British folk revival
Encyclopedia
The British folk revival incorporates a number of movements for the collection, preservation and performance of traditional music
in the United Kingdom and related territories and countries, which had origins as early as the 18th century. It is particularly associated with two movements, usually referred to as the first and second revivals, respectively in the late 19th to early 20th centuries and the mid-20th century. The first included increased interest in and study of traditional music
, the second was a part of the birth of contemporary folk music. These had a profound impact on the development of British classical music and in the creation of a "national" or "pastoral school" and led to the creation of a sub-culture based around folk clubs
and folk festival
s as well as influential sub-genres including progressive folk music
and electric folk
.
Social and cultural changes in British society in the early modern era, often seen as creating greater divisions between different social groups, led from the mid-17th century to the beginnings of a process of rediscovery of many aspects of popular culture, including festivals, folklore
, dance
and folk song. This led to a number of early collections of printed material, including those published by John Playford
as The English Dancing Master (1651), the private collections of Samuel Pepys
(1633–1703) and the Roxburghe Ballads
collected by Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (1661–1724). In the 18th century there were increasing numbers of such collections, including Thomas D'Urfey
's Wit and Mirth: or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719–20) and Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). The last of these also contained some oral material and by the end of the 18th century this was becoming increasingly common, with collections including John Ritson's, The Bishopric Garland (1784) in northern England.
In Scotland the earliest printed collection of secular music was by publisher John Forbes in Aberdeen
in 1662 as Songs and Fancies: to Thre, Foure, or Five Partes, both Apt for Voices and Viols. It was printed three times in the next twenty years, and contained seventy-seven songs, of which twenty-five were of Scottish origin. In the 18th century publication included Playford's Original Scotch Tunes (1700), Margaret Sinkler's Music Book (1710), James Watson's Choice Collection of Comic and Serious Scots Poems both Ancient and Modern 1711, William Thomson's Orpheus caledonius: or, A collection of Scots songs (1733), James Oswald's The Caledonian Pocket Companion (1751), and David Herd
's Ancient and modern Scottish songs, heroic ballads, etc.: collected from memory, tradition and ancient authors (1776). These were drawn on for the most influential collection, The Scots Musical Museum published in six volumes from 1787 to 1803 by James Johnson and Robert Burns
, which also included new words by Burns. The Select Scottish Airs collected by George Thomson and published between 1799 and 1818 included contributions from Burns and Walter Scott
.
With the Industrial Revolution
the process of social stratification
was intensified and the themes of popular music began to change from rural and agrarian life to include industrial work songs. Awareness that older forms of song were being abandoned prompted renewed interest in collecting folk songs during the 1830s and 40s, including the work of William B. Sandys
' Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern (1833), William Chappell, A Collection of National English Airs (1838) and Robert Bell
's Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England (1846).
(1825–96), Sabine Baring-Gould
(1834–1924), Frank Kidson
(1855–1926), Lucy Broadwood
(1858–1939), and Anne Gilchrist
(1863–1954). Kidson and Broadwood were important in the foundation of the Folk Song Society
in 1898. Later, major figures in this movement in England were Cecil Sharp
(1859–1924) and his assistant Maud Karpeles
(1885–1976) and the composers Ralph Vaughan Williams
(1872–1951), George Butterworth
(1885–1916), and the Australian Percy Grainger
(1882–1961). Of these, Child’s eight volume collection The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882–92) has been the most influential on defining the repertoire of subsequent performers and the music teacher Cecil Sharp was probably the most important in understanding of the nature of folk song. Sharp produced the five volume Folk Songs from Somerset from 1904-9 and founded the English Folk Dance Society in 1911, an indication of his parallel interest in dance music. His lectures and other publications attempted to define a musical tradition that was rural in origin, oral in transmission and communal in nature. In Scotland collectors included the Reverend James Duncan (1848–1917) and Gavin Greig
(1856–1914), and in Wales, Nicholas Bennett (1823–99).
in 1906 officially sanctioned the teaching of folk songs in schools. One of the major effects of the folk song revival was the creation of a distinctive English form of classical music
, known as the English 'national' or 'pastoral school'. It was argued by Sharp that up to that point English ‘art music’ had relied heavily on European composers and styles and was therefore indistinguishable from other national forms. In a search for a distinctive English voice many composers, like Percy Grainger (from 1905), Ralph Vaughan Williams (from about 1906) and George Butterworth (from about 1914) were also collectors and directly utilized their discoveries in composition. Vaughan Williams was also the editor of the English Hymnal
(1906) and utilized many collected tunes and set poems to them to produce new religious songs. Similarly other composers such as Gustav Holst
(1874–1934) and Frederick Delius
(1862–1934) wrote music that utilized sections, cadences or themes from English folk music. By the 1940s this particular tendency among composers had begun to subside and other fusions would be more significant in the second folk revival.
Similar developments could be seen in Scotland in the work of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, who celebrated his native Scotland in three Scottish Rhapsodies for orchestra (1880–81, 1911), and in various concerted works for piano or violin and orchestra composed during the 1880s and 1890s. Similarly, John McEwen
's Pibroch (1889), Border Ballads (1908) and Solway Symphony (1911) incorporated traditional Scottish folk melodies.
from 1933. This is thought to have created difficulties, since subtleties of performance have been lost and collectors often adjusted notation to fit their own, often classical, views of music or to fit their own preconceptions.
(EFDSS). New forms of media such as the phonograph
and sound film
meant that from the 1920s American music began to be increasingly important and even dominant in popular British culture, leading to a further sharp decline in traditional music. British folk song might have become a purely academic interest had it not been for a second wave of revival with a very different emphasis.
, who had moved to Britain in the era of McCarthyism
and who worked in England and Scotland. Unlike the first revival which wholly concerned itself with traditional music
, the second revival was a part of the birth of non-traditional contemporary folk music. Like the American revival, it was often overtly left wing in its politics, and the leading figures, the Salford-born Ewan MacColl
and A. L. Lloyd
, were both involved in trade unionism and socialist politics. In Scotland the key figures were Hamish Henderson
and Calum McLean who collected songs and popularised acts including Jeannie Robertson
, John Strachan
, Flora MacNeil
and Jimmy MacBeath
. In Wales the key figure was Dafydd Iwan
, who founded the Sain
record label in 1969.
