The Origin Of Folk Rock

Folk rock arose mainly from the confluence of three elements: urban/collegiate folk vocal groups, singer-songwriters, and the revival of North American rock and roll after the British Invasion. Of these, the first two owed direct debts to Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and the Popular Front culture of the 1930s.

The first of the urban folk vocal groups was the Almanac Singers, whose shifting membership during the late 1930s and early 1940s included Guthrie and Seeger and Lee Hayes. In 1947 Seeger and Hayes joined Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman to form the Weavers, who popularized the genre and had a major hit with a cleaned-up cover of Leadbelly's "Irene", but fell afoul of the U.S. Red Scare of the early 1950s. Their sound, and their broad repertoire of traditional folk material and topical songs inspired other groups such as the Kingston Trio (founded 1957), the Chad Mitchell Trio, and the (usually less political) "collegiate folk" groups such as The Brothers Four, The Four Freshmen, The Four Preps, and The Highwaymen. All featured tight vocal harmonies and a repertoire at least initially rooted in folk music and (in some cases) topical songs.

When the term singer-songwriter was coined in the mid-1960s, it was applied retroactively to Bob Dylan and other (mainly New York-based) folk-rooted songwriters. Scottish songster Donovan also fit this mold. Dylan's material would provide much of the original grist for the folk rock mill, not only in the U.S. but in the UK as well.

None of this would likely ever have intersected with rock music, though, if it had not been for the impulse of the British Invasion. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and numerous other British bands reintroduced to America the broad potential of rock and roll as a creative medium. One of the first bands to craft a distinctly American sound in response was the Beach Boys; while not a folk rock band themselves, they directly influenced the genre, and at the height of the folk rock boom in 1966 had a hit with a cover of the 1920s West Indian folk song "Sloop John B", which they had learned from The Kingston Trio, who, in turn, had learned it from the Weavers. However, there are a few antecedents to folk rock in pre-British Invasion American rock; one could cite some of the later recordings of Buddy Holly, which highly influenced artists like Dylan and the Byrds, and to some extent some recordings by country-influenced performers like The Everly Brothers. This was not a recognized trend at the time, and probably would have not been noticed if not for subsequent events. In the United States the heyday of folk rock is likely between the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies, aligning itself approximately with the hippie movement. Arising originally from the folk-influenced music of Bob Dylan and earlier musicians, the folk revivalist vocal combo, and the rock music of the British Invasion, it later incorporated elements of country music, drawing on Hank Williams and others.