Folk Music History: A New Look at the Folk Revival
Club Passim School of Music
A Beginning Bibliography on the 1960s Folk Revival
by MILLIE RAHN Folklorist
email: Club47@aol.com


Books and Articles

Cantwell, Robert. When We Were Good: The Folk Revival. Cambridge: Harvard P, 1996.

DeTurk, David A., and A. Poulin, Jr. The American Folk Scene. New York, Dell, 1967.

Dunson, Josh. Freedom in the Air: Song Movements of the '60s. New York: International, 1965.

Gahr, David, and Robert Shelton. The Face of Folk Music. New York: Citadel P, 1968.

Grayson, Lisa, ed. Biography of a Hunch: The History of Chicago's Legendary Old Town School of Folk Music. Chicago: Old Town School of Folk Music, Inc., 1992.

Harris, Craig. The New Folk Music. Crown Point, IN: White Cliffs Media, 1991.

Lawless, Ray M. Folksingers and Folksongs in America. Westport, Ct.: Greenwood P., 1965

Malone, Bill C. Country Music, U.S.A.: A Fifty-Year History. 1968. Austin: U of Texas P, 1985.

Rahn, Millie. "Beyond Child's Canon and Sharp's Song Catching: The Folk Revival," in American Popular Music: A Twentieth-Century Reader, eds. Jeff Melnick and Rachel Rubin.

U of Massachusetts P, 2000.

--. "Let Us Gather By the River: Club 47 and the Folk Revival." Forthcoming, UMassP.

--. Book review: The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the

Head-On Collision of Rock and Commerce by Fred Goodman (New York: Random House, 1997; Vintage Books, 1998). New England Folk Almanac (Nov./Dec. 1998)

--. "John the Revelator of the Folk Revival: The Harry Smith Symposium." New England Folk Almanac (Jan./Feb. 1998)

--. "Going Down to Newport or Staying Home: A Look Back at Club 47 and the Newport Folk Festivals." New England Folk Almanac (Summer 1997).

Rosenberg, Neil V., ed. Transforming Tradition: Folk Music Revivals Examined. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1993. [Fuller bibliography by Millie Rahn.]

Sandberg, Larry, and Dick Weissman. The Folk Music Sourcebook. 1976. NY: Da Capo, 1989.

Seeger, Pete. How to Play the Five-String Banjo. 3rd. ed. 1950. Beacon, NY: N.p., 1962.

Spitz, Bob. Dylan: A Biography. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989.

von Schmidt, Eric, and Jim Rooney. Baby, Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years. 1979. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1994.

Woliver, Robbie. Bringing It All Back Home: Twenty-Five Years of American Music at Folk City. New York: Pantheon, 1986.



Period Publications

Boston Broadside. Biweekly issues from its second issue in March 1962 through May 1968.

Caravan. Monthly issues beginning August 1957 through June 1958. [Mostly NYC scene]

Little Sandy Review. Published during the height of the folk revival; out of St. Paul.

SingOut!. Monthly issues beginning 1950 published in New York by People's Songs.