The second revival built on the work of the first, utilizing many of its resources. MacColl recorded many of the Child Ballads
and Lloyd eventually joined the board of the EFDSS. The society was also responsible for sponsoring BBC Home Service
radio program, As I Roved Out, based on field recordings made by Peter Kennedy
and Seamus Ennis
from 1952 to 1958, which probably did more than any other single factor to introduce the general population to British and Irish folk music in the period.
However, the second revival differed in several important respects from the first. In contrast to Sharp’s emphasis on the rural, the activists of the second revival, particularly Lloyd, emphasized the work music of the 19th century, including sea shanties
and industrial labour songs, most obviously on the album The Iron Muse (1963). It also took a more charitable view of the ‘morally dubious’ elements of traditional folk than the first revival, with Lloyd recording an entire album of erotic folk songs, The Bird in the Bush (1966).
craze of 1956-8. Spearheaded by Lonnie Donegan
’s hit ‘Rock Island Line
’ (1956) it dovetailed with the growth of café youth culture, where skiffle bands with acoustic guitars, and improvised instruments such as washboards and tea chest bass, played to teenage audiences. Beside the many later jazz, blues, pop and rock musicians that started performing in skiffle bands were a number of future folk performers, including Martin Carthy
and John Renbourn
. It also brought a greater familiarity with American roots music and helped expand the British folk club movement where American folk music also began to be played and which were an important part of the second revival. This started in London where MacColl began the Ballads and Blues Club in 1953. These clubs were usually urban in location, but the songs sung in them often harked back to a rural pre-industrial past. In many ways this was the adoption of abandoned popular music by the middle classes. By the mid 1960s there were probably over 300 folk clubs in Britain, providing an important circuit for acts that performed traditional songs and tunes acoustically, where some could sustain a living by playing to a small but committed audience. Major traditional performers in who built a reputation in the clubs in England included the Copper Family
, The Watersons
, the Ian Campbell Folk Group
, Shirley Collins
and Martin Carthy
, and in Scotland Alex Campbell
, Jean Redpath
, Hamish Imlach
, and Dick Gaughan
and groups like The Gaugers and The Corries
.
founded as an offshoot of the Workers' Music Association in 1939. From about 1950 Ewan MacColl
and A. L. Lloyd
became heavily involved, producing several records of traditional music. In 1960 the label became independent and was financially secure after the release of The Iron Muse in 1963. In the 1970s Topic released a series of albums by ground-breaking artists including Nic Jones
, Dick Gaughan
, The Battlefield Band, as well as major figures on the folk scene including Martin Carthy
. From the 1980s they also began to reissue their back catalogue on cd. In the late 1990s, with the resurgence of traditional folk, spearheaded by children of the revival like Eliza Carthy
, topic managed to gain both commercial and critical success.
’, pioneered by Davy Graham, Martin Carthy, John Renbourn and Bert Jansch
. This led in part to progressive folk music, which attempted to elevate folk music through greater musicianship, or compositional and arrangement skills. Many progressive folk performers continued to retain a traditional element in their music, including Jansch and Renbourne, who with Jacqui McShee
, Danny Thompson
, and Terry Cox
, formed Pentangle
in 1967. Others totally abandoned the traditional element and in this area particularly important were the Scottish artists Donovan
(who was most influenced by emerging progressive folk musicians in America like Bob Dylan
) and the Incredible String Band
, who from 1967 incorporated a range of influences including medieval and eastern music into their compositions. Some of this, particularly the Incredible String Band, has been seen as developing into the further sub-genre of psych or psychedelic folk and had a considerable impact on progressive
and psychedelic rock
.
There was a brief flouring of British progressive folk in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with groups like the Third Ear Band
and Quintessence following the eastern Indian musical and more abstract work by group such as Comus
, Dando Shaft
, The Trees, Spirogyra
, Forest
, and Jan Dukes De Grey
, but commercial success was elusive for these bands and most had broken off, or moved in very different directions, by about 1973. Perhaps the finest individual work in the genre was from artists early 1970s artists like Nick Drake
, Tim Buckley
and John Martyn
, but these can also be considered the first among the British ‘folk troubadours’ or ‘singer-songwriters’, individual performers who remained largely acoustic, but who relied mostly on their own individual compositions. The most successful of these was Ralph McTell
, whose ‘Streets of London
’ reached number 2 in the UK Single Charts in 1974, and whose music is clearly folk, but without and much reliance on tradition, virtuosity, or much evidence of attempts at fusion with other genres.
from the late 1960s, by the band Fairport Convention
which build on the work of the folk revival. It uses traditional music, and compositions in a traditional style, played on a combination of rock and traditional instruments. It was most significant in the 1970s, when it was taken up by groups such as Pentangle
, Steeleye Span
and the Albion Band. It was rapidly adopted and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Brittany
, where it was pioneered by Alan Stivell
and bands like Malicorne
; in Ireland
by groups such as Horslips
; and also in Scotland
, Wales
and the Isle of Man
and Cornwall
, to produce Celtic rock
and its derivatives. It has been influential in those parts of the world with close cultural connections to Britain, such as the USA and Canada and gave rise to the sub-genre of medieval folk rock
and the fusion genres of folk punk
and folk metal
. By the 1980s the genre was in steep decline in popularity, but has survived and revived in significance as part of a more general folk resurgence since the 1990s.
s and festivals helped prop up traditional music, from the late 1970s the attendance at, and numbers of folk clubs began to decrease, probably as new musical and social trends, including punk rock
, new wave and electronic music
began to dominate. Although many acts like Martin Carthy and the Watersons continued to perform successfully, there were very few significant new acts pursuing traditional forms in the 1980s. This all began to change with a new generation in the 1990s, often children of major figures in the second revival. The arrival and sometimes mainstream success of acts like Kate Rusby
, Nancy Kerr
, Kathryn Tickell
, Spiers and Boden
, Seth Lakeman
, Eliza Carthy
, Runrig
and Capercaillie
, all largely concerned with acoustic performance of traditional material, marked a radical turn around in the fortunes of the tradition. This was reflected in the adoption creation of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards
in 2000, which gave the music a much needed status and focus and made the profile of folk music as high in Britain as it has been for over thirty years.
and folk scenes. Their music often utilises traditional instruments beside electronic music. London's nu-folk scene includes artists like Laura Marling
, Noah and the Whale
, Mumford & Sons
, Johnny Flynn
and Karl Martin and that in Scotland, centred on Glasgow and with a more Celtic tinge, with artists such as Findlay Napier and the Bar Room Mountaineers
and Pearl and the Puppets
.
