Historically, the folk music boom in the late 1950's can be attributed to the political Left. The Right just wasn't interested. The Kingston Trio made a hit out of a well-known left wing song, The MTA written by Bess Hawes, the sister of Alan Lomax. Many folklorists cut their teeth in the Left wing movement such as Archie Green, Kenny Goldstein and others. The work of Pete Seeger paved the way for the acceptance of traditional folk singers such as Bascom Lamar Lunsford (whether he liked it or not), Leadbelly and countless others.

Is folk music inherently political? In my view, all music is political to some extent. It promulgates an idea, a point of view, a way of looking at the world of which one of it's components is political. Whether it's Beethoven's support of a Napoleonic regime or Chopin's Revolutionary Etude or ? it contains some political outlook. Even a so-called non-political stance is a form of political expression if nothing more than a reaction against some fervent position.

Can you appreciate folk music on a political level? Why not? And does it have to be limited to politics? Certainly not.

But the history of the Folk Revival speaks for itself. It was the Left Wing who supported it originally and enabled it's popularity for better or worse.

Frank