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30 Aug 01 - 02:36 AM (#537966) Subject: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: GUEST,hotjoe@earthlink.net What are the top 20 folk songs popular during the 50's/60's folk music era? |
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30 Aug 01 - 02:43 AM (#537967) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Mudcatter Mmmm, I guess you'll have to define 'folk song' first. On second thoughts... |
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30 Aug 01 - 09:39 AM (#538066) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Bat Goddess And are you looking for versions of traditional songs that ended up being played on Top 40 radio stations? Such as "The Thing" which was a version of "Farm Servant" or "Gilgarry Mountain" or "Santiano" (which was the flipside of "Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore"), or what? Whatcha lookin' for? And for what purpose (other than plain curiosity)? Bat Goddess |
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30 Aug 01 - 09:47 AM (#538069) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler In the UK in the '50s it would be a toss-up between Rock Island Line and Freight Train I guess, in the 60's the UK groups hadn't yet tired of Wild Rover but the influence of the US groups with songs like If I had a Hammer were taking over. RtS (but then I was listening mostly to jazz and blues so I could possibly be wrong!) |
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30 Aug 01 - 09:51 AM (#538070) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Pinetop Slim Lots of folk songs made the Top 10 or 20 in that era. Some that come to mind are Blowin' in the Wind, Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore, Lemon Tree, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, Tom Dooley, If I Had a Hammer. |
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30 Aug 01 - 10:34 AM (#538101) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Wolfgang Here are the data for Germany: I only found the charts from 1960 on: - Number one folksong in the charts for the 1960s was 'Oh my darling Clementine' which topped the charts for many weeks and was overall No. 2 in 1965 (which was a good year for folk also seeing 'If I had a hammer' in the overall top 10 - also in the top 10 (over the whole year) or at least once No. 1 were La Paloma (1961; old German lyrics), Hohe Tannen (1960), Heidschi Bumbeidschi (1969), Aloahe (1962; new German lyrics, Hawaiian tune), and several others (sometimes only the tune trad.) - I didn't check all the 70s, but 1970 is hard to beat for folk: overall No. 1 and many weeks in sucession No. 1: El condor pasa, a close No. 2 and many weeks No. 1 'House of the rising sun' - a special year was 1974, when German president Walter Scheel came in the charts for several weeks in succession with No. 5 being the best position singing the folksong 'Hoch auf dem gelben Wagen'. Wolfgang |
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30 Aug 01 - 10:42 AM (#538111) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: SINSULL Does "Dominique" count - running for cover. |
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30 Aug 01 - 03:55 PM (#538357) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Wyrd Sister How about the theme for 'Z cars'? (Johnny Todd) |
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30 Aug 01 - 04:49 PM (#538403) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: toadfrog Well, in the 1950's there were Zena, Zena [sp?], and Wimoweh, and Irene Goodnight, and Freight Train. So Long, It's Been Good to Know You, and This Land is Your Land by Woodie Guthrie are sometimes called folk songs, and were hits in the 50's. "Wreck of the John B" may also be a folk song. If imitation folk songs count, there are Sixteen Tons, and the Battle of New Orleans. Any top ten folk songs from the 50's would be Weavers' songs. By golly, if "Blowin' in the Wind" is a "folk song," then we should also add, "Why Must I Be a Teenager in Love," a similar song which was also extremely popular in the early 1960's. And how about "Monster Mash?" |
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30 Aug 01 - 06:30 PM (#538477) Subject: THE NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL SONGBOOK From: wysiwyg This gem was sitting in a rack in a tiny music shop we found once on vacation, with the original price of $2.95 still good. In fact, they had a pile of stuff from the late mid and 60's, all with original prices. Not only did they honor the process without our even asking, they gave us a further discount because we bought them all! They just didn't know what they had. Here is the Table of Contents. I can't find a copyright DATE, but the copy inside indicates mid-60's. And I dunno if these were the "most popular." But they WERE sung in that time, and the artists listed should give you a clue how to find more of the work of that period. In all cases below, the item is listed acording to who performed it-- who is not necessarily the author. ~S~ ===========================================
