Folk music so white? The diversity of folk music

While browsing through reddit I came across a news story in r/unitedkingdom and the headline read “‘White-centricity’ of folk music investigated in £1.5m academic study”. As someone whose entire blog and writing career has been about studying the diversity of the people who make music of the classic rock era: the 50s to the 80s, that headline piqued my interest. I can study that for way cheaper and a lot quicker. Even though I’m not a big folkie, I have been listening to a lot more folk music than I have before and I want to talk about the diversity of folk music and this is beyond black and white. I want to talk about musicians from all ethnicities, sexualities, genders, and abilities. Get ready for this article where I respond to this article and I share some folk musicians from various walks of life that you can listen to.

Analysing the article

The Telegraph is a right wing newspaper. Many people in the UK call them the Torygraph. So keep that in mind as you’re reading the article and think about how it’s being framed and you can see this bias in the first few lines where they talk about £1.5 million of taxpayer money going towards research on how the demographics of British folk music and the aim is to increase diversity in folk music and break down the barriers that keep non-white/mixed people from getting into folk music. A perfectly noble goal. Realistically, I’m guessing there are going to be a lot of interviews conducted and many hours of research into this topic. Of course, the bulk of that funding is going to go into people’s salaries since this isn’t like science where you have to buy all sorts of equipment to do experiments and studies. Academics gotta eat and pay the bills! My husband is an academic and I think he deserves to be well paid and so do other academics. They get a lot of education and do valuable work, so they deserve proper remuneration. If nothing else, they’re more valuable than landlords and Wall Street guys.

A lot of the article is just a lot of typical conservative culture war talking points, rage bait really. Personally I’m not a fan of identity politics and I think that money could been more productive elsewhere, but at the same time there is a set amount of money earmarked for research and the humanities is an important field, even if it’s not the most employable one. Studying history, literature, and the arts is a good thing and isn’t entirely useless. You’re learning something. Whether or not this study should be publicly funded, well, that’s up for debate! The problem here is that your average journalist or newspaper editor isn’t going to know a lot about academia (I don’t expect them to!) and they’re not going to have the most informed opinion on the topic. Anyone can have an opinion on anything, but whether or not it’s an informed one is another discussion.

It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that most UK folk musicians, especially in the old days, are white. The demographics of the UK have changed a lot over time. England is the most diverse with 19% of the population being non-white or mixed, Scotland is about 7% non-white or mixed, and Wales is about 6% non-white or mixed. Big cities in England are very diverse, but elsewhere, especially in small towns is a different story. But yes, in the 60s when folk music was really popular, the UK’s demographics then were much whiter. I tried to find exact demographics for folk’s heyday, but the census in the 60s was very different from today’s census and the oldest ethnicity demographics I could find dates to 1981 with the findings being the population of the UK is 96% white and the number was even higher in the 60s with it being 99% white in 1961 and 97.5% white in 1971. They didn’t classify people by ethnicity like they do now. Instead you were classified as being born in the Old Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, and New Zealand), New Commonwealth (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Caribbean), or African Commonwealth. But that’s just your birthplace, not your ethnicity. For example, there are white people born in South Africa and Indians born in Kenya. The British Empire is huge and there was a lot of movement of people within it. By the 70s, the method changed to appearance and you were classified as white or “coloured” (outdated language, but that’s what it was called in those days) and it was guesswork based on the parents’ appearances. Another majorly flawed system. Appearance doesn’t tell the entire story and you can see this in some of the musicians I’ll be talking about in this blog post.

The more important questions to ask are how many non-white or mixed people have an interest in folk music? Of those who have an interest in it, how many are musicians and want to play that style of music? That would be a smaller number. I don’t want to force people to like a type of music. It’s got to be organic. And I have to agree with the music professor Fay Hield’s quote at the end of the article:

“The term decolonisation is often misinterpreted. Our research highlights the different under-recognised communities who have helped to establish cultural life in England. Folk music is a constantly evolving genre, which has taken influences from a diverse range of people over centuries. It is part of the UK’s cultural heritage and should be celebrated. Our aim is to break down the barriers for people to get involved in folk music. Opening up the genre to different audiences will help to sustain the nation’s folk music for decades to come.”

Like one Reddit commenter said, it’s really about getting immigrants into local culture and integrating them. I’m American and I love seeing immigrants getting involved in Fourth of July and Thanksgiving celebrations. When I was living in Ireland, plenty of immigrant groups and international students would march in the St Patrick’s Day Parade (I did!). So yes, I think it’s a great thing to see immigrants get into British culture, learning about it and even participating in it.

