***Once Again On The 1960s Folk Minute-Festival –The Story of The Newport Folk Festivals, 1963-66

 

 

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

Festival, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and virtually every musician who was touched by that 1960s, folk minute, 2006 

 

There is no question that the search for roots that drove a lot of the early 1960s folk minute (obviously it was more than a minute but not by much as it got squeezed in between the classic Elvis/Chuck/Bo/Jerry Lee rock and roll of the 1950s and the subsequent Beatles/Stones British invasion/Jefferson Airplane/Dead acid rock drown out) that drove a lot of us to seek out that kind of music had a receptive audience among my generation, the generation of ’68 as I like to call it. Exploring the music not of ours parents well-known from around the house and a feature of Saturday night radio listening, or of insipid Tin Pan Alley tunes once the music died, the classic rock and roll music of the mid 1950s in the late 1950s but from the American mountains, from traditional Child-like ballads, from the Jehovah black and white Pentecostal churches, from the blues-ridden south (and the later equally-blues-ridden north industrial cities).

Yes, we drank deeply from those new sounds to our ears, as some of us became amateur singers and musicians (if only to impress some young man or woman who might look our way if we knew three chords and could sing not too far off key) and frequented the coffeehouses and other venues that sprang up to feed our new-found passion. And while there were others, each summer for a few years we would go like lemmings to the sea to Newport, Rhode Island for the annual “max daddy” folk festival which is the subject of the documentary under review, Festival.

The beauty of the Newport Folk Festival then, from the period covered by the documentary, 1963-1966 (or now for that matter since after a fairly long hiatus the event has been revived), was that you could find, depending on your schedule every kind of non-popular music or other expression from blues to zydeco. The beauty of this documentary is that it takes many, many performances from those years and lets the music drive the thing with only an occasional “talking head” telling us what it meant. And for the one hour and one half of the film we are basically transported back to a time when young people (mostly) were willing to sleep in every nook and cranny in order to survive that weekend of music, to make music in the workshops, and to provide the audience for the “name” musicians on the main stage.            

Of course any mention of the folk minute of the early 1960s requires some homage to the crowned king and queen of the folk scene then, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. And as main-line head-liners they got a fair share of the film but along the way there are snippets and full performances by virtually all the heavy-hitters of the times, performers like ancient Pete Seeger, Odetta, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Donovan, Judy Collins, Richard and Mimi Farina, you name it. But also blues legends, John Hurt, Son House, Howling Wolf; mountain music’s Hobart Smith, Cousin Emmy and others; clap-dancers; drum and fifers (who really worked up a sweat); Johnny Cash and various groups formed around the freedom struggle for black civil rights struggle down South that was intimately linked to the folk scene. Great stuff. Sadly many of those performers, especially those who were a little older have passed on and their passing kind of added a solemn tinge to viewing this piece of musical history. Watch this one.