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Folk-pop. Folk-pop is a musical style that may be 1) contemporary folk songs with large, sweeping pop arrangements, or 2) pop songs with intimate, acoustic-based folk arrangements. Recording production values created a unblemished style that appealed to a mass audience, and thus led to commercial success as measured by high record sales ...
- Bob Dylan. 578 votes. A legend in the folk music scene, Bob Dylan has been a prominent figure for over five decades. With his distinctive voice and poetic lyrics, he has captured the hearts and minds of generations.
- Woody Guthrie. 337 votes. Woody Guthrie is often regarded as the founding father of modern American folk music, with his influence felt through generations of artists who came after him.
- Joni Mitchell. 394 votes. An artist whose immense talent transcends genre constraints, Joni Mitchell is a folk icon who has continually reinvented herself throughout her career.
- Gordon Lightfoot. 354 votes. With his warm baritone voice and storytelling prowess, Gordon Lightfoot has been captivating audiences since the 1960s. Hailing from Canada, Lightfoot's songs are deeply rooted in the experiences of his homeland, with tracks like "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" painting vivid pictures of life up north.
- The Alamanac Singers. The Almanacs were really the first folk music supergroup and spun off into rather successful careers for Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Josh White, Burl Ives, and various other folks who made up the core of the group or who joined them on occasion.
- Ani DiFranco. Ani DiFranco is probably the most prominent Gen-X folksinger. Since the release of her self-titled debut in 1990, DiFranco has built an excessively loyal fanbase around the world, as well as a rather successful independent record label out of her hometown in Buffalo, NY.
- Ben Harper. It's still remarkable that Ben Harper hasn't blown up any bigger than he is. He's managed to maintain a sort of cult following, bringing his soulful folk stylings to rather biting protest songs and incantations about justice and the human experience.
- Bob Dylan. What list of folk music greats would be complete without a nod to Mr. Bob Dylan? He almost doesn't warrant an explanation as to how and why he deserves to be on this list, but I'll give one, anyway.
Jul 16, 2024 · Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” (1977) is another landmark folk pop album. While primarily known as a rock band, Fleetwood Mac’s music during this period incorporated significant folk and pop elements. Songs like “Go Your Own Way” and “Dreams” feature introspective lyrics, rich harmonies, and sophisticated production, embodying the ...
- Overview
- The concept of folk music
folk music, type of traditional and generally rural music that originally was passed down through families and other small social groups. Typically, folk music, like folk literature, lives in oral tradition; it is learned through hearing rather than reading. It is functional in the sense that it is associated with other activities, and it is primar...
The term folk music and its equivalents in other languages denote many different kinds of music; the meaning of the term varies according to the part of the world, social class, and period of history. In determining whether a song or piece of music is folk music, most performers, participants, and enthusiasts would probably agree on certain criteria derived from patterns of transmission, social function, origins, and performance.
The central traditions of folk music are transmitted orally or aurally, that is, they are learned through hearing rather than the reading of words or music, ordinarily in informal, small social networks of relatives or friends rather than in institutions such as school or church. In the 20th century, transmission through recordings and mass media began to replace much of the face-to-face learning. In comparison with art music, which brings aesthetic enjoyment, and popular music, which (often along with social dancing) functions as entertainment, folk music is more often associated with other activities, such as calendric or life-cycle rituals, work, games, enculturation, and folk religion; folk music is also more likely to be participatory than presentational.
The concept applies to cultures in which there is also an urban, technically more sophisticated musical tradition maintained by and for a smaller social, economic, and intellectual elite in cities, courts, or urbanized cultures. Generally, “folk music” refers to music that broad segments of the population—particularly the lower socioeconomic classes—understand, and with which they identify. In this respect it is the rural counterpart to urban popular music, although that music depends mainly on the mass media—recordings, radio, television, and to some degree the Internet—for dissemination.
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Traditionally, folk music performers were amateurs, and some folk songs were literally known to all members of a community; but specialists—instrumentalists and singers of narratives—were important to folk communities. In the 20th century, the role of professionals as performers and carriers of folk traditions expanded dramatically. Folk music as it is believed to have existed in earlier times may be discussed separately from periods of revival such as that of 19th-century European nationalism and the 20th-century revivals, shortly before and after World War II, that were motivated by political agendas. In the context of popular music, performances of “folk music” may be distinguished by the use of songs with political agendas and the use of traditional instruments and acoustic guitars. On the other side of the musical spectrum, lines between folk music and art music were blurred beginning in the 19th century, when art music composers introduced songs from folklore into urban musical culture.
Folk-Pop falls into two categories. Either it is folk songs with large, sweeping pop arrangements, or pop songs with intimate, acoustic-based folk arrangements. Folk-pop began to evolve in the early '60s, but it came into full force after folk-rock became a sensation in the mid-'60s.
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Sep 3, 2021 · Folk Music Artists: A Brief History of Folk Music. Written by MasterClass. Last updated: Sep 3, 2021 • 3 min read. In the United States, the traditional music that various national and ethnic groups created is sometimes grouped together under the banner of folk music.
