Subject: RE: Life of Burl Ives
From:
GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 25 Mar 09 - 04:58 PM
Though it's hinted in some of the posts above, I don't think most people recognize just how influential Burl was in the folk music revival. I've never been a strong defender of Ives, but it has to be recognized that he was the kingpin of folk at a crucial time around 1950.
The following is off the top of my head but generally accurate, I think.
He arrived in New York in the late 1930s and began recording on 78 rpm records, but the folk music breakout didn't happen until LPs and 45s came in c. 1950, and then Burl Ives records went over bigger than anyone's, even the Weavers with their early hit singles before they were blacklisted. He had numerous albums out on Decca and Columbia, and they had staying power, though though his first (and I think best) LP on Stinson never sold much. He must have had ten times the circulation of any other folk singer.
The blacklist is partly to blame for this (and yes, Ives must shoulder his share of the blame there). Not to take away in the least from the greatness of Pete Seeger, but due to the blacklist Pete and the Weavers, despite some great 1950-51 hits, did not have their greatest influence until after 1955. Singers who did keep working in those years, such as Susan Reed, Josh White, Dyer-Bennett, John Jacob Niles and Carl Sandburg, had their share of the market, but were left in the dust by Ives' mass sales and wider outreach.
So from 1950 to 1955 American folk music, to most people, meant Burl Ives, and folk singers then were expected to know "Burl Ives songs," for he had made them the standards. Here are just a few of the many songs he was the first to popularize and spread around widely:
Lavender Blue
Billy Boy
The Blue Tail Fly
Frog Went a-Courtin'
Cowboy's Lament (Streets of Laredo)
Little Mohee
Riddle Song
Paper of Pins
Sourwood Mountain
Barb'ry Allen (his spelling)
Lord Randall
Aunt Rhody
Old Blue
Down in the Valley
Lolly-Too-Dum
Careless Love
Erie Canal
Sweet Betsy From Pike
On Top of Old Smoky
Springfield Mountain
and of course his theme song Wayfaring Stranger.
Plus two genres that were great favorites of his: sea songs, and Irish songs. He published books of both, and they were featured strongly in his recordings and concerts. Sea songs included Blow the Man Down, Shenandoah, Drunken Sailor, Hullabaloo Belay, High Barbaree, Henry Martin, Golden Vanity and Haul Away Joe among many others.
Among his early Irish songs were Molly Malone, Foggy Foggy Dew,I Know My Love, I Know Where I'm Goin', The Praties They Grow Small, and Brennan on the Moor, but he later widened this part of his repertoire to include many more.
With his mellow voice and gentle manner he was perfect for the radio and TV programs of the time, one of the few who got wide circulation there.
A combination of circumstances led to his eclipse as a folk singer after 1955.
1. He put in much more time as an actor on stage and in Hollywood as that became his primary career.
2. He began recording non-folk songs -- light country, pop, novelty, etc.
3. He lost the allegiance of many in the folk community for his apostasy in naming names for HUAC.
4. The folk boom he'd helped start brought along numerous new singers who became famous in their own right. (Including Pete Seeger, who heroically overcame the blacklist by creating a brushfire career not based in the entertainment industry but in college, public hall, and local performances.)
For those few years, though, as far as the wider public was concerned, Burl Ives WAS Mr. Folk Singer. That's a chapter in folk music history that isn't often recalled and should be. In fact he was so widely influential that a whole generation of kids growing up then had to consciously separate themselves from his influence -- just as happened with the "Little Seegers" and "Little Guthries" and "Little Baezes" later.
He's a towering figure who's been lost in the mill of later folksong history.
Bob
|
sj
