I'm back. Here's the column from 1985--summer.

LINKS ON THE CHAIN
The cruel reality of punk folk
by Art Thieme

I saw a great quote the other day: "Just when you think you know some of the answers, they go and change all the questions."

I guess I should've seen it coming, but somehow I didn't see any of the signs.Who would've guessed that the next surge in the folk revival would go by the name of PUNK FOLK? We used to jopke about punk folk, but I'm here to tell you that it's a fact. It's gaining momentum and it's coming your way.

Will wonders never cease? And here's the kicker: I kind of enjoy it. There, I said it. I'm getting a big kick out of the fact that a new generation of young people will have access to this music I care so much about. They're picking it and singing it and, in general, having a great time discovering for themselves what we "old folkies" have professed to know for several decades now---that this is the people's music and it's a lot of fun to play it yourself.

How did this strange phenomenon come about? How did this newer generation of young people find this music? Who are their heroes--the ones THEY want to copy? And why have they chosen to take from and listen to some parts of the early folk revival singers repertoirs while choosing to ignore others?

Maybe it would be a good idea to look at who influenced the early revival singers themselves. Maybe there's a pattern to this thing--a cycle. As my old uncle used to say, "History repeats. It just costs twice as much every time around."

It was 1958 and there was a new group appearing at the Gate Of Horn--a great Chicago folk club/bar. This group (Mike Seeger, John Cohen and Tom Paley) called itself the New Lost City Ramblers . They were playing the music of the old-timey southern string bandsthat had recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. Here we were, 30 years after the fact, listening to urban bred young peoplewho had fallen in love with the Carter Family, Charlie Poole and Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers. The ramblers taught an entire generation to listen intelligently to the great sounds the mountain musicians had made 30 years earlier. It was happy, real, energetic, hard-hitting topical music that really told us quite a bit about the people it came from.

Shortly after this revival of interest in the cities in this old-time music came a revival in old jug-band-music, blues, bluegrass, clog dancing, square dancing, contra dancing, Morris dancing, dulcimer playing, (and building), and even unaccompanied ballad singing. Alongside this interest in traditional art forms came what some derisively called "the folk scare of the 1960s". Within this framework, the older traditional songs were spruced up and presented with a more urban style by some very good (and some very bad) performers.

Every kid with a guitar and who knew 3 chords got a record contract. Dollars were miled from the folk revival and when there were no more dollars the music business dropped the music like a hot potato. This left those of us who really loved this music to carry on (albeit on a lesser level) as best we could. Many of us are still doing it.

Thirty years passed by. Chicago, Cambridge and a few other cities were where the music survived. The old-timey pickers kept playing TUNES. We waited. We wondered. Will there ever be another real revival of interest in this music? What form will it take? Will it mean some mor work for those of us who stuck with this music all through the years?

Last month, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I met the Washington Squares. we were all there to be part of May Fest and to take part in a tribute to Woody Guthrie. I came down to the lobby of the up-scale hotel to see a fellow wandering around the foyer (under the crystal chandelier)wearing all black, shades, a beret and picking s Pete Seeger long-neck Vega banjo. I thought I'd gone back to the beatnik era. Not the real beatnik era but the scene the way the media painted it. I stared for a while, and then introduced myself.

Tom Goodkind was his name. He and the other members of his group had selectively chosen those physical and musical aspects of the early revival that they wanted to emulate. Tom was playing a banjo that Dave Guard had given him. The banjo head was autographerd by Bob Gibson.

The group called itself the Washington Squares after that New York City p[ark where so many Sunday sings were held way back when. Then I met Lauren Agnelli, another group member. They told me they live in New York around the corner from the old Almanac House, where Lee Hays and Pete and Woody picked and sang. Tom was ecstatic when I told him I had a copy of the Almanac Singers' So0s Buster Ballads album.

Then Tom and the group proceeded to inform me (as if I should've known) about other "music groups" with national stature that performed folk music: The Violent Femmes is a Milwaukee-based group. Malcolm McLaren of the Sex Pistols sings folk tunes in rock clubs. There's a group called the Knitters who have reworked the name of the Weavers. There's David Alvin and the Blasters as well as the San Francisco-based group called the Muskrats.

For a while I was in shock ! Then I heard the Squared perform and I was simply stunned. I felt like the fellow in the Bob Dylan song: "Something is happening here and you don't know what it is..." The group's arrangements were from the Limelighters, the Kingston Trio, Peter,Paul & Mary, and the Almanacs. The sound ? Well, it IS loose; they've got a lot to learn.They've picked up the glitter and the glitz of the 60s and are tossing it back at us 30 years down the pike. (There's that cycle again.)But the enthusiasm they exhibited was a joy to see. They really like to sing these great songs.and the audience seems quite enthusiastic too.

But is enthusiasm enough? Let's hope they discover musical depth somewhere down the road. They haven't exactly found it yet. That's the bad news. The good news is that maybe we can get some gigs opening shows for them.

Art Thieme
(Damn, I've been listening to Bill and Alan and all for a while now and I've been wanting to call them at the radio show but can't do that while I'm on line and, worse than that, I don't have the phone number. Would somebody please send me that??? It'd be appreciated.)