Markin comment:
This is great stuff for any music aficionado, especially of folk, social protest, and roots music. I am going to be "stealing" entries off of this site periodically but you should be checking it out yourselves. Kudos, Bob Feldman.
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From The Weavers at Carnegie Hall Liner Notes In 1950s--Part 1
Current mood: nostalgic
Category: Music
"Every once in a while a performer or group of performers comes along and revitalizes the popular music industry. Sometimes it's done by a unique personality, or by unusual repertory, or by creating a fresh style. When artists combine all of these, they may even have the rare privilege of changing the musical taste of a nation. The Weavers have that honor. Since that day in 1950 when "Good Night Irene"...hit the record racks...the music world has been a different kind of place to be, perhaps a more pleasant one.
"The Weavers set the tin-pans clanging in that alley with a reverberation which hasn't yet died down. They sent the songsmiths scurrying about in the folk music archives, doing a little research looking for "that hit." The second-hand music dealers, hung a sold-out sign on their dusty bins of folk songs and ballads. A lot of young people took up the guitar and banjo.
"Among the many knotty problems which The Weavers raised was that of classification. It is said that Billboard and Variety held a joint conference on the subject, where learned musicological dissertations were read bearing such titles as, "Are The Weavers Rhythm and Blues or Country and Western?..."
(from the liner notes of Vanguard's "The Weavers at Carnegie Hall" vinyl album of 1950s)
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music/blog?page=6#ixzz0zMMHvL3x
From The Weavers at Carnegie Hall Liner Notes In 1950s--Part 2
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Music
"Talking about folk music is a large order. Woody Guthrie said it: "Folksongs and ballads are a big subject; just as old and just as young, just as big to talk about as the whole humanly race around our planet here." The Weavers came on the scene when, with few exceptions, folk music seemed to have become a specialized, even esoteric art, and some theorists were lamenting that it was "dying," that it was being driven into the ground by urban culture, that radio, television and manufactured popular songs were stifling its capacity for growth. The Weavers proved them wrong, and helped to replant folk music not merely in the countryside but in the urban centers as well.
"This could only have been done, of course, through a new approach. And the Weavers hit upon theirs in a way that could almost be called accidental; that is, working out what seemed to be "right" for themselves, rather than entertaining visions of starting a trend. Their unique style stems from a bold disregard of the "purist" approach. It may be described as a rejection of surface "authenticity" to arrive at a deeper authenticity. For the essential and living quality of folk music is that it is never "fixed" in a scholar's treatise or on a phonograph record; it is always growing and changing. It is at once the voice of the past and the vigorous voice of the present. It adapts itself to any voice or instrument. It can not only weather, but can profit from occasional changes of text, the addition of new verses, an inspired rhythmic alteration. And that is actually the way in which new folk songs have traditionally grown out of old ones. Always, to folk singers, a "new song" meant new words set to an old melody, and if in the process a new variant or curve of melody appeared, that seemed so natural a process that they hardly paid it any mind.."
From liner notes to Vanguard's "The Weavers at Carnegie Hall" vinyl album of the 1950s
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music/blog?page=6#ixzz0zMMN7ubK
This is great stuff for any music aficionado, especially of folk, social protest, and roots music. I am going to be "stealing" entries off of this site periodically but you should be checking it out yourselves. Kudos, Bob Feldman.
************
From The Weavers at Carnegie Hall Liner Notes In 1950s--Part 1
Current mood: nostalgic
Category: Music
"Every once in a while a performer or group of performers comes along and revitalizes the popular music industry. Sometimes it's done by a unique personality, or by unusual repertory, or by creating a fresh style. When artists combine all of these, they may even have the rare privilege of changing the musical taste of a nation. The Weavers have that honor. Since that day in 1950 when "Good Night Irene"...hit the record racks...the music world has been a different kind of place to be, perhaps a more pleasant one.
"The Weavers set the tin-pans clanging in that alley with a reverberation which hasn't yet died down. They sent the songsmiths scurrying about in the folk music archives, doing a little research looking for "that hit." The second-hand music dealers, hung a sold-out sign on their dusty bins of folk songs and ballads. A lot of young people took up the guitar and banjo.
"Among the many knotty problems which The Weavers raised was that of classification. It is said that Billboard and Variety held a joint conference on the subject, where learned musicological dissertations were read bearing such titles as, "Are The Weavers Rhythm and Blues or Country and Western?..."
(from the liner notes of Vanguard's "The Weavers at Carnegie Hall" vinyl album of 1950s)
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music/blog?page=6#ixzz0zMMHvL3x
From The Weavers at Carnegie Hall Liner Notes In 1950s--Part 2
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Music
"Talking about folk music is a large order. Woody Guthrie said it: "Folksongs and ballads are a big subject; just as old and just as young, just as big to talk about as the whole humanly race around our planet here." The Weavers came on the scene when, with few exceptions, folk music seemed to have become a specialized, even esoteric art, and some theorists were lamenting that it was "dying," that it was being driven into the ground by urban culture, that radio, television and manufactured popular songs were stifling its capacity for growth. The Weavers proved them wrong, and helped to replant folk music not merely in the countryside but in the urban centers as well.
"This could only have been done, of course, through a new approach. And the Weavers hit upon theirs in a way that could almost be called accidental; that is, working out what seemed to be "right" for themselves, rather than entertaining visions of starting a trend. Their unique style stems from a bold disregard of the "purist" approach. It may be described as a rejection of surface "authenticity" to arrive at a deeper authenticity. For the essential and living quality of folk music is that it is never "fixed" in a scholar's treatise or on a phonograph record; it is always growing and changing. It is at once the voice of the past and the vigorous voice of the present. It adapts itself to any voice or instrument. It can not only weather, but can profit from occasional changes of text, the addition of new verses, an inspired rhythmic alteration. And that is actually the way in which new folk songs have traditionally grown out of old ones. Always, to folk singers, a "new song" meant new words set to an old melody, and if in the process a new variant or curve of melody appeared, that seemed so natural a process that they hardly paid it any mind.."
From liner notes to Vanguard's "The Weavers at Carnegie Hall" vinyl album of the 1950s
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music/blog?page=6#ixzz0zMMN7ubK
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