Slides

1. POL 375 / SOC 400
Fall 2018

6.  (1) Easily understood lyrics
 (2) Simple musical accompaniment
 (3) Simple message and content

7.  Hard to categorize
 No specific geographic location
 Examples: Motown and Country
 Folk and organic development
 Not for entertainment or profit
 Stories are unpopular, out of history books
 Folk is linked with working classes

8.  War
 Civil Rights
 Economic Hardship
 Work and Labor

10.  Emphasis in Progressive Era and Labor
 Joe Hill – Folk songwriter and union agitator
 Member of Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW or “Wobblies”)
 What was the IWW?
 Songs with Baptist hymns as melodies
 Folk diminishes during 1920’s afterWWI

14. "People caught in their own yards
grope for the doorstep. Cars
come to a standstill, for no light in
the world can penetrate that
swirling murk…
The nightmare is deepest during
the storms. But on the occasional
bright day and the usual gray day
we cannot shake from it. We live
with the dust, eat it, sleep with it,
watch it strip us of possessions
and the hope of possessions.”
— Avis D. Carlson,
The New Republic

16.  Born in Oklahoma to family suffering
financial losses
 Moves to California because of Dust Bowl
 Status as “Okie” outsider led to songs:
 “I Ain’t Got No Home”
 “Talking Dust Bowl Blues”
 “Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad”

21. Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Joan Barz, and Arlo Guthrie
perform a concert honoring Woody Guthrie in 1968.

22. THE SIXTIES
 Civil Rights and Vietnam
 San Francisco and NYC
 Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell,
and Joan Baez became
famous during this era.
SINCETHE SIXTIES
 1980s – Reagan policies
 Today – Folk revival with
folk punk and indie-folk