Traditional music
Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...
in the United Kingdom and related territories and countries, which had origins as early as the 18th century. It is particularly associated with two movements, usually referred to as the first and second revivals, respectively in the late 19th to early 20th centuries and the mid-20th century. The first included increased interest in and study of traditional music
Traditional music
Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...
, the second was a part of the birth of contemporary folk music. These had a profound impact on the development of British classical music and in the creation of a "national" or "pastoral school" and led to the creation of a sub-culture based around folk clubs
Folk clubs
A folk club is a regular event, permanent venue, or section of a venue devoted to folk music and traditional music. Folk clubs were primarily an urban phenomenon of 1960s and 1970s Great Britain and Ireland, and vital to the second British folk revival, but continue today there and elsewhere...
and folk festival
Folk festival
A Folk festival celebrates traditional folk crafts and folk music.-Canada:Alberta*Calgary Folk Music Festival*Canmore Folk Music Festival*Edmonton Folk Music Festival*Jasper Folk Festival*Wild Mountain Music FestOntario*Barriefolk...
s as well as influential sub-genres including progressive folk music
Progressive folk music
Progressive folk or prog folk was originally a type of American folk music that pursued a progressive political agenda, but in the United Kingdom the term became attached to a sub-genre that rejects or de-emphasizes the conventions of traditional folk music and encourages stylistic or thematic...
and electric folk
Electric folk
Electric folk is the name given to the form of folk rock pioneered in England from the late 1960s, and most significant in the 1970s, which then was taken up and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, to produce Celtic rock and its...
.
Origins
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
, dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
and folk song. This led to a number of early collections of printed material, including those published by John Playford
John Playford
John Playford was a London bookseller, publisher, minor composer, and member of the Stationers' Company, who published books on music theory, instruction books for several instruments, and psalters with tunes for singing in churches...
as The English Dancing Master (1651), the private collections of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
(1633–1703) and the Roxburghe Ballads
Roxburghe Ballads
In 1847 John Payne Collier printed "A Book of Roxburghe Ballads". It consisted of 1,341 broadside ballads from the seventeenth century, mostly English, originally collected by Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer , later collected by John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe.Unfortunately Collier...
collected by Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (1661–1724). In the 18th century there were increasing numbers of such collections, including Thomas D'Urfey
Thomas d'Urfey
Thomas D'Urfey was an English writer and wit. He composed plays, songs, and poetry, in addition to writing jokes. He was an important innovator and contributor in the evolution of the Ballad opera....
's Wit and Mirth: or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719–20) and Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). The last of these also contained some oral material and by the end of the 18th century this was becoming increasingly common, with collections including John Ritson's, The Bishopric Garland (1784) in northern England.
In Scotland the earliest printed collection of secular music was by publisher John Forbes in Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....
in 1662 as Songs and Fancies: to Thre, Foure, or Five Partes, both Apt for Voices and Viols. It was printed three times in the next twenty years, and contained seventy-seven songs, of which twenty-five were of Scottish origin. In the 18th century publication included Playford's Original Scotch Tunes (1700), Margaret Sinkler's Music Book (1710), James Watson's Choice Collection of Comic and Serious Scots Poems both Ancient and Modern 1711, William Thomson's Orpheus caledonius: or, A collection of Scots songs (1733), James Oswald's The Caledonian Pocket Companion (1751), and David Herd
David Herd (anthologist)
David Herd was a Scottish anthologist who was a noted collector of national ballads.-Biography:The son of a farmer in the parish of Marykirk in Kincardineshire, he became clerk to an accountant in Edinburgh, where he became a well-known figure among the literary men...
's Ancient and modern Scottish songs, heroic ballads, etc.: collected from memory, tradition and ancient authors (1776). These were drawn on for the most influential collection, The Scots Musical Museum published in six volumes from 1787 to 1803 by James Johnson and Robert Burns
Robert Burns
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
, which also included new words by Burns. The Select Scottish Airs collected by George Thomson and published between 1799 and 1818 included contributions from Burns and Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
.
With the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
the process of social stratification
Social stratification
In sociology the social stratification is a concept of class, involving the "classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions ... a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions."...
was intensified and the themes of popular music began to change from rural and agrarian life to include industrial work songs. Awareness that older forms of song were being abandoned prompted renewed interest in collecting folk songs during the 1830s and 40s, including the work of William B. Sandys
William B. Sandys
William B. Sandys , was an English solicitor, member of the Percy Society, fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and remembered for his publication Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern , a collection of seasonal carols that Sandys had gathered and also apparently improvised...
' Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern (1833), William Chappell, A Collection of National English Airs (1838) and Robert Bell
Robert Bell (writer)
Robert Bell was an Irish man of letters.Bell was born at Cork, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was one of the founders of the Dublin Historical Society...
's Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England (1846).
The first British folk revival 1890-1920
These developments, perhaps combined with changes in the nature of British identity, led to a much more intensive and academic attempt to record what was seen as a vanishing tradition, now usually referred to as the first English or British folk revival.The nature of the revival
The first British revival was based around the transcribing, and later recording, of songs by remaining performers. Pioneers of this movement were the Harvard professor Francis James ChildFrancis James Child
Francis James Child was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of folk songs known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University, where he produced influential editions of English poetry...
(1825–96), Sabine Baring-Gould
Sabine Baring-Gould
The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould was an English hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist and eclectic scholar. His bibliography consists of more than 1240 publications, though this list continues to grow. His family home, Lew Trenchard Manor near Okehampton, Devon, has been preserved as he had it...
(1834–1924), Frank Kidson
Frank Kidson
Frank Kidson was an English folksong collector and music scholar.He was born in Leeds, where he lived for most of his life. He worked briefly with his brother in an antique business, then turned to landscape painting, for which he travelled widely, which gave him the opportunity to get to know...
