Progressive folk music
Encyclopedia
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 innovation. It gave rise to the genre of psychedelic or psych folk
and had a major impact on the development of progressive rock
.
. Key figures in the development of progressive folk in America were Pete Seeger
and Woody Guthrie
and, after them from the early 1960s it was continued by figures such as Bob Dylan
and Joan Baez
, who all mixed progressive politics with folk music. In Britain, one of the major strands that emerged from the short-lived skiffle
craze of 1956-9 were acoustic artists who performed American progressive material. Vital in the development of progressive folk was the emergence of the American counterculture
and British underground
scenes of the mid 1960s. The term progressive began to be used by radio stations to describe particularly the psychedelic music, including pop, rock and folk, that emerged from this scene.
', a popular blues
standard, in 1964. Psychedelic music spread rapidly in the beat folk scenes of both the east and west coast of the mid-1960s. San Francisco produced bands such as Kaleidoscope
, It's a Beautiful Day
and Peanut Butter Conspiracy. From New York city's Greenwich Village
came groups such as Jake and the Family Jewels and Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys
. Chicago's major contribution was H. P. Lovecraft
. Many of these psychedelic folk groups followed the Byrds into folk rock from 1965, are now as a result more widely remembered, including Jefferson Airplane
, Grateful Dead
and Quicksilver Messenger Service
.
From the mid-sixties, partly as a result of the British Invasion
, this trend ran in parallel in both America and Britain and as part of the inter-related folk, folk rock and rock scenes. Folk artists who were particularly significant included the Scottish performers Donovan
, who combined influences of American artists like Bob Dylan
with references to flower power
, and the Incredible String Band
, who from 1967 incorporated a range of influences into their acoustic based music, including medieval and eastern instruments. There was a brief flowering of British and Irish 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
, Trees
, Spyrogyra
, Forest
, and Jan Dukes De Grey
.
, Bert Jansch
and John Renbourn
, who fused various styles of American music with English folk to create a distinctive form of fingerstyle guitar playing known as ‘folk baroque’. Using medieval, jazz and blues elements in their playing, this was an overt attempt to push British folk music into new territory, and can be seen as a forerunner of progressive rock
. Perhaps the finest individual work in the genre was from artists early 1970s artists like Nick Drake
, Tim Buckley
and John Martyn
.
after Dylan's visit to Nashville to record "Blonde on Blonde
" in 1966. Developing as a gentler form of country with more emphasis on song writing it continued the some of the political traditions of progressive folk, being taken up in the 1970s by artists such as John Denver
and Emmylou Harris
and more recently contributing to the development of the progressive country
sub-genre.
, Steve Goodman
, and John Prine
.
In Britain folk groups also tended to electrify, as did acoustic duo Tyrannosaurus Rex which became the electric combo T-Rex. This was a continuation of a process by which progressive folk had considerable impact on mainstream rock. Others, probably influenced by the electric folk
pioneered by Fairport Convention
from 1969, moved towards more traditional material, a category including Dando Shaft, Amazing Blondel, and Jack the Lad
, an offshoot of northern progressive folk group Lindisfarne
. Examples of bands that remained firmly on the border between progressive folk and progressive rock were the short lived (but later reunited) Comus
and, more successfully, Renaissance
, who combined folk and rock with classical elements.
Folk music
Folk 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....
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
Folk music
Folk 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....
and encourages stylistic or thematic innovation. It gave rise to the genre of psychedelic or psych folk
Psych folk
Psychedelic folk or psych folk is a loosely defined form of psychedelic music that originated in the 1960s through the fusion of folk music and psychedelic rock...
and had a major impact on the development of progressive rock
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...
.
Origins of the term
The original meaning of progressive folk came from its links to the progressive politics of the American folk revival of the 1930s and particularly through the work of musicologist Charles SeegerCharles Seeger
Charles Seeger, Jr. was a noted musicologist, composer, and teacher. He was the father of iconic American folk singer Pete Seeger .-Life:...
. Key figures in the development of progressive folk in America were Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
and Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
and, after them from the early 1960s it was continued by figures such as 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 Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, who all mixed progressive politics with folk music. In Britain, one of the major strands that emerged from the short-lived skiffle
Skiffle
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 1956-9 were acoustic artists who performed American progressive material. Vital in the development of progressive folk was the emergence of the American counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
and British underground
UK underground
The Underground was a countercultural movement in the United Kingdom linked to the underground culture in the United States and associated with the hippie phenomenon. Its primary focus was around Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill in London...
scenes of the mid 1960s. The term progressive began to be used by radio stations to describe particularly the psychedelic music, including pop, rock and folk, that emerged from this scene.