THE NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL SONGBOOK See below for Jean Ritchie Comments |
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30 Aug 01 - 06:33 PM (#538480) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: GUEST,iamjohnne Well how bout the songs of LIghtfoot and Joni Mitchell or the songs Joan Baez and Judy Collins? Or for that matter what about the stuff by Burl Ives. I kinda likt the Chad Mitchell Trio and Brothers Four too. I think if someone was more specific we could give a better answer. Johnne "goin where the weather suits my clothes" |
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30 Aug 01 - 06:40 PM (#538486) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Eric the Viking Early stuff would include Burl Ives, Peter, Paul and Mary, what about Nina and Frederik? Skiffle was often folk/blues based-Lonnie Donniegan etc.Trini Lopez, Malvina reynold, Tom Paxton etc .There must be lists for the Uk of the charts, someone out there must have them. |
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30 Aug 01 - 06:50 PM (#538493) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Podger if you are including "Blowing in the Wind" then you could make a good case for "Rocking Through the Rye". True folk song hits were few and far between. |
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30 Aug 01 - 06:57 PM (#538495) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Gareth Well, it takes me back to my youth. A nice list. I've a home compilation tape in the car, it includes Pete Seegers rendition of the "Bells of Rhymney" recorded at Newport.(God knows where and when it was compiled, I found it in a boot sale.) Travelling between Caerphilly and Swansea every working day. I get a tear to my eye playing that through Swansea, Neath, Rhymney, Merthyr Tudvill, and Caerphilly, with occasional diversions via Cardiff, Newport, Blaina, Rhondda and Wye ( Have I missed any ?) Mind you, and this is something for another thread, the most satisfaction I have had out of a tape in a Car was playing "Captain Sensible's" version of Betjemans Poem "Come Friendly Bombs and fall on Slough" whilst driving through Slough and Maidenhead ( also mentioned in the poem)- whilst diverted off the M4 (Major traffic crunch) after picking up Number 2 Sister from Heathrow. Have any other Catters had a similar feeling ? Gareth Glossary. Slough - an appalling 1930's expansion of London to the West. Maidenhead - an equally appalling 1930's middleclass comuter town - full of mock Tudor pretentions M4 - The Motorway (freeway) between London, Bristol and South Wales. Heathrow - The main Airport for London,just off the M4
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30 Aug 01 - 09:32 PM (#538613) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: iamjohnne |
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30 Aug 01 - 09:55 PM (#538627) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: toadfrog The Weavers recorded lots of hits, many of them folk songs (or like "Kisses Sweeter than Wine," derived from folk songs) in the early 1950's. Then The Weavers got blacklisted. Burl Ives was also around in the 1950's; he can't have been all that popular, for he never got blacklisted. I can recall his records, some of them by heart, but don't recall any of them being popular hits. And at the end of the 1950's, there was Harry Belafonte. "Jamaica Fairwell" had to be a hit. All the other groups mentioned, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary, and the like were denizens of the 60's. |
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30 Aug 01 - 11:35 PM (#538679) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Deckman I can give you the top 100 folk music hits of the fiftes, but then I'd date myself ... right! CHEERS Bob(deckman)Nelson |
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31 Aug 01 - 03:51 AM (#538772) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler A certain Mr Donegan was the most successful UK recording artist from the mid '50s until the Beatles came along (c1963?)but not all his hits were "folk". RtS (but I may have mentioned him before somewhere!) |
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31 Aug 01 - 08:30 AM (#538846) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Michael in Swansea What about The Springfields? The UK's answer to PP+M? Rememer their farewell performance on Sunday Night at the London Palladium, I was 11 it upset me. I liked them. Mike |
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31 Aug 01 - 10:08 AM (#538899) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Bob P I'd put "Times They Are Achangin' at the head of my list". Unsure about "top" and "hit", but certainly a signature piece of the times, and one which seems to have survived the folk process. Bob P |