(1855–1926), Lucy Broadwood
Lucy Broadwood
Lucy Etheldred Broadwood was principally an English folksong collector and researcher during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As one of the founder members of the Folk-Song Society and Editor of the Folk Song Journal, she was one of the main influences of the English folk revival of that...
(1858–1939), and Anne Gilchrist
Anne Gilchrist (collector)
Anne Gilchrist OBE FSA was a British folk-song collector.Anne Geddes Gilchrist was born in Manchester, to Scottish parents. She had a musical upbringing and was related to Rev Neil Livingston, who compiled a psalter. After meeting Sabine Baring-Gould she became involved with folk music and joined...
(1863–1954). Kidson and Broadwood were important in the foundation of the Folk Song Society
English Folk Dance and Song Society
The English Folk Dance and Song Society was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society. The EFDSS, a member-based organisation, was incorporated as a Company limited by guarantee in 1935 and became a Registered Charity The English Folk...
in 1898. Later, major figures in this movement in England were Cecil Sharp
Cecil Sharp
Cecil James Sharp was the founding father of the folklore revival in England in the early 20th century, and many of England's traditional dances and music owe their continuing existence to his work in recording and publishing them.-Early life:Sharp was born in Camberwell, London, the eldest son of...
(1859–1924) and his assistant Maud Karpeles
Maud Karpeles
Maud Karpeles was a collector of folksongs and dance teacher.Maud Karpeles was born in London in 1885. In Berlin at the "Hochschule für Musik" she studied piano for six months. In 1892 a women's settlement had been created in Cumberland Road, Canning Town in 1892...
(1885–1976) and the composers Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
(1872–1951), George Butterworth
George Butterworth
George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC was an English composer best known for the orchestral idyll The Banks of Green Willow and his song settings of A. E...
(1885–1916), and the Australian Percy Grainger
Percy Grainger
George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...
(1882–1961). Of these, Child’s eight volume collection The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882–92) has been the most influential on defining the repertoire of subsequent performers and the music teacher Cecil Sharp was probably the most important in understanding of the nature of folk song. Sharp produced the five volume Folk Songs from Somerset from 1904-9 and founded the English Folk Dance Society in 1911, an indication of his parallel interest in dance music. His lectures and other publications attempted to define a musical tradition that was rural in origin, oral in transmission and communal in nature. In Scotland collectors included the Reverend James Duncan (1848–1917) and Gavin Greig
Gavin Greig
Gavin Greig was a folksong collector, playwright and teacher.He edited James Scott Skinner's biggest collection of music, The Harp & Claymore Collection, providing harmonies for Skinner's compositions, and he was jointly responsible for compiling The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection, with the Rev...
(1856–1914), and in Wales, Nicholas Bennett (1823–99).
Revival and national identity
There was a strong nationalist element in the motivation for collecting folk song. As part of a general mood of growing nationalism in the period before the First World War, the Board of EducationBoard of education
A board of education or a school board or school committee is the title of the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or higher administrative level....
in 1906 officially sanctioned the teaching of folk songs in schools. One of the major effects of the folk song revival was the creation of a distinctive English form of classical music
Classical music of the United Kingdom
Classical music of the United Kingdom is taken in this article to mean classical music in the sense elsewhere defined, of formally composed and written music of chamber, concert and church type as distinct from popular, traditional, or folk music...
, known as the English 'national' or 'pastoral school'. It was argued by Sharp that up to that point English ‘art music’ had relied heavily on European composers and styles and was therefore indistinguishable from other national forms. In a search for a distinctive English voice many composers, like Percy Grainger (from 1905), Ralph Vaughan Williams (from about 1906) and George Butterworth (from about 1914) were also collectors and directly utilized their discoveries in composition. Vaughan Williams was also the editor of the English Hymnal
English Hymnal
The English Hymnal was published in 1906 for the Church of England under the editorship of Percy Dearmer and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The preface to the hymnal began with the statement, "A collection of the best hymns in the English language." Much of the contents was used for the first time at St...
(1906) and utilized many collected tunes and set poems to them to produce new religious songs. Similarly other composers such as Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
(1874–1934) and Frederick Delius
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
(1862–1934) wrote music that utilized sections, cadences or themes from English folk music. By the 1940s this particular tendency among composers had begun to subside and other fusions would be more significant in the second folk revival.
John Blackwood McEwen
Sir John Blackwood McEwen was a Scottish classical composer and educator.- Biography :John Blackwood McEwen was born in Hawick in 1868. After initial training in Glasgow, he studied with Ebenezer Prout, Corder and Tobias Matthay at the Royal Academy of Music in London...
's Pibroch (1889), Border Ballads (1908) and Solway Symphony (1911) incorporated traditional Scottish folk melodies.
Criticism of the revival
The first revival has been criticized, particularly by David Harker, as having a romanticized view of agricultural society, of ignoring urban and industrial forms of music such as work songs and those performed in music hall, and of bowdlerising the texts. The focus on collecting performed songs also disregarded the complex, but important, relationship between printed and oral forms, particularly the role of broadside ballads, which were sometimes records of existing songs and sometimes the origin or transmission point for others. Although collectors, from Grainger in 1905 onwards, experimented with new recording technology, it was generally rejected and there was a concentration on transcribing folk song in Britain, in contrast to America, where in a parallel movement John Avery Lomax made extensive recordings for the Library of CongressLibrary of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
from 1933. This is thought to have created difficulties, since subtleties of performance have been lost and collectors often adjusted notation to fit their own, often classical, views of music or to fit their own preconceptions.
The second British folk revival 1945-69
Folk-song collecting continued after World War I, but the nationalist impulse had subsided and with the tradition disappearing there were fewer singers available as sources. In 1932 the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society merged to become the English Folk Dance and Song SocietyEnglish Folk Dance and Song Society
The English Folk Dance and Song Society was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society. The EFDSS, a member-based organisation, was incorporated as a Company limited by guarantee in 1935 and became a Registered Charity The English Folk...
(EFDSS). New forms of media such as the phonograph
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
and sound film
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
meant that from the 1920s American music began to be increasingly important and even dominant in popular British culture, leading to a further sharp decline in traditional music. British folk song might have become a purely academic interest had it not been for a second wave of revival with a very different emphasis.
