Building on his 2006 book, Which Side Are You On?, Dick Weissman's A New History of American and Canadian Folk Music presents a provocative discussion of the history, evolution, and current status of folk music in the United States and Canada. North American folk music achieved a high level of popular acceptance in the late 1950s. When it was replaced by various forms of rock music, it became a more specialized musical niche, fragmenting into a proliferation of musical styles. In the pop-folk revival of the 1960s, artists were celebrated or rejected for popularizing the music to a mass audience. In particular the music seemed to embrace a quest for authenticity, which has led to endless explorations of what is or is not faithful to the original concept of traditional music. This book examines the history of folk music into the 21st century and how it evolved from an agrarian style as it became increasingly urbanized. Scholar-performer Dick Weissman, himself a veteran of the popularization wars, is uniquely qualified to examine the many controversies and musical evolutions of the music, including a detailed discussion of the quest for authenticity, and how various musicians, critics, and fans have defined that pursuit.

PrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroduction: A New Look at American and Canadian Folk Music1 From the Beginning: Folksong Collectors and Collections and Regional Music Styles in the United States and Canada2 Mass Distribution: Radio, Records and Pre-World War Two Artists3 Early Protest Music: The Industrial Workers of the World, the Coal Miners, the Cotton Mills and Communist and Socialist Agitators4 The Almanac Singers, People's Songs, People's Artists and the Blacklist5 The Weavers and the Beginning of the Folk Revival6 Meanwhile, Back in Canada7 Selling the Music: The New York Scene 8 Beyond the Big Apple: Coffeehouses, Folk Music Organizations and Folk Music Instrument Shops in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, the Pacific Northwest, San Francisco and Toronto9 The Riddle of Authenticity: The Civil Rights Movement and Folk Music 10 Folk-Rock and the British Invasion Decimate the Pop-Folk World: And Singer-Songwriters Move In11 How the Singer-Songwriters Evolved from the Pop-Folk Revival and the Women's Music Movement Emerged from the Feminist Movement12 North American Folk Festivals and Summer Teaching Camps13 Instrumental Music: Development and Expansion of Musical Possibilities the Folk Music Business14 What's Going On: Expansion, Contraction and Evolution15 Looking Back: An Evaluation of Four Major Figures in the Folk Revival16 Today and TomorrowNotesAppendixIndex