In the early 1960s the folk music revival in the UK was gathering pace. As a college student at the time I really wasn’t sure what folk music was. We had sung so-called folk songs at school, and elderly, usually rural, people were being ‘discovered’ singing old traditional songs. But a well-known ‘authentic’ folk singer, Margaret Barry, who lived in Ireland and travelled around in a caravan, cheerfully admitted in a radio interview that she had learned ‘She Moved Through The Fair’ from a gramophone record by the famous operatic tenor John McCormack. When a popular radio station polled its listeners to decide whether Dylan or Donovan was the more authentic folk singer I realised that the term did not have a precise meaning.
Then I discovered bluegrass and old-time music. The issue of authenticity was now impressed upon me by the old-timey faction, who thought that bluegrass was flashy and commercial. And bluegrass buffs told me that people who played old-time music only did so because they couldn’t play fast enough for bluegrass.
Now into my eighth decade I can’t be bothered by any of this hair-splitting exclusiveness. For the record (pun intended) I love all this music, not to mention blues, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, Cajun, western swing, you name it. My introduction to folk music recordings was through the Folkways record label. In my late teens I discovered Millers Music Shop in Cambridge, England, which had racks and racks of folk music LPs, including lots of Folkways discs in hardwearing workmanlike covers unlike the glossy offerings of most labels. Folkways record sleeves epitomised the style of hardworking ordinary people, and the music inside seemed to me to be the genuine expression of a people’s culture. My first Folkways purchase was ‘Mountain Music Bluegrass Style’, soon to be followed by the New Lost City Ramblers’ ‘String Band Instrumentals’. Like many (most?) Folkways records each sleeve contained a highly informative leaflet detailing the sources of the music and the performers.
Such clear documentation of where the music has come from is one of the hallmarks of Folkways, which has recorded and catalogued music from musicians and singers around the world. Folkways was the brainchild of Moses Asch, who started the company in 1948 and ran it until his death in 1986. One of his principles was that all the Folkways recordings would remain available: none would be deleted from the catalogue. He commented, “Just because the letter J is less popular than the letter S, you don’t take it out of the dictionary.” This principle has been continued by the Smithsonian Institute, who to the great benefit of the world of folk music took over the whole concern as Smithsonian Folkways after Asch died. The agreement between Moses Asch and the Smithsonian was facilitated before Asch’s death by Ralph Rinzler, a distinguished figure in the world of folk music and well known in bluegrass circles for his role in promoting Bill Monroe and Doc Watson.
It’s well worth browsing the Smithsonian Folkways website. The richness and variety of CDs and digital downloads which can be purchased with the click of a mouse button is staggering. I recently came across ‘Bluegrass from the Blue Ridge’, a title I had previously missed, though it has been around since 1967. In spite of the title, most of the music falls into the old-time category, and what performances these are, by the likes of Wade Ward and Glen Smith. The recordings were intended to illustrate how the string band music of Grayson and Carroll counties had evolved through half a century of cultural change. I’ve listened to these wonderful old-time tracks nearly every day since I downloaded the album a couple of months ago. BTW as with most of the Folkways recordings the informative sleeve notes are available as a free pdf download, so you can find out about the album before you buy.
There is so much good stuff on the Smithsonian Folkways website, you will have to take a look for yourself. I will just mention a few more albums that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed over the years. To continue with the Wade Ward thread, there is also ‘Uncle Wade’ and ‘Roscoe Holcomb and Wade Ward’. Roscoe Holcomb is also featured on ‘Mountain Music of Kentucky’, together with lots of other performers. The many albums by the New Lost City Ramblers are all available. ‘American Banjo Scruggs Style’ was the first-ever bluegrass LP, and the first two albums by the Country Gentlemen are classics: ‘Country Songs Old and New’ and ‘Folk Songs and Bluegrass’. And a final threesome: ‘Red Allen and Frank Wakefield – The Folkways Years 1964-1983’, ‘Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys – Live Recordings 1956-1969’, and ‘Bill Monroe and Doc Watson – Live Recordings 1963-1980’.
Happy listening!
John Baldry
August 2018