The nature of the revival
The second revival in Britain followed a similar movement in America, to which it was connected by individuals such as Alan LomaxAlan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
, who had moved to Britain in the era of McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
and who worked in England and Scotland. Unlike the first revival which wholly concerned itself with traditional music
Traditional music
Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...
, the second revival was a part of the birth of non-traditional contemporary folk music. Like the American revival, it was often overtly left wing in its politics, and the leading figures, the Salford-born Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl was an English folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer. He was married to theatre director Joan Littlewood, and later to American folksinger Peggy Seeger. He collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre and with Seeger in folk music...
and A. L. Lloyd
A. L. Lloyd
Albert Lancaster Lloyd , usually known as A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English folk singer and collector of folk songs, and as such was a key figure in the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s....
, were both involved in trade unionism and socialist politics. In Scotland the key figures were Hamish Henderson
Hamish Henderson
Hamish Scott Henderson, was a Scottish poet, songwriter, soldier, and intellectual....
and Calum McLean who collected songs and popularised acts including Jeannie Robertson
Jeannie Robertson
Jeannie Robertson was a Scottish folk singer.-Hamish Henderson and Alan Lomax:It is not known where Jeannie Robertson was born but she did live at 90, Hilton Street in Aberdeen, where a plaque now commemorates her. Like many of the Scottish Travellers from Aberdeen, Glasgow and Ayrshire, she went...
, John Strachan
John Strachan (singer)
John Strachan was a Scottish farmer and singer of Bothy Ballads.John Strachan was born on a farm, Crichie, near St. Katherines in Aberdeenshire. His father had made his fortune by trading in horses, and had rented the farm. From 1886 John attended Robert Gordon's College as a boarder in Aberdeen....
, Flora MacNeil
Flora MacNeil
Flora MacNeil, MBE is a Scottish Gaelic singer. Originally discovered by Alan Lomax and Hamish Henderson during the early 1950s, she continues to perform.-Life:...
and Jimmy MacBeath
Jimmy MacBeath
Jimmy MacBeath was an itinerant worker and singer of Bothy Ballads from the north east of Scotland. He was a source of traditional songs for singers of the mid 20th century Folk Revival in Great Britain.-Life:...
. In Wales the key figure was Dafydd Iwan
Dafydd Iwan
Dafydd Iwan , is a Welsh folk singer and politician. He was the president of Plaid Cymru .Dafydd Iwan Jones was born in Brynaman in Carmarthenshire, Wales, and is the elder brother of politician Alun Ffred Jones. He spent most of his youth in Bala in Gwynedd before attending the University of...
, who founded the Sain
Sain
Sain , in full – Recordiau Sain Cyf is a Welsh record label, which was in the Welsh folk revival....
record label in 1969.
The second revival built on the work of the first, utilizing many of its resources. MacColl recorded many of the Child Ballads
Child Ballads
The Child Ballads are a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century...
and Lloyd eventually joined the board of the EFDSS. The society was also responsible for sponsoring BBC Home Service
BBC Home Service
The BBC Home Service was a British national radio station which broadcast from 1939 until 1967.-Development:Between the 1920s and the outbreak of The Second World War, the BBC had developed two nationwide radio services, the BBC National Programme and the BBC Regional Programme...
radio program, As I Roved Out, based on field recordings made by Peter Kennedy
Peter Douglas Kennedy
Peter Douglas Kennedy was an English collector of folk songs in the 1950s. Peter's father, Douglas, was EFDSS director after Cecil Sharp....
and Seamus Ennis
Séamus Ennis
Séamus Ennis was an Irish piper, singer and folk-song collector.- Early years :In 1908 James Ennis, Séamus's father, was in a pawn-shop in London. Ennis bought a bag of small pieces of Uilleann pipes. They were made in the early nineteenth century by Coyne of Thomas Street in Dublin. James worked...
from 1952 to 1958, which probably did more than any other single factor to introduce the general population to British and Irish folk music in the period.
However, the second revival differed in several important respects from the first. In contrast to Sharp’s emphasis on the rural, the activists of the second revival, particularly Lloyd, emphasized the work music of the 19th century, including sea shanties
Sea Shanties
Sea Shanties is the debut album of Progressive Rock band High Tide. The cover artwork was drawn by Paul Whitehead.-Production:Denny Gerrard produced Sea Shanties in return for High Tide acting as the backing band on his solo album Sinister Morning...
and industrial labour songs, most obviously on the album The Iron Muse (1963). It also took a more charitable view of the ‘morally dubious’ elements of traditional folk than the first revival, with Lloyd recording an entire album of erotic folk songs, The Bird in the Bush (1966).
Folk clubs
The expansion of the revival scene has been attributed to the short-lived British skiffleSkiffle
Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly...
craze of 1956-8. Spearheaded by Lonnie Donegan
Lonnie Donegan
Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...
’s hit ‘Rock Island Line
Rock Island Line (song)
"Rock Island Line" is an American blues/folk song first recorded by John Lomax in 1934 as sung by inmates in an Arkansas State Prison, and later popularized by Lead Belly. Many versions have been recorded by other artists, most significantly the world-wide hit version in the mid-1950s by Lonnie...
’ (1956) it dovetailed with the growth of café youth culture, where skiffle bands with acoustic guitars, and improvised instruments such as washboards and tea chest bass, played to teenage audiences. Beside the many later jazz, blues, pop and rock musicians that started performing in skiffle bands were a number of future folk performers, including Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...
and John Renbourn
John Renbourn
John Renbourn is an English guitarist and songwriter. He is possibly best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo career before, during and after that band's existence .While most commonly labelled a...
. It also brought a greater familiarity with American roots music and helped expand the British folk club movement where American folk music also began to be played and which were an important part of the second revival. This started in London where MacColl began the Ballads and Blues Club in 1953. These clubs were usually urban in location, but the songs sung in them often harked back to a rural pre-industrial past. In many ways this was the adoption of abandoned popular music by the middle classes. By the mid 1960s there were probably over 300 folk clubs in Britain, providing an important circuit for acts that performed traditional songs and tunes acoustically, where some could sustain a living by playing to a small but committed audience. Major traditional performers in who built a reputation in the clubs in England included the Copper Family
Copper Family
The Copper Family are a family of singers of traditional, unaccompanied English folk song. Originally from Rottingdean, near Brighton, Sussex, England, the nucleus of the family now live in the neighbouring village of Peacehaven.-History:...