Obviously, I’ll leave the complicated research to the researchers at the University of Sheffield, but I’ll do what I can do and that’s talking about folk musicians from all walks of life. I think it’s important to think beyond ethnicity and that’s why I’ve included sections on disabled and LGBT folk musicians. Some of the biggest names in folk music are/were disabled. And as you can expect in the arts, there is important LGBT history and these stories need to be told.

In each section, I’ll talk a little bit about the musician and give you some song or album recommendations. If I kept this list purely British, it would be very short, so I’ll share folk musicians from as far away as New Zealand, Canada, and the US. British folk music was one of many influences on American folk music alongside African-American and Continental European influences. Folk music is a relative term and every country has folk music. For our purposes we’re talking about music in the English language.

Asian Folk Musicians

John Hanlon: The Donovan of New Zealand, he was quite popular in his home country in the 70s and he became a pop star by accident. I actually interviewed him on my blog and it’s one of the interviews I’m most proud of. He is of Chinese, Irish, and Swedish descent. I’d recommend his songs “Damn the Dam” and “Lovely Lady”

Larry Ramos: Before he was in The Association, he was in The New Christy Minstrels, a folk music group founded by Randy Sparks in 1961. He was born in Hawaii to a family of Filipino, Spanish, and Chinese descent. As part of The New Christy Minstrels, he was the first Asian American to win a Grammy. The New Christy Minstrels’ debut album Presenting the New Christy Minstrels won the Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Chorus in 1963. I liked their version of “This Land is Your Land”, “The Cotton Pickers’ Song”, and “That Big Rock Candy Mountain”.

Norma Tanega: Folk singer-songwriter of Filipina and Panamanian descent. She grew up in California and moved to New York City after backpacking in Europe to pursue a career as a folk musician and be part of the anti-war movement. She was best known for the songs “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog” and “You’re Dead”. The former was a top 40 hit and she performed it on American Bandstand and Where The Action Is. She also performed on the British rock music show Ready Steady Go and that’s where she met Dusty Springfield. The two dated in the 60s, but sadly their relationship was turbulent.

Black Folk Musicians

Davey Graham: This influential folk musician was born in England to a Scottish father and a Guyanese mother. He was a big influence to Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Martin Carthy, John Martyn, Paul Simon, and Jimmy Page. He is best known for the guitar instrumental “Anji” also spelled as “Angie”, famously covered by Simon & Garfunkel and Bert Jansch. Another great instrumental is “Fingerbuster”, I love how it pre-dates raga rock and psychedelia by a good 2-3 years. His guitar playing was also Moroccan inspired and you can hear this in songs like “The Fakir” and “Maajun”.

Elizabeth Cotten: Folk and blues musician who was a self-taught left-handed guitarist. She was born in 1893 and died in 1987, living 94 years! Long before Jimi Hendrix, she played a right handed guitar upside down. She worked as a domestic worker as a child and saved her wages to buy a guitar. Her best known song is “Freight Train”. She was Peggy Seeger’s nanny and through that connection Peggy Seeger brought the song with her to England and popularised it there. Scottish skiffle musicians Chas McDevitt covered it and this version was on the soundtrack of the Wes Anderson film Asteroid City.

Harry Belafonte: Singer and actor that needs no introduction. He was born in New York to Jamaican parents. While he’s best known for his calypso songs “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” and “Jump in the Line (Shake Señora)”, he also recorded music in other genres like blues, folk, gospel, and show tunes. His 1954 debut was actually a folk album called Mark Twain and Other Folk Favourites. He also covered folk songs like “Danny Boy”, “Oh Shenandoah”, “Black Betty”, and “This Land Is Your Land”.

Joan Armatrading: St Kitts & Nevis born singer raised in Birmingham. She is a self-taught guitarist and started writing poems and setting them to music as a teenager. She released her debut album in 1972, but was most popular in the 80s. One of her best known songs is “Love and Affection”, her first top 10 hit, released in 1976.

Labi Siffre: British singer of Barbadian and Nigerian descent. You may not know his music, but if you’re a fan of Eminem, you’ll recognise that bassline from “I Got The…” is sampled on “My Name Is”. His more folk sounding “My Song” was sampled by Kanye West on his song “I Wonder”. I also recommend his songs “Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying” and “It Must Be Love”.

Lead Belly: Folk and blues singer and guitarist famous for his abilities on the 12-string guitar. His best known songs are “In The Pines” (covered by beat group The Four Pennies in 1964 as “Black Girl”), “Goodnight, Irene” (covered by The Weavers), “Midnight Special” (CCR covered it), “Cotton Fields”, and “Boll Weevil” (covered by Eddie Cochran). Jimmy Page covered “Cotton Fields” with a skiffle group in the 50s on Huw Wheldon’s programme All Your Own. CCR and The Beach Boys covered it too. Lead Belly also popularised the term “stay woke” in his song “Scottsboro Boys”.

