North and South.2 As with any social movement, the