, The Watersons
The Watersons
The Watersons were an English folk group from Hull, Yorkshire. They performed mainly traditional songs with little or no accompaniment. Their distinctive sound came from their closely woven harmonies.-Career:...
, the Ian Campbell Folk Group
Ian Campbell Folk Group
The Ian Campbell Folk Group were one of the most popular and respected folk groups of the British folk revival of the 1960s. The group made many appearances on radio, television, and at national and international venues and festivals. They performed a mixture of British traditional folk music and...
, Shirley Collins
Shirley Collins
Shirley Elizabeth Collins MBE is a British folksinger who was a significant contributor to the English Folk Revival of the 1960s and 1970s...
and Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...
, and in Scotland Alex Campbell
Alex Campbell (singer)
Alex Campbell was a Scottish folk singer. Described by Colin Harper as a "melancholic, hard-travelling Glaswegian", he was influential in the British folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s and was one of the first folk singers to tour the UK and Europe...
, Jean Redpath
Jean Redpath
Jean Redpath MBE is a singer of folk songs and Scottish music.Redpath was born in Edinburgh, to musical parents. Her mother knew many Scots songs and passed them on to Jean and her brother; her father played the hammer dulcimer. She was raised in Leven, Fife,Scotland, and later returned to...
, Hamish Imlach
Hamish Imlach
Hamish Imlach was a folksinger. He was born in Calcutta but claimed to have been conceived in Glasgow, Scotland. Although his commercial success was limited he influenced many other artists, including most notably John Martyn and Billy Connolly. In Central and Northern Europe Imlach enjoyed a...
, and Dick Gaughan
Dick Gaughan
Richard Peter Gaughan usually known as Dick Gaughan is a Scottish musician, singer, and songwriter, particularly of folk and social protest songs.-Early years:...
and groups like The Gaugers and The Corries
The Corries
The Corries were a Scottish folk group that emerged from the Scottish folk revival of the early 1960s. Although the group was a trio in the early days, it was as the partnership of Roy Williamson and Ronnie Browne that it is best known.-Early years:...
.
Topic records
A significant factor in the early growth of the revival was the output of Topic RecordsTopic Records
Topic Records is a British folk music label, which played a major role in the second British folk revival. It began as an offshoot of the Workers' Music Association in 1939, making it the oldest independent record label in the world.-History:...
founded as an offshoot of the Workers' Music Association in 1939. From about 1950 Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl was an English folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer. He was married to theatre director Joan Littlewood, and later to American folksinger Peggy Seeger. He collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre and with Seeger in folk music...
and A. L. Lloyd
A. L. Lloyd
Albert Lancaster Lloyd , usually known as A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English folk singer and collector of folk songs, and as such was a key figure in the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s....
became heavily involved, producing several records of traditional music. In 1960 the label became independent and was financially secure after the release of The Iron Muse in 1963. In the 1970s Topic released a series of albums by ground-breaking artists including Nic Jones
Nic Jones
Nicolas Paul "Nic" Jones is an English folk singer, fingerstyle guitarist and fiddle player whose professional career spanned the years 1964-1982. He recorded five solo albums, and was a frequent guest performer.-Biography:...
, Dick Gaughan
Dick Gaughan
Richard Peter Gaughan usually known as Dick Gaughan is a Scottish musician, singer, and songwriter, particularly of folk and social protest songs.-Early years:...
, The Battlefield Band, as well as major figures on the folk scene including Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...
. From the 1980s they also began to reissue their back catalogue on cd. In the late 1990s, with the resurgence of traditional folk, spearheaded by children of the revival like Eliza Carthy
Eliza Carthy
Eliza Carthy is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians singer/guitarist Martin Carthy and singer Norma Waterson.-Life and career:...
, topic managed to gain both commercial and critical success.
Criticism of the revival
Criticisms of the second revival include the restrictive emphasis on native language and unaccompanied performance, as well as a view of the industrialised working class that was as romantic as Sharp had been about agricultural workers. Most of those attending folk clubs were not working class or rural workers, but the urbanized middle class. Nevertheless, despite these issues, and the limited scale of the revival, it meant that British folk music continued to be a living and performed tradition.Progressive folk
The fusing of various styles of American music with British folk also helped to create a distinctive form of fingerstyle guitar playing known as ‘folk baroqueFolk baroque
Folk baroque or baroque guitar is the name given to a distinctive and influential guitar fingerstyle developed in Britain in the 1960s, which combined elements of American folk, blues, jazz and ragtime with British traditional music to produce a new and elaborate form of accompaniment...
’, pioneered by Davy Graham, Martin Carthy, John Renbourn and Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch
Herbert "Bert" Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s, as an acoustic guitarist, as well as a singer-songwriter...
. This led in part to progressive folk music, which attempted to elevate folk music through greater musicianship, or compositional and arrangement skills. Many progressive folk performers continued to retain a traditional element in their music, including Jansch and Renbourne, who with Jacqui McShee
Jacqui McShee
thumb|300px|right|Jacqui McShee performing with [[Pentangle]] at the 2007 [[BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards]]Jacqueline 'Jacqui' McShee is an English singer. Since 1966 she has performed with Pentangle, a jazz influenced folk rock band.-Biography:McShee's musical career began as a soloist in British folk...
, Danny Thompson
Danny Thompson
Daniel Henry Edward 'Danny' Thompson is an English multi-instrumentalist best known as a double bassist and businessman...
, and Terry Cox
Terry Cox
Terence William Harvey 'Terry' Cox played drums in the British folk rock bands The Pentangle, Duffy's Nucleus and Humblebums....
, formed Pentangle
Pentangle (band)
Pentangle are a British folk rock band with some folk jazz influences. The original band were active in the late 1960s and early 1970s and a later version has been active since the early 1980s...
in 1967. Others totally abandoned the traditional element and in this area particularly important were the Scottish artists Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
(who was most influenced by emerging progressive folk musicians in America like Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
) and the Incredible String Band
Incredible String Band
The Incredible String Band were a psychedelic folk band formed in Scotland in 1966. The band built a considerable following, especially within British counterculture, before splitting up in 1974...