Odetta: Best known as “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement”, she was a big influence to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. were big fans of her music. She was one of the musicians who performed at the March On Washington in 1963. Personally one of my favourite performances of hers is her version of Elton John’s “Take Me To The Pilot” and her version of “Gallows Pole” (I like this one better than Led Zeppelin’s version and I’m a huge Led Zeppelin fan).

Richie Havens: The first musician to perform at Woodstock, my introduction to his music was through Yes’ version of “No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed” – his first single released in 1967. In his 20s he spent time in Greenwich Village and got into the folk scene there. His biggest hit was a cover of The Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun” in 1971. Earlier, he covered “Rocky Raccoon” and “Lady Madonna”. Another favourite of mine is the song “Freedom”, which he performed at Woodstock.

Tracy Chapman: Best known for the 1988 lesbian anthem “Fast Car”, basically the lesbian answer to Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy”. While studying anthropology at Tufts University she was discovered by fellow student Brian Koppelman, who introduced her to his father, who was a music producer.

Hispanic Folk Musicians

Joan Baez: Singer-songwriter and activist. She is half British, half Mexican. One of the most famous folk musicians of the 60s. She is best known for her original song “Diamonds & Rust”, her cover of Phil Ochs’ “There But For Fortune”, and her cover of The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. She also performed at Woodstock. A few of her biggest influences are Pete Seeger, Odetta, and Bob Gibson.

Richard and Mimi Fariña: Mimi Fariña was Joan Baez’s sister and she was married to fellow folk singer Richard Fariña. Richard Fariña was half Irish, half Cuban of Galician descent. While in Greenwich Village he befriended Bob Dylan. He met Mimi in Europe and they got married in Paris. The two recorded influential folk albums in the 60s like Celebrations for a Grey Day, Reflections in a Crystal Wind, and Memories.

Norma Tanega: Norma Tanega was of Panamanian descent. See above for more information on her.

Native American Folk Musicians

Gene Clark: Member of The New Christy Minstrels and The Byrds. He was born into a big family in Missouri, the third of 13 children! His family are of Irish, German, and Native American descent. He got into folk music through The Kingston Trio. While performing with The Surf Riders, the New Christy Minstrels discovered him and invited him to join the band. He was a member from 1963-1964 and played on two of their albums. Inspired by The Beatles, he left them, moved to LA, and joined The Byrds. His best known song with them was “Eight Miles High”. He left The Byrds and went solo. My favourite solo song of his is “Elevator Operator”, a great stoner song.

John Trudell: Activist, poet, and author. He was involved in the 1969 Occupation of Alcatraz and in the 70s he was the chairman of the American Indian Movement. In the 80s he recorded his first album Tribal Voice. He collaborated a lot with Native American guitarist Jesse Ed Davis during that time. His best known album AKA Grafitti Man was originally recorded in 1986 with Jesse Ed Davis producing it. Bob Dylan called that album the best album of the year.

Karen Dalton: While she was mostly a country blues singer, she was involved in the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 60s, playing on stage with Bob Dylan, Fred Neil, Richard Tucker, and Tim Hardin. She only recorded two albums: It’s So Hard to Tell Who’s Going to Love You The Best in 1969 and In My Own Time in 1971. She didn’t have any commercial success at the time, but after the fact people have discovered here music and have fallen in love with it. She was of Native American descent on her father’s side.

Richie Havens: Richie Havens was Blackfoot on his father’s side. See above for more information on him.

Robbie Robertson: Guitarist and one of the vocalists of The Band. They started off as Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band in Canada before moving onto being Bob Dylan’s backing band and then recording albums of their own. He wrote their hits “The Weight”, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, and “Up On Cripple Creek”. He also did a lot of work with Martin Scorsese, working on his movie soundtracks.

Disabled Folk Musicians

Donovan: This Scottish born folk musician is often compared to Bob Dylan (“Catch The Wind” is very Dylanesque) and is very much loved in the classic rock world and is known for his music style that combines folk and psychedelia. Everyone knows his songs “Mellow Yellow”, “Sunshine Superman”, and “Atlantis”. As a child he contracted polio and he was left with a limp and one leg being longer than the other.

Jackson C. Frank: An overlooked folk musician best known for his song “Blues Run The Game”. That song was produced by Paul Simon. With a big name like that, you’d think that it would have been a hit, but it wasn’t. However, it was later covered by musicians like Simon & Garfunkel, Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, John Renbourn, and Bert Jansch. Jackson C. Frank suffered from burns to over 50% of his body when a furnace exploded at his school. As a result of the burns, his parathyroid glands were damaged and calcium would build up inside his body resulting in joint pain and bad posture. Later in life, he was shot in the eye with a pellet gun and went blind in his left eye.

