It's being used as a fundraiser for PBS. Obviously, the effort is to reach affluent white people with more than "spare change," man.
How interesting that the music of slaves ("Jimmy Crack Corn") and of the poor in Ireland, Scotland and England, and of Africa ("Wimoweh") and of people such as Bob Dylan who were influenced by Lead Belly among others, is considered "white" music, and for older white people, at that.
Peter Paul and Mary, memorably, sang "Blowin' in the Wind" at the great civil rights rally in Washington, D.C. in 1963. Blacks and whites all sang. They sang "We Shall Overcome" and "We Shall Not Be Moved." And as I watched the special, and songs like "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," which people were singing along to, I wondered...where has folk music gone? And why isn't there anything to take its place?
There are few songs of conscience such as "Ballad of Tim Evans" and "Ballad of Springhill" today, and what few might be around, are done by Kanye via vocoder and a "beats," or by some avant synth group somewhere...and neither are saying "won't you sing along?"
Joan Baez, Judy Collins...and most certainly more traditional artists such as Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie, welcomed other voices. Didn't it make for a better experience? If you could sing along, didn't that make the songs matter even more?
Way back when, Peter Paul and Mary played to coffee house hipsters and to school kids. In 1963 they had three albums in the Top Ten, which were listened to by a wide range demographic. Years laer, I remember seeing them in upstate New York, playing to a vast audience of all ages. A few years ago, now only Peter and Paul, they also played to everyone from 8 to 80...and they encouraged everyone to sing along on several songs.
There was once, now pretty much forgotten, a "Sing Along" show on TV, hosted by Mitch Miller. Miller even put out a "Sing Along to Folk Music" album.
There isn't much of a folk tradition left.
When there's a disaster, when there's some sort of "happening" in Central Park, people getting together will still sing "Blowin' in the Wind" or "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," but more likely, they'll stay mute while ex-folkie Paul Simon sings "Sounds of Silence" to silence. Another Paul, Mr. McCartney, might want people to sing along to a never-ending chorus of "Hey Jude," but that's not a message, that's two words.
As we get more fragmented politically, racially and socially, there is less and less folk music to be heard, and nothing to take its place. We have become mute. When we see current singer/songwriters, we let them do all the singing.
As for the heavily vocoder-ized music favored by most rappers? Or the dance music from teen idols like Miley or Bieber? Or whatever it is an Iggy Azalea does? Or whatever is left of rock (Coldplay? U2? Some new group that has a hit and disbands by the time a third album arrives?) Nobody's singing along.
Which is why folk music shouldn't be as dead as it is. It should be encouraged. In its simplicity of melody and lyric, it is a pure art form. Granted, nobody really wants to sit around singing "Go Tell Aunt Rhodie," but there's a vibrancy to everything from "Lily of the West" to "Farewell to Nova Scotia." There's a joy in even the nonsense chorus for "Whiskey in the Jar." Is it really that corny, in the 21st Century, to get together and sing? Was it really so long ago, that a satisfying evening might include foreign language folk ("Kumbaya" and "Guantanemera" and "Wimoweh") as well as moving ballads of love?
"Remember folk music?" Martin Mull used to ask. Then he'd deadpan: "That garbage nearly caught on!"
There was a folk boom when Pete Seeger and "The Weavers" arrived. It was re-ignited with The Kingston Trio, and again when new folk songs began to be written, and Peter Paul and Mary stood up to sing them. The earthy era of Woodstock and hippies renewed our interest in the folk tradition, and there were the protest songs of Phil Ochs, and then the men and women who simply carried a guitar, from James Taylor to Joni Mitchell. Kanye and Miley represent an improvement??
Music now is nothing but escape at best, and insults and a sex soundtrack at worst. Nobody's singing together. Where's the "joyful noise?" Is the idea to just blast eardrums with dance beats or headbanging rock? Music that has no lyrics anyone cares abou? This is a dangerous age, and yet, there is about 1% of the protest songs as there were when there was no ISIS in our lives.
Perhaps it's naive to say that folk music should matter. Perhaps today's generation, raised on vocoders and beats, can't accept the purity of a folk song, and doesn't have the patience for one person with a guitar, and doesn't want to be part of a group sing. I had nostalgia watching that Peter Paul and Mary special, but that's not all that I wanted. I wanted to think something besides "Was that a time," which was, of course, the name of a previous PBS special on "The Weavers." I wanted to think, "This music IS timeless. Folk music still matters."
But I'm not so sure. The answer my friend, is...
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