Psychedelic folk
The first musical use of the term psychedelic is thought to have been by the New York based folk group the The Holy Modal Rounders on their version of 'Hesitation BluesHesitation Blues
"Hesitation Blues" is a popular song adapted from a traditional tune. One version was published by Billy Smythe, Scott Middleton, and Art Gillham. Another was published by W.C. Handy as "Hesitating Blues." Because the tune is a traditional tune many artists have given themselves credit as...
', a popular blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
standard, in 1964. Psychedelic music spread rapidly in the beat folk scenes of both the east and west coast of the mid-1960s. San Francisco produced bands such as Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope (US band)
Kaleidoscope was an American psychedelic folk and ethnic band who recorded 4 albums and several singles for Epic Records between 1966 and 1970.-Formation:...
, It's a Beautiful Day
It's a Beautiful Day
It's a Beautiful Day is a band formed in San Francisco, California in 1967, the brainchild of violinist David LaFlamme.LaFlamme, a former soloist with the Utah Symphony Orchestra, had previously been in the band Orkustra, and unusually, played a five-string violin...
and Peanut Butter Conspiracy. From New York city's Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
came groups such as Jake and the Family Jewels and Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys
Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys
Cat Mother and The All Night Newsboys was an American musical group, originally formed in New York and later based in Mendocino, California, most active in the late 1960s and early 1970s.- History :...
. Chicago's major contribution was H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft (band)
H. P. Lovecraft was an American psychedelic rock band, formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1967 and named after horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Much of the band's music was possessed of a haunting, eerie ambience, and consisted of material that was inspired by the macabre writings of the author whose...
. Many of these psychedelic folk groups followed the Byrds into folk rock from 1965, are now as a result more widely remembered, including Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
and Quicksilver Messenger Service
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Quicksilver Messenger Service is an American psychedelic rock band, formed in 1965 in San Francisco.-Introduction:Quicksilver Messenger Service gained wide popularity in the Bay Area and, through their recordings, with psychedelic rock enthusiasts around the globe and several of their albums ranked...
.
From the mid-sixties, partly as a result of the British Invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
, this trend ran in parallel in both America and Britain and as part of the inter-related folk, folk rock and rock scenes. Folk artists who were particularly significant included the Scottish performers 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 combined influences of American artists 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...
with references to flower power
Flower power
Flower power is a slogan used by the American counterculture movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a symbol of passive resistance and non-violence ideology. It is rooted in the opposition movement to the Vietnam War. The expression was coined by the American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in...
, 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 into their acoustic based music, including medieval and eastern instruments. There was a brief flowering of British and Irish 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...
, Trees
Trees (folk band)
Trees was an English folk rock band that existed between 1969 and 1972. Although the group met with little commercial success in their time, the reputation of the band has grown over the years. Like other folk contemporaries, Trees' music was influenced by Fairport Convention, but with a heavier...
, Spyrogyra
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 (band)
Forest were an English psychedelic folk / acid folk trio who formed in Grimsby, Lincolnshire in 1966. Made up of brothers Martin Welham, Adrian Welham and school friend Dez Allenby, they started out performing unaccompanied traditional folk music in a similar vein to contemporaries The Watersons...
, 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...
.
Folk baroque
The situation in Britain was made more complex by the second folk revival, which created a network of folk clubs across the country, mostly in urban centres, from the late 1950s. In the early 1960s much of the music performed in these venues was American traditional and progressive folk, but this was increasingly discouraged from the mid-1960s as British traditional music began to dominate 'policy clubs'. Most psychedelic folk artists, particularly in London relied more heavily on coffee houses and clubs like UFO and Middle Earth as their venues, but a number of artists occupied a musical territory between traditional and progressive music. This was particularly notable with artists like Davy Graham, Martin CarthyMartin 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...
, 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...
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...
, who fused various styles of American music with English folk to create a distinctive form of fingerstyle guitar playing known as ‘folk baroque’. Using medieval, jazz and blues elements in their playing, this was an overt attempt to push British folk music into new territory, and can be seen as a forerunner of progressive rock
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...
. 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...
.