John Martyn: This half Scottish half Jewish folk musician was well known for his fingerstyle guitar skills and use of delay and echo effects. If I had to recommend where to start with his music, I’d say the best choice is his 1973 album Solid Air. a very underrated album. I love the guitar effects on “Dreams By The Sea”. From that same album, one of his best known songs is “May You Never”. If you want to hear the Scottish side of him, I’d recommend the song “The Message”, with some of the lyrics coming from the Scottish folk song “Mairi’s Wedding”. He became disabled later in life when his right leg was amputated below the knee.

Joni Mitchell: One of the most famous and influential folk musicians, she was born in Canada and became part of the Laurel Canyon scene. As a child, she contracted polio and had to spend weeks in hospital. She is a self-taught guitarist and because polio had weakened her left hand, she had to get creative and come up with alternative tunings. Jazz was a big influence on her music and one of her favourite musicians is Miles Davis. She later developed the skin condition Morgellons. Her best known songs are “Both Sides Now”, “Big Yellow Taxi”, “Carey”, “California”, and “Help Me”. I personally love her albums Ladies of the Canyon, Blue, Court and Spark, and Hejira.

Neil Young: Another extremely famous folk musician, he’s easily one of the biggest names in classic rock, well known for his solo work as well as his work in Buffalo Springfield and the legendary supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. He was born in Canada and spent most of his childhood there, bar a short time in Florida as a child to help him recover from polio. He contracted polio at a very young age during the last major outbreak of the disease in Ontario in 1951. His biggest early influences were 50s rock and roll, instrumental rock bands like The Shadows, R&B, and country music. While still in Canada, he was in a band called The Mynah Birds and after they had broken up, Neil Young and bassist Bruce Palmer drove to Los Angeles to meet Stephen Stills. They came in as tourists and overstayed their visas. Bruce Palmer ended up being deported after getting arrested too many times, but Neil Young got a green card in 1970 thanks to his fame. His most famous songs are “Ohio”, “Heart of Gold”, and “Old Man”. I really like his song “Cinnamon Girl” which was covered by John Entwistle in the early 70s.

LGBT Folk Musicians

For more information on LGBT classic rock musicians, read this blog post I wrote back in 2015 and have updated a bunch of times since then.

Art Garfunkel: One half of Simon & Garfunkel, as you may already know. The two formed a musical duo as secondary school students and almost broke up but when “The Sound of Silence” became a hit in late 1965 and early 1966, they got back together again and recorded for a few more years, getting a bunch of hits like “Homeward Bound”, “I Am A Rock”, “A Hazy Shade of Winter”, “Mrs Robinson”, “The Boxer”, and “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. Art Garfunkel came out as bisexual in his autobiography What is it All But Luminous: Notes From An Underground Man.

Janis Ian: Singer best known for the songs “Society’s Child” – a song about interracial relationships she wrote as a teenager and “At Seventeen”, a song about teenage cruelty. She was born into a liberal Jewish atheist family in New Jersey and her biggest musical influences are Joan Baez and Odetta. She was born Janis Fink but changed her last name to Ian in honour of her brother Eric’s middle name. She came out as lesbian in 1993.

Joan Armatrading: Joan Armatrading is lesbian, see above for more information on her.

Joan Baez: Joan Baez is bisexual, see above for more information on her.

Judee Sill: Underrated folk singer who didn’t get much success. She had a beautiful voice. Some people say her voice is like if Karen Carpenter were a folk musician (that’s a compliment!). A lot of her lyrics are Christian themed as you might be able to tell from the titles. Growing up she was a bit of a troublemaker, but when she went to reform school after committing armed robberies, she got into gospel music. For much of her life she struggled with drug addiction. She got a break into the music industry after meeting Graham Nash and David Crosby and touring with them as their opening act, but even with big names behind her, she didn’t get commercial success. My favourite songs of hers are “Crayon Angels” and “Jesus Was a Cross Maker”.

Labi Siffre: Labi Siffre is gay, see above for more information on him.

Marc Bolan: You might be wondering why he’s included here because he is mostly associated with glam rock, but before his hit “Get It On” he had a folk era and before that he had psychedelic and mod eras. Prior to T. Rex, he was in a similarly named musical duo called Tyrannosaurus Rex that made music in a psychedelic folk style, kind of like Donovan. Two of my favourite songs from this era are “Cat Black”, “Debora”, and “By The Light of a Magical Moon”. Marc Bolan came out as bisexual in the 70s.

Norma Tanega: Norma Tanega was lesbian, see above for more information on her.

Tracy Chapman: Tracy Chapman is lesbian, see above for more information on her.

So that’s my little list here. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below and if I’m missing anyone let me know!

Until next time!

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