Hi Folkies!

 

I'm a retired high school teacher (now teaching at a community college) in the western suburbs of Chicago.  Music, especially folk music, is one of my avocations.  I play guitar, but not well enough to call myself a guitar player.

 

With a few exceptions, I prefer interpretations of traditional songs more than singer-songwriter material.  I really like what Grisman and Garcia did with their Grateful Dawg collaboration.

 

Now my question: my daughter is studying at Belmont University in Nashville.  She is working on a project dealing with Christianity in 1960s's protest songs, and I have been trying to help her.  One of the issues she is trying to resolve is what exactly is a protest song, but (and here's probably the question) I am wondering how much into the mainstream were folkie protest songs in the '60s? Does anyone know a resource I can direct my daughter to so she can investigate? (I tried the Billboard site without much success).

 

Besides flushing my memory (I am a Certified Senior), I started looking on Amazon at 'greatest folk songs' compilations.  I have been struck by how many artists are included whom I would not consider folk: Trini Lopez and Cher come immediately to mind, but also Bobby Darin, the Youngbloods, the Turtles, George Hamilton IV, among others. Do any of you feel that a lot of the mainstream material at this time was quasi-folk?  (If you remember listening to AM radio at a time when Frank Sinatra was as likely to be followed by the Rolling Stones as he was by Barbara Streisand, you're part of my era.)

 

I've also noticed that Janis Ian and "Society's Child" is absent from every list.  In the summer of either '67 or '68, Leonard Bernstein was part of a television special which focused on the "rock" that was being produced and (what he thought) was its musical merits.  I remember "Society's Child" receiving special attention and lavish praise.  Wouldn't "Society's Child" be as 'folky' as, say, "England Swings" by Roger Miller or "Red Rubber Ball" by The Cyrkle (to grab two tunes from a compilation)?

 

I really look forward to being in this group, and I hope some of you think by question has enough merit to deserve your response.

 

"Uncle" John in Glen Ellyn