, who from 1967 incorporated a range of influences including medieval and eastern music into their compositions. Some of this, particularly the Incredible String Band, has been seen as developing into the further sub-genre of psych or psychedelic folk and had a considerable impact on progressive
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
and psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
.
There was a brief flouring of British progressive folk in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with groups like the Third Ear Band
Third Ear Band
Third Ear Band evolved within the London alternative and free-music scene of the mid 1960s.-History:Members came from The Giant Sun Trolley and The People Band to create an improvised music drawing on Eastern raga forms, European folk, experimental and medieval influences...
and Quintessence following the eastern Indian musical and more abstract work by group such as Comus
Comus (band)
Comus is a British progressive rock / folk band which had a brief career in the early 1970s; their first album, First Utterance, gave them a cult following which persists. They have revived in the late 2000s and played several festivals.-History:...
, Dando Shaft
Dando Shaft
Dando Shaft is the name of a short-lived psych/progressive folk and folk jazz band that was primarily active in the early 1970s. The band has attracted a measure of attention from recent compilation releases and Dando Shaft is today known primarily as one of the major influences on the progressive...
, The Trees, Spirogyra
Spirogyra (band)
This article refers to the British folk band. For the American jazz fusion band, see Spyro Gyra.Spirogyra are a British folk/prog band that recorded three albums between 1971 and 1973, with further original albums in 2009 and 2011.-History:...
, Forest
Forest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
, and Jan Dukes De Grey
Jan Dukes de Grey
Jan Dukes de Grey is a short-lived Acid/Progressive folk and progressive rock band that was primarily active in the early 1970s. Despite a relatively meager total output and a lukewarm contemporary reception in terms of sales, the band has attracted a cult following and has seen a moderate revival...
, but commercial success was elusive for these bands and most had broken off, or moved in very different directions, by about 1973. Perhaps the finest individual work in the genre was from artists early 1970s artists like Nick Drake
Nick Drake
Nicholas Rodney "Nick" Drake was an English singer-songwriter and musician. Though he is best known for his sombre guitar based songs, Drake was also proficient at piano, clarinet and saxophone...
, Tim Buckley
Tim Buckley
Timothy Charles Buckley III was an American vocalist, and musician. His music and style changed considerably through the years; his first album was mostly folk oriented, but over time his music incorporated jazz, psychedelia, funk, soul, avant-garde and an evolving "voice as instrument," sound...
and John Martyn
John Martyn
John Martyn, OBE , born Iain David McGeachy, was a British singer-songwriter and guitarist. Over a forty-year career he released twenty studio albums, working with artists such as Eric Clapton and David Gilmour...
, but these can also be considered the first among the British ‘folk troubadours’ or ‘singer-songwriters’, individual performers who remained largely acoustic, but who relied mostly on their own individual compositions. The most successful of these was Ralph McTell
Ralph McTell
Ralph McTell is an English singer-songwriter and acoustic guitar player who has been an influential figure on the UK folk music scene since the 1960s....
, whose ‘Streets of London
Streets of London (song)
"Streets of London" is a song written by Ralph McTell. It was first recorded for McTell's 1969 album Spiral Staircase but was not released in the United Kingdom as a single until 1974...
’ reached number 2 in the UK Single Charts in 1974, and whose music is clearly folk, but without and much reliance on tradition, virtuosity, or much evidence of attempts at fusion with other genres.
Electric folk
Electric folk is the name given to the form of folk rock pioneered in EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
from the late 1960s, by the band Fairport Convention
Fairport Convention
Fairport Convention are an English folk rock and later electric folk band, formed in 1967 who are still recording and touring today. They are widely regarded as the most important single group in the English folk rock movement...
which build on the work of the folk revival. It uses traditional music, and compositions in a traditional style, played on a combination of rock and traditional instruments. It was most significant in the 1970s, when it was taken up by groups such as Pentangle
Pentangle (band)
Pentangle are a British folk rock band with some folk jazz influences. The original band were active in the late 1960s and early 1970s and a later version has been active since the early 1980s...
, Steeleye Span
Steeleye Span
Steeleye Span are an English folk-rock band, formed in 1969 and remaining active today. Along with Fairport Convention they are amongst the best known acts of the British folk revival, and were among the most commercially successful, thanks to their hit singles "Gaudete" and "All Around My Hat"....
and the Albion Band. It was rapidly adopted and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, where it was pioneered by Alan Stivell
Alan Stivell
Alan Stivell is a Breton musician and singer, recording artist and master of the celtic harp who from the early 1970s revived global interest in the Celtic harp and Celtic music as part of world music.- Background: learning Breton music and culture :Alan was born in the Auvergnat town of Riom...
and bands like Malicorne
Malicorne (band)
- The traditional years :Gabriel Yacoub and Marie Yacoub formed Malicorne in 1974, naming it after the French town, Malicorne, famous for its porcelain and faience. Since several of their albums are called simply Malicorne it had become the custom to refer to them by number, even though no number...
; in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
by groups such as Horslips
Horslips
Horslips are an Irish Celtic rock band that compose, arrange and perform songs based on traditional Irish jigs and reels. The group are regarded as 'founding fathers of Celtic rock' for their fusion of traditional Irish music with rock music and went on to inspire many local and international acts....
; and also in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and the Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
and Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, to produce Celtic rock
Celtic rock
Celtic rock is a genre of folk rock and a form of Celtic fusion which incorporates Celtic music, instrumentation and themes into a rock music context...
and its derivatives. It has been influential in those parts of the world with close cultural connections to Britain, such as the USA and Canada and gave rise to the sub-genre of medieval folk rock
Medieval folk rock
Medieval folk rock, medieval rock or medieval folk is a musical sub-genre that emerged in the early 1970s in England and Germany which combined elements of early music with rock music. It grew out of the electric folk and progressive folk movements of the later 1960s...
and the fusion genres of folk punk
Folk punk
Folk punk , is a fusion of folk music and punk rock. It was pioneered in the late 1970s and early 1980s by The Pogues in Britain and Violent Femmes in America. Folk punk achieved some mainstream success in that decade...
and folk metal
Folk metal
Folk metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal music that developed in Europe during the 1990s. As the name suggests, the genre is a fusion of heavy metal with traditional folk music...