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31 Aug 01 - 11:39 AM (#538974) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Marymac90 Toadfrog, thanks for pointing out the difference between 50's and 60's in the US "folk scene". I remember "Kisses Sweeter than Wine" and "The Auctioneer" were hits on the radio around 1955-58. I had various kids' recordings by Burl Ives, such as "Little White Duck". The reason often given for Burl Ives escaping the blacklist was that he supposedly talked to the HUAC, and named names. After the HUAC did their dirty work, artists like Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Woody Guthrie, etc, were blacklisted, and folk disappeared from the popular music scene for the rest of the decade. Then when the Kingston Trio and others came on the scene in the early 60's, it was termed the Folk REVIVAL. Marymac |
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31 Aug 01 - 01:04 PM (#539032) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: toadfrog Bob P. "Times they are . . ." was surely a hit, but it wasn't a folk song. And I doubt you can say a song has "survived the folk process," while the copyright is still in effect and people still sing it out of books. Again, Stephen Foster wrote a lot of signature pieces. And many of those survive. And nobody calls them folk songs. Why is Bob Dylan "folksier" than Stephen Foster? Because he struck folksy poses? |
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31 Aug 01 - 01:23 PM (#539048) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Ivan Let me see if I've got this right. The argument seems to go - A song isn't a folk song if some-one wrote it, it's published in a book or it's copyrighted. Sorry guys but I have some bad news for all of you. ALL songs were written by someone. Once a song is written it is automatically copyright of the author. Virtually every "traditional" song is published in a book somewhere. ERGO - ther is no such thing as a folk song! |
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31 Aug 01 - 07:16 PM (#539343) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Joe Offer In 1968, MacMillan published a hardcover Milt Okun book called Something to Sing About! The Personal Choices of America's Folk Singers. Same idea as Jean's book, but I think the singers Okun surveyed had bigger incomes. My copy is a "book club edition," so I guess that flooded the market, Jean. -Joe Offer- |
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01 Sep 01 - 03:31 PM (#539769) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie) Yes, I had a song in Milt's book, Joe, but didn't get rich from the royalties yet! |
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01 Sep 01 - 03:37 PM (#539771) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: wysiwyg Well all I know is, I feel quite lucky to have it. The more I learn, the more I feel that way. Thanks for your work on it, Jean, and for the additional information. ~S~ |
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01 Sep 01 - 03:42 PM (#539777) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: wysiwyg Related threads: Most significant Folkie of 20th Century? Who's the 'Best' folk singer you know? ~S~
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01 Sep 01 - 04:34 PM (#539803) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: iamjohnne I am awestruck. Jean Ritchie is here. I had at one time the Newport Festival Songbook, but like so many other things from my youth it has disappeared. I grew to love the music that Jean and all the others made, and I still love it today. Johnne "goin where the weather suits my clothes" |
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18 Dec 10 - 12:12 PM (#3056465) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: GUEST,Amos Does anyone know who sung a folk song about A British soldier in Ireland who threw himself on A handgrenade in a train station Vague I know but it was on a Yorkshire kind Of folk in th seventies |
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18 Dec 10 - 12:57 PM (#3056505) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: GUEST,regards the previous request Yes. It was written by Harvey Andrews, who has a website and answers emails! Put him into Google. Del Brimstone told me thst decades ago, he and Harvey were touring in Ulster, playing for the Forces, riding round in an armoured car. Harvey was horrified when Del poked his head out of it and yelled "Harvey Andrews who wrote "The Soldier" - he's in here!" Could have been tricky... Susie |
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18 Dec 10 - 02:27 PM (#3056580) Subject: RE: Top 20 Folk Songs From 50's & 60's From: Little Robyn If Jean is still watching this thread, her book made it to NZ and I still have a copy! Robyn |