Most Influential Folk Artists (Part 2)
- Bill Monroe
Bill Monroe spearheaded the Bluegrass movement of the 1950s. Along with his Blue Grass Boys, he set a precedent for all bluegrassers. He integrated some aesthetics of country-western with vocal harmonies, bluegrass instruments, and his high lonesome tenor voice. Many bluegrass bands today compare themselves to Monroe’s original line-up, and several of his bandmates (Del McCoury, Earl Scruggs) have gone on to forge successful careers of their own.
Bill Monroe was born in Rosine, Kentucky, in 1911. He started playing mandolin as a small child, and was part of his Uncle Pendleton Vandiver’s backup band at local dances. He was orphaned at the age of 16, at which point he moved to Chicago to live with his brothers Birch and Charlie.
After several years of playing with his brothers, Bill formed his own band in 1938. In honor of his home state, he called them “The Blue Grass Boys.” By the time the 1940s rolled around, Bill had added lyrics to his Bluegrass tunes, and was revered as the grandfather of Bluegrass. In 1965, Bill was the main act at the first multi-day Bluegrass festival. He also started his own festival in rural Indiana.
In 1970, Bill was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He won the National Endowment for the Arts’ Heritage Award. In 1989, he was awarded the first ever Grammy award for a Bluegrass record, and in 1995, Bill Clinton awarded him with the National Medal of Honor. A year after his death in 1996, Monroe was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
- Pete Seeger
The question here is really: is there a folksinger alive that hasn’t, in some way, been influenced by the work of Pete Seeger? Chances are the answer is no. Seeger’s cannon of work is so vast it’s hard to even pin down a number of songs he’s sung, written, or popularized over the years. His impressive skills as a sing-along man helped inspire a generation into activism in the 1950s and 60s, and his topical songs have inspired artists from Bob Dylan to Dan Bern to keep the legacy going.
Peter Seeger was born in May, 1919, in New York City. His father, Charlie, was a musicologist, and both of his siblings, Mike and Peggy, also became musicians (Mike Seeger was a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers).
Pete spent two years studying Journalism at Harvard University before dropping out to perform music. During the late 1930s, he met Woody Guthrie at a benefit concert for migrant workers, which was inspired by the novel Grapes of Wrath.
The two found they had plenty in common both musically and ideologically, and they soon formed a group that came to be known famously as the Almanac Singers.
Pete was also a founding member of the Weavers, who enjoyed extensive success until being blacklisted for being Communists during the McCarthy Era. Seeger himself refused to testify in the McCarthy hearings, citing that it would violate his first ammendment rights.
In the late 1950s, Seeger began his solo career. He became well-known as a topical songwriter and activist folksinger. He reworked the African-American spiritual to popularize “We Shall Overcome,” and also penned “Turn, Turn, Turn” and “If I Had a Hammer,” which have all become anthems for peace movements and civil rights.
Seeger has released dozens of records during the course of his extensive and inspiring career, and has received the Kennedy Center Honor Award, National Medal of Arts, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. He continues to perform with his grandson Tao Rodriguez-Seeger.
Most Influential Folk Artists (Part 1)
- Woody Guthrie
The original folk singer/songwriter extraordinaire, Woody Guthrie set the precedent for the breadth of issues and subjects about which an American folk singer could sing. His original tunes often put to work traditional melodies, as well as melodies to songs that were popular at the time. His lyrics encapsulated all the important issues of his time, and of America in general, in plain and simple language that put words to what so many people were thinking and feeling.
Woody Guthrie was born in 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma. His father was a cowyboy and a local politician, and his mother was institutionalized when Woody was just a boy.
After Okemah’s boomtown status started to lose speed, Woody headed down to texas where he married his first wife. There he also joined his first band, the Corn Cobb Trio, and started writing songs at an alarming rate.
In 1967, Woody Guthrie died of Huntington’s Chorea, but his music continues to thrive. In 1988, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1996, he was honored at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame American Music Masters Series.
- Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan innovated the modern music world by integrating old folk, blues, and other forms of Americana into songs that were both timely and timeless. He was the darling of the folk revivalists in the early 1960s; but, after using an electric guitar in his performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, his reputation came under fire from the folkies. It was a small matter, though – Dylan has had a 30-year career that includes music, books, movies, and a radio show.
Robert Allen Zimmerman was born in 1941 in Duluth, MN. When he was six years old, his father came down with polio, and the family moved to Hibbing where Bob grew up in a small Jewish community.
In 1959, he enrolled in the University at Minneapolis, where he became involved in the local folk music scene. It was during this time that he started using the name Bob Dylan, which has no verifiable origin.
At the end of his first year in college, Dylan quit school but stayed in Minneapolis and remained active in the Folk scene. During a tour in 1961, he spent a good deal of time in New York City, and was eventually signed to Columbia Records.
Bob Dylan made his first record in a department store booth on Christmas Eve when he was 15 years old.
Over the next half-decade, Bob wrote and released a hand full of records that became sentinels in the evolving folk-rock scene. His “Blowin in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” typified a generation and soon became somewhat anthemic tributes to the emerging social climate at the time.
Then, finding himself pigeon-holed as a protest song writer, Dylan changed the tune with the release of Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964. This record showcased less serious tunes and introduced fans to a more edgy and somewhat sentimental side of his work.
Over the next 30 years, Dylan continued to release timely topical records as well as some occasional flat out rock and roll records. He’s toured at the pace only a Folk singer could really hold up. And he’s managed to influence just about every second or third artist making a living these days in music.
- Joni Mitchell
The Canadian chanteuse probably never meant to be as popular as she eventualy became. Originally a painter and poet, Mitchell forged an incredible career for herself in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her hauntingly sweet melodies and inimitable soprano inspired numerous women to enter the folk singer/songwriter community, and continues to do so today. Her influence is apparent in the work of Dar Williams and Kris Delmhorst, among many others.
Roberta Joan Anderson (Joni Mitchell) was born in 1943 in Fort McLeod, Alberta, Canada. She began playing piano, guitar, and ukelele as a very young child, but was always primarily a painter.
Since then, Joni Mitchell has displayed her wealth of talent by dabbling in genres ranging from rock to pop and jazz. She is best known for her emotive, poetic lyrics and her impressively wide vocal range.
She was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1981, and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2002, she was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for her life’s work.
In 1965, she was married briefly to the Folk singer Chuck Mitchell, from whom she took her name. During the mid 1960s, Joni enjoyed early success as a songwriter, while other artists took her original songs to the top of the charts. Meanwhile, she continued to play in folk clubs and coffeehouses around the country.
Throughout the next decade, Joni released several memorable and inimitable recordings that have been hailed as some of the best from a contemporary folk singer/songwriter. The influences of jazz and rock started creeping into her work toward the middle of the 1970s.
