Troubadours – Guide to British folk-rock with profiles and related links, with special emphasis to the artists connected with the group Fairport Convention.
- Chung, Andy – Singer/songwriter who plays mostly in Scotland and the north of England. Includes some music samples and a gig guide, along with a biography and photos.
- Loscoe State Opera – Profiles of band members, gig listing, photos and audio samples.
- Troubadours – Guide to British folk-rock with profiles and related links, with special emphasis to the artists connected with the group Fairport Convention.
- The Weary Band and Valley Forge – Bristol-based folk-rock band. Includes music downloads, latest news, videos, audio tracks, and gig dates.
- Incredible String Band Mailing List – Includes pictures, lyrics, audio samples, and links to other ISB resources.
- Incredible String Band Resources – Includes biographical timelines for the band members, and album information.
- Incredible String Band, The – A collection of image scans from their album covers.
- Making Time- Incredible String Band – Includes a biography, discography, photographs, and album reviews.
- Dirty Linen – In Celebration of Celtic Roots – An article focusing on the career of band member Robin Williamson
The Great Folk Scare – Dedicated to the folk and protest singers from the late 1950s through early 1960s.
Folk-rock is a musical genre, combining elements of folk music and rock music.
In the original and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and Canada around the mid-1960s. The sound was epitomized by tight vocal harmonies and a relatively «clean» (effects- and distortion-free) approach to electric instruments epitomized by the jangly sound of the Byrds’ guitarist Roger McGuinn. The repertoire was drawn in part from folk sources, but even more from folk-influenced singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan.
This original folk-rock directly led to the distinct, eclectic style of British folk-rock (a.k.a. electric folk) pioneered in the late 1960s by Pentangle and Fairport Convention(Richard Thompson). Starting from a North-American style folk-rock, Pentangle, Fairport and other related bands deliberately incorporated elements of traditional British folk music. Very shortly afterwards, Fairport bassist Ashley Hutchings formed Steeleye Span in collaboration with traditionalist British folk musicians who wished to incorporate electrical amplification, and later overt rock elements, into their music.
This, in turn, spawned several other variants: the self-consciously English folk rock of the Albion Band and some of Ronnie Lane’s solo work, and the more prolific current of Celtic rock, incorporating traditional music of Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, and Brittany. Through at least the first half of the 1970s, Celtic rock held close to folk roots, with its repertoire drawing heavily on traditional Celtic fiddle and harp tunes and even traditional vocal styles, but making use of rock-band levels of amplification and percussion.
In a broader sense, folk-rock includes later similarly-inspired musical genres and movements in the English-speaking world (and its Celtic fringes) and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in Europe. As with any genre, the borders are difficult to define. Folk-rock may lean more toward folk or toward rock in its instrumentation, its playing and vocal style, or its choice of material; while the original genre draws on the music of North American English-speaking whites, there is no clear delineation of which folk cultures music might be included as influences. Still, the term is not usually applied to rock music rooted in the blues-based or other African American music (except as mediated through folk revivalists), nor to rock music with Cajun roots, nor to music (especially after about 1980) with non-European folk roots, which is more typically classified as world music.
Folk-rock arose mainly from the confluence of three elements: urban/collegiate folk vocal groups, singer-songwriters, and the revival of North American rock and roll after the British Invasion. Of these, the first two owed direct debts to Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and the Popular Front culture of the 1930s.
The first of the urban folk vocal groups was the Almanac Singers, whose shifting membership during the late 1930s and early 1940s included Guthrie and Seeger and Lee Hayes. In 1947 Seeger and Hayes joined Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman to form the Weavers, who popularized the genre and had a major hit with a cleaned-up cover of Leadbelly’s «Irene», but fell afoul of the U.S. Red Scare of the early 1950s. Their sound, and their broad repertoire of traditional folk material and topical songs inspired other groups such as the Kingston Trio (founded 1957), the Chad Mitchell Trio, and the (usually less political) «collegiate folk» groups such as The Brothers Four, The Four Freshmen, The Four Preps, and The Highwaymen. All featured tight vocal harmonies and a repertoire at least initially rooted in folk music and (in some cases) topical songs.
When the term singer-songwriter was coined in the mid-1960s, it was applied retroactively to Bob Dylan and other (mainly New York-based) folk-rooted songwriters. Scottish songster Donovan also fit this mold. Dylan’s material would provide much of the original grist for the folk-rock mill, not only in the U.S. but in the UK as well.
None of this would likely ever have intersected with rock music, though, if it had not been for the impulse of the British Invasion. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and numerous other British bands reintroduced to America the broad potential of rock and roll as a creative medium. One of the first bands to craft a distinctly American sound in response was the Beach Boys; while not a folk-rock band themselves, they directly influenced the genre, and at the height of the folk-rock boom in 1966 had a hit with a cover of the 1920s West Indian folk song «Sloop John B», which had entered the North American mainstream via the Weavers.
However, there are a few antecedents to folk-rock in pre-British Invasion American rock; one could cite some of the later recordings of Buddy Holly, which highly influenced artists like Dylan and the Byrds, and to some extent some recordings by country-influenced performers like The Everly Brothers. This was not a recognized trend at the time, and probably would have not been noticed if not for subsequent events.
In the United States the heyday of folk-rock is likely between the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies, aligning itself approximately with the hippie movement. Arising originally from the folk-influenced music of Bob Dylan and earlier musicians, the folk revivalist vocal combo, and the rock music of the British Invasion, it later incorporated elements of country music, drawing on Hank Williams and others.
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