Well, I think we are having a problem with the definition of folk music in this thread, just as PBS did with this program. Wild numbers pulled down from heaven (whenever I see the phrase "90% of _______" I tend to stop reading because, as I interpret the use of such numbers, the writer is attempting to demonstrate that everyone agrees with their personal opinion) won't convince me that the music of the WASP mainstream in the late 50s and 60s receiving commercial airplay on MOR radio stations, is the "folk" music most Americans are familiar with, and I'll tell you why. I think many of us have our first encounters with folk music through the music of our ancestors, be it polka music or Tex Mex or strathspreys or klezmer or what have you. The problem with the definition is one of the dominant WASP culture defining the Limelighters and acts like that as "their folk" and by extension "American folk".

American folk music is incredibly diverse, and much of it has nothing to do with Child ballads and Appalachia. Or with 50s and 60s WASPs disconnected from the musical roots of their ancestors, and those attempting to assimilate into that dominant WASP culture, who also contracted the WASP ancestral amnesia of the day to fit in with the dominant culture.

For many of us living in urban areas, we were also exposed to the music of other cultures through friends, co-workers, school and community events, as well as on local radio stations and local TV programs (especially if you watched/listened to the Sunday morning church programs) which played much different music than the nationally WASP oriented MOR radio stations.

I suppose I'll get slammed for using the term WASP as quaintly inaccurate. But no one has come up with a better term to describe this "most Americans" cultural standard that many white Americans believe reflects an actual reality that doesn't even exist and never has. The majority of white folks in this country ain't WASPs. So I'll continue to use the term, because it is damn accurate.

Anyway, jimmyt, it isn't about the music being for rich white folks at all. In fact, if you read my post above again, you will see that I said "white middle class". Kingston Trio was the white middle class WASP and WASP wannabe form of commercial, MOR "folk" music, not the folk music of American folk. PBS has done much more inclusive and accurate portrayals of American folk music's diversity, in specials like Mississippi River of Song and American Roots Music. So we know that the crap "folk" special truly is nothing more than nostalgia music for WASPs and WASP wannabes wishing to applaud their youthful college memories. That is what this whole fundraising series, not just the This Land is Your Land program, has been about. To get PBS donors to throw money while applauding their personal memories. On my PBS outlet this week, they are running all these god awful music nostalgia shows (it was the Frankie Avalon and Peggy March set last night) during primetime for fundraising week.

It seems those of us who watch the more accurate, inclusive folk music specials on PBS don't donate much. Which is the whole problem with the way we don't fund public interest programming in this country in the way other countries do. Folk music of all stripes and ethnicities needs air time on PBS more now than ever, because of the six media conglomerates lock on the airwaves. There aren't any TV outlets that give us this programming. None. Zero, zip, zilch. PBS is it. So they truly are doing a great disservice to great folk and ethnic music traditions of this country by declaring this shit "folk" music when it ain't.

So yeah, I guess I'm dragging the conversation to the "what is folk" gutter, even though I don't want to. I just get so sick and tired of the nostalgic-WASPs-disconnected-from-their-ancestral-roots "folk" defining what folk music is going to be for those of us who actually grew up living in the center of our own ethnic cultures, or on the periphery of other ethnic cultures who were our neighbors, school mates, church congregations, etc. Mighty tired of the WASP folk standard.