Folk Music

Folk music is the traditional music of an are. Generally folk music is considered to be a less professional, simpler form of music produced by the people of an area. Folk music is usually not a very commercially viable product, but more of an expression of everyday life. Folk music in various countries has had its ups and downs. Sometimes folk music is all but forgotten. In the rush of modern life, folk music has trouble competing for the attention of the mass public when they are constantly being bombarded with an ever new array of glitzy entertainment alternatives.

The very essence of folk music is its lack of glitz. Folk music is simple and real and that just usually doesn't sell as well as more tightly manufactured and marketed forms of entertainment. Rarely has folk music found any commercial success so the public's exposure to it is minimal outside of the creators of folk music and their small communities. Big record companies with promotional dollars are generally not hawking folk music on the airways. DJs are not spinning the hottest new releases from the big folk music acts. Not usually, anyway.

In the 1960's America, American folk music had a big resurgence. Acts came out of the folk music scene and crossed over to big rock and roll success. And folk music actually got played on the radio and folk music concerts were held and promoted. Folk music found some commercial success, but mostly as a springboard for someone's career in rock and roll. But for a few contemplative moments, the messages in folk music about life, love and self were heard throughout America and some, throughout the world.

Most of the popular folk music was the newer folk music and a lot had a political bent to it. Folk music was able to do what folk music has always done so well and that is to express the mood of the people. And the folk music of the time was saying that people were restless and wary of their government. But, of course, the heat gets bled out of folk music when it becomes a mass media product so when folk music made something of a breakthrough into mass consciousness, folk music also began, at least that folk music and those folk music performers, to lose relevancy and power.

Folk music must remain a creation of the people. Folk music cannot survive as a mass media product. If folk music is cleaned up and prettied up, it ceases to be folk music because it is no longer an expression of the people. When folk music becomes just another genre with products aimed at the people for consumption, it loses its validity

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