. By the 1980s the genre was in steep decline in popularity, but has survived and revived in significance as part of a more general folk resurgence since the 1990s.
Traditional folk resurgence 1990-Present
While in Scotland the circuit of ceilidhCéilidh
In modern usage, a céilidh or ceilidh is a traditional Gaelic social gathering, which usually involves playing Gaelic folk music and dancing. It originated in Ireland, but is now common throughout the Irish and Scottish diasporas...
s and festivals helped prop up traditional music, from the late 1970s the attendance at, and numbers of folk clubs began to decrease, probably as new musical and social trends, including punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, new wave and electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
began to dominate. Although many acts like Martin Carthy and the Watersons continued to perform successfully, there were very few significant new acts pursuing traditional forms in the 1980s. This all began to change with a new generation in the 1990s, often children of major figures in the second revival. The arrival and sometimes mainstream success of acts like Kate Rusby
Kate Rusby
Kate Anna Rusby is an English folk singer and songwriter from Penistone, South Yorkshire. Sometimes known as The Barnsley Nightingale, she has headlined various British national folk festivals, and is regarded as one of the most famous English folk singers of contemporary times...
, Nancy Kerr
Nancy Kerr
Nancy Kerr is an English folk musician, specialising in the fiddle and singing. She is the daughter of London-born singer-songwriter Sandra Kerr and Northumbrian piper Ron Elliott....
, Kathryn Tickell
Kathryn Tickell
Kathryn Tickell is an English player of the Northumbrian smallpipes and fiddle. She has recorded over a dozen albums, and toured widely.-Life and career:...
, Spiers and Boden
Spiers and Boden
Spiers and Boden are an English folk duo. John Spiers plays melodeon and concertina, while Jon Boden sings and plays fiddle and guitar while stamping the rhythm on a stomp box.-Biography:...
, Seth Lakeman
Seth Lakeman
Seth Bernard Lakeman is an English folk singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, who is most often associated with the fiddle and tenor guitar, but has also mastered the viola and banjo...
, Eliza Carthy
Eliza Carthy
Eliza Carthy is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians singer/guitarist Martin Carthy and singer Norma Waterson.-Life and career:...
, Runrig
Runrig
Runrig are a Scottish Celtic rock group formed in Skye, in 1973 under the name 'The Run Rig Dance Band'. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included songwriters Rory Macdonald and Calum Macdonald. The current line-up also includes longtime members Malcolm Jones, Iain Bayne, and more...
and Capercaillie
Capercaillie (band)
Capercaillie is a Scottish folk band, founded in the 1980s by Donald Shaw and fronted by Karen Matheson. They have seen four of their albums placed in the UK Albums Chart, and continue to perform and record to the present day.-History:...
, all largely concerned with acoustic performance of traditional material, marked a radical turn around in the fortunes of the tradition. This was reflected in the adoption creation of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards
BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards
The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British radio station BBC Radio 2....
in 2000, which gave the music a much needed status and focus and made the profile of folk music as high in Britain as it has been for over thirty years.
"Nu-folk"/"indie-folk" 2005-Present
In the 2000s bands and artists appeared who function as cross-over acts between the indie rockIndie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
and folk scenes. Their music often utilises traditional instruments beside electronic music. London's nu-folk scene includes artists like Laura Marling
Laura Marling
Laura Beatrice Marling is an English folk musician from Eversley, Hampshire.Initially prominent within the London folk scene, she has also toured with a number of well-known indie artists in the UK. Her debut album Alas, I Cannot Swim and her second album I Speak Because I Can were nominated for...
, Noah and the Whale
Noah and the Whale
Noah and the Whale are an English indie folk band from Twickenham, London, England formed in 2006. The band consists of Charlie Fink , Tom Hobden , Matt "Urby Whale" Owens , Fred Abbott , and Michael Petulla .-Early years and Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down...
, Mumford & Sons
Mumford & Sons
Mumford & Sons are a British folk rock band. The band consists of Marcus Mumford , Ben Lovett , Country Winston Marshall , and Ted Dwane...
, Johnny Flynn
Johnny Flynn
Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit are an English folk rock band signed to Transgressive Records. They are fronted by Johnny Flynn , an actor, poet and songwriter who cites W.B. Yeats and Shakespeare among his influences...
and Karl Martin and that in Scotland, centred on Glasgow and with a more Celtic tinge, with artists such as Findlay Napier and the Bar Room Mountaineers
Findlay Napier and the Bar Room Mountaineers
Findlay Napier and the Bar Room Mountaineers began playing together in October 2007. The project was inspired by a song, "The Bar Room Mountaineers", that Findlay had learned from Scots singer Geordie MacIntryre while studying Traditional Music at the RSAMD in Glasgow. The story goes that with his...
and Pearl and the Puppets
Pearl and the Puppets
Pearl and the Puppets is a band from Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire in the West-Central Lowlands of Scotland. The band comprises singer/songwriter Katie Sutherland , Blair McMillan , Gordon Turner , Scott Clark and Michael Abubakar .Sutherland's voice has been described as a being similar to...
.
See also
- Folk musicFolk musicFolk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
- American folk music revivalAmerican folk music revivalThe American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...
- Folk music of EnglandFolk music of EnglandFolk music of England refers to various types of traditionally based music, often contrasted with courtly, classical and later commercial music, for which evidence exists from the later medieval period. It has been preserved and transmitted orally, through print and later through recordings...
- Folk music of IrelandFolk music of IrelandThe folk music of Ireland is the generic term for music that has been created in various genres in Ireland.-History:...
- Music of ScotlandMusic of ScotlandScotland is internationally known for its traditional music, which has remained vibrant throughout the 20th century, when many traditional forms worldwide lost popularity to pop music...
- Music of WalesMusic of WalesWales has a strong and distinctive link with music. The country is traditionally referred to as "the land of song". This is a modern stereotype based on 19th century conceptions of Nonconformist choral music and 20th century male voice choirs, Eisteddfodau and arena singing, such as sporting...
- Roots revivalRoots revivalA roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly-composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, as well as a general modernization of the folk sound.After an...