Country folk
Country folk emerged as a hybrid sub-genre of progressive folk and countryCountry music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
after Dylan's visit to Nashville to record "Blonde on Blonde
Blonde on Blonde
Blonde on Blonde is American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's seventh studio album, released in May or June 1966 on Columbia Records and produced by Bob Johnston. Recording sessions commenced in New York in October 1965, with a plethora of backing musicians, including members of Dylan's live backing...
" in 1966. Developing as a gentler form of country with more emphasis on song writing it continued the some of the political traditions of progressive folk, being taken up in the 1970s by artists such as John Denver
John Denver
Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. , known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After growing up in numerous locations with his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success...
and Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
and more recently contributing to the development of the progressive country
Progressive country
Progressive country is a subgenre of Texas country music started in the early 1970s in Austin, Texas. The term was coined by programmers at Austin's KOKE-FM in 1972 as a way to differentiate the style of country music in Austin from that being made in Nashville...
sub-genre.
Decline
In the early 1970s psychedelia began to fall out of fashion and those folk groups that had not already moved into different areas had largely disbanded. Although artists like Dylan and Baez continued their careers with considerable success in the 1970s, as American folk music began to fragment, with groups focusing on areas such as blues, bluegrass and oldtime, progressive folk began to disappear as a term and its major themes shifted into 'contemporary folk', focusing on new singer-songwriters using the coffee-house circuit, including such artists as Chris CastleChris Castle
Chris Castle is a folk/Americana singer-songwriter. Cleveland Magazine has described his writing as an "authentic connection to the world-weary soul of American roots music", while The New London Day's Rick Koster calls Castle "a visionary songwriter" and "a tunesmith of almost scary vision,...
, Steve Goodman
Steve Goodman
Steve Goodman was an American folk music singer-songwriter from Chicago, Illinois. The writer of "City of New Orleans", made popular by Arlo Guthrie, Goodman won two Grammy Awards.-Personal life:...
, and John Prine
John Prine
John Prine is an American country/folk singer-songwriter. He has been active as a recording artist and live performer since the early 1970s.-Biography:...
.
In Britain folk groups also tended to electrify, as did acoustic duo Tyrannosaurus Rex which became the electric combo T-Rex. This was a continuation of a process by which progressive folk had considerable impact on mainstream rock. Others, probably influenced by the 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...
pioneered by 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...
from 1969, moved towards more traditional material, a category including Dando Shaft, Amazing Blondel, and Jack the Lad
Jack The Lad
Jack the Lad was a folk rock or electric folk group from North East England formed in 1973 by three former members of the most successful band of the period from the region Lindisfarne. They moved from the progressive folk rock of Lindisfarne into much more traditional territory and were in the...
, an offshoot of northern progressive folk group Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne (band)
Lindisfarne were a British folk/rock group from Newcastle upon Tyne established in 1970 and fronted by singer/songwriter Alan Hull. Their music combined a strong sense of yearning with an even stronger sense of fun...
. Examples of bands that remained firmly on the border between progressive folk and progressive rock were the short lived (but later reunited) 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:...
and, more successfully, Renaissance
Renaissance (band)
Renaissance are an English progressive rock band, most notable for their 1978 UK top 10 hit "Northern Lights" and progressive rock classics like "Carpet of the Sun", "Mother Russia" and "Ashes Are Burning".-Original incarnation :...
, who combined folk and rock with classical elements.
See also
- Indie folkIndie folkIndie folk is a music genre that arose in the 1990s from singer/songwriters in the indie rock community showing heavy influences from folk music scenes of the 50s, 60s and early 70s, country music, and indie rock. A few early artists included Lou Barlow, Beck, Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith...
- ProggProggProgg, a contraction of the Swedish word for "progressive music" was a left-wing and anti-commercial musical movement in Sweden that had its roots in the late 1960s, and its golden age in the 1970s. It should not be confused with the English expression progressive music or progressive rock. Progg...
- Progressive bluegrassProgressive bluegrassProgressive bluegrass is one of two major subgenres of bluegrass music. It is also known as newgrass, a term attributed to New Grass Revival member Ebo Walker. Musicians and bands John Hartford, New Grass Revival, J.D. Crowe and the New South, The Dillards, Boone Creek, Country Gazette, and the...
- Progressive countryProgressive countryProgressive country is a subgenre of Texas country music started in the early 1970s in Austin, Texas. The term was coined by programmers at Austin's KOKE-FM in 1972 as a way to differentiate the style of country music in Austin from that being made in Nashville...