Folk Peacock

Josh Taerk – The history of folk music in English Canada

In Canada, the terms folklore and folk music were first used in the 19′th century. Why, how, who, where and when these terms were developed is an important aspect of how the music was seen in the 20th century. Gagnon and Barbeau, Mackenzie, Creighton and their contemporaries are the beginners of the Folk music in English Canada. An exploration of the first Canadian folk music collectors and their collections, philosophy, and methods focusing on the period between 1910-1930.

Golden Age of Canadian Folk Song:
The period of time between the early post-war years and the British Invasion of the early 60′s was uncommonly rich for folk music in Canada. The folklorists, the lefties, the CBC… Alan Mills, Edith Fowke, Ken Peacock, Ed McCurdy, NFLY, the UJPO Youth Singers, The Travellers, Folkways Canada,  40,000 people out for Robeson’s concert at the  Peace Arch, Bonnie Dobson, Karen James, the first coffee houses and folk clubs, Mariposa- it was a great decade and a half for folk music.

Country and Folk Music:
Before folk music was anything more than a category in the minds of a few academics, there was one popular music form that attempted to create an authentic Canadian music. From the 30′s through at least the 60′s a group of country music artists created a body of work with local, regional, and, to some degree, national content. Mac Beatty, Wilf Carter, Stompin’ Tom Connors and a score of others wrote a lost chapter in Canadian music before country meant Nashville.

Folk as Pop in 1958:
In 1958 The Kingston Trio stormed commercial radio with Tom Dooley and changed the rules of the folk music genre. Suddenly folk music was a pop music contender. The so called “revival” or folk “boom” coincided with the crisis of the Communist Party and the first wave of what became known as “youth culture” or “the 60′s”. New markets opened up for folk music in Canada, drawing in new artists and presenters and forcing folk music to come to terms with itself as a commodity.

Folk Music at the End of the Century and at the Beginning of New Millennium:
The last decade of the 20th century saw new features emerge in Canadian folk music and many old forms resurgent. As in earlier decades Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and Ewan MacColl had had a profound influence on Canadian artists, so Billy Bragg and Ani DiFranco inspired new approaches in the nineties. The grrrls, the punk folkies, Celtic stomp and other new variants entered the scene. The environmental movement and the anti-globalization campaigns provided inspiration for new political songwriting.  The growth of world music continued and accelerated. From the most hybrid and visionary to the most traditional, the music of scores of cultures is being performed.

The Atlantic Canadian invasion made Gaelic a living language on the folk scene. Celtic music was heard everywhere in the most diverse treatments. At the same time several generations of songwriters continue to perform and create. New technologies have made the music more available than ever. There are 300 web sites of Canadian folk musicians listed on the Northern Journey list. Never has there been more and more diverse folk music in Canada.   Never has there been a more clear distinction between those artists who use folk music to conjure up the ghost of a kinder and gentler past and those who are using the music to create a vibrant new culture outside the framework of the mainstream of the music industry. All the debates about the nature of folk music continue and every variant that has existed under the name folk during the last hundred years remains a living part of the mix.

Today folk music is pervasive, eclectic, and inclusive. Ambiguous, contradictory, and plain indefinable, folk music in English Canada continues to grow.

About the Author

I am a singer/songwriter that plays acoustic guitar, and occasionally play with electric guitar players.I have produced my first album to be released shortly called Never Look Back.

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