I would normally not spend the time it takes to write this, having been a Mudcatter from the late ninties, but I felt compelled to at least acknowledge that in my part of the USA, (Shepherdstown WV) the folk MUSIC portion of the above discussion is not only alive and well, it is undergoing a thriving resurgence. Some may recall that what started as Scots-Irish music (both sung and played) landed on the east coast of the US and made it's way down the Pennsylvania Great Wagon Road, down through the Cumberland, Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountain ranges to end up in the Carolina’s. We locals are acutely aware that “roots music” has undergone numerous changes from Irish to Old-time to Bluegrass. In this area (joining the Potomac River with Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia) there is a broad resurgence of those music’s, both combined in contra dancing or separately as in step dancing, clogging, white-shoe or square dancing. While we have no real folk song circles or clubs (as mentioned by the Brits above) we play any and all of the old tunes “at speed” or “like you’re burning tick’s”.
When I started playing folk music in Hawaii in 57, folk music was a bit of the “college fad” genre, especially since every folk group came out to Hawaii to give concerts. However all forms of music were welcome and we never got stuck in one style. For example, Bette Midler was my high school Senior Class President and our jams were epic. Later in Vietnam as a Marine Corps Officer, I had an autoharp, banjo and guitar brought over to the location where we came out of the bush near the DMZ in the same trucks that brought our resupply and “beer in the rear”. Folk songs were then any song known by all and sung at campfires.
At the present, in this area, most folk music is not sung but played at jams, sessions and dances. The only exception is Bluegrass where almost every tune is sung, and range from truly old tunes to those written recently. But the area is flush with opportunities to play. In a given month I have only two Saturdays that are free of a jam/session and range from the 50+ member Open Band contra dance in Glen Echo, MD where the rule is that only 30 and younger musicians can sit in the front line, to a weekly small pipes and acoustic instruments session. The good news is that we are in a great revival of what I would call the “folk arts,” where Butch Ross can play “Smoke on the Water’ on a mountain dulcimer or the venerable Sam Rizzeta (Father of the Hammered Dulcimer) can play “Wild Rose of the Mountain.”
Frankly the abundance of universities with musical programs has given us old farts the ability to corrupt the classical music backgrounds of many of the students. For example, at a certain point in their studies they may get invited to “play at the Cabin”. It is a an 1780 old log cabin back in the mountains of Hampshire County, WV, with no electricity, RDH plumbing (Right Down the Holler) and lit by several oil lamps. You will play in the dark, cheek to jowl with some of the best old-time musicians in the local states. You will need to bring your “A” game and it’s not uncommon to “play the sun up”.
The only sour note is provided by what I call the Asberger’s Short Bus crowd, a group of older folks who have lived otherwise successful lives, and have decided that because they can afford very expensive instruments in their retirement, that they are now folk musicians to be welcomed wherever they go. I am the DH (Designated Hitter) to many of the jams and it is my job to disabuse them of that notion. And while I can’t always shut them up I always break them of the habit.
The end point being is that, despite many digressions from it's beginnings in the British Isles to it’s lineal descendants in the hills and hollers on the Appalachian Trail, folk music is doing quite well, thank you.