>The mocking tone was an affectation of of the times, and not only in >folk music--perhaps a convergence of cold war tensions and post-McCarthy >suspicion--there was a tendency to posturing and pretense; people wanted >to seem to be part of what was happening, and if it turned out that it >wasn't really what was happening, they needed to be able to disown it >quickly.

>It was a time of feigned sophistication--Being irreverent, and >dissmissive gave one an air of sophistication--


Yes! That explains a lot of it.

Also Art's explanation that groups did what they needed to do to get noticed, and it sometimes got out of hand.

That said, the commercialization/mockery/parody aspects drove ME to look more diligently for what I regarded as authentic. In my case, that was a dual focus on early and CHicago blues on one hand and dance music on the other -- an interest that continues unabated 40 years after the first and last time I saw the Kingston Trio!