Which Side Are You On?: An Inside History of the Folk Music Revival in America

by Dick Weissman

Book Overview

In 1932 Florence Reece, the wife of a Kentucky coal miner, wrote one of the classic topical songs preserved in the folk musical revival. The song, "Which Side Are You On?," contrasts the lot of the working class and the bosses, and asks the listener to choose. This politically charged song was performed again during the Civil Rights Movement, with its lyrics appropriate to the 1960s. It was recorded more recently by Billy Bragg. Indeed, the story...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826416985
• ISBN13: 9780826416988
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Continuum
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Not to be missed by any serious about American popular music history

Dick Weissman worked with the Journeymen and here uses a popular song from the 1930s to fuel chapters discussing the history and culture of American folk music from Joan Baez to Ani DiFanco, Peter Paul and Mary and more. Here are discussions of all the top names in American folk, written with authority because author Weissman is more than a historian here - he was a participant in the folk movement of the times, and adds persona anecdotes about the folk music business and its artists. From pop artists to the re-emergence of female blues singers, Which Side Are You On? An Inside History Of The Folk Music Revival In America is not to be missed by any serious about American popular music history.

A Five-Star Insider's Look At the Folksong Revival

What exactly was the folk song craze? How did it happen? Who was involved? What is its legacy today? Dick Weissman, a five-string banjo virtuoso formerly of the folk group The Journeymen, is perhaps the first to tackle this complex subject in depth. He takes a hard look at a wide range of topics with sharp observation, unsentimental analysis, and occasional wit. Weissman, who partly in self-defense has made himself an authority on the music business, uses that insight to get under the skin of folk entertainers like the Weavers, the Kingston Trio and the many lesser-knowns who, in the early 1950s, put together the folk craze. He goes on to take a look at developments as diverse as skiffle amd blugrass, electric folk and fusion. But he begins much further back: in the late 19th (Francis James Child and the ballads) and early 20th century with Cecil Sharp, the Lomaxes, and the other folk collectors -- including the lesser-known Lawrence Gellert, who pioneered in collecting songs that got even closer to the black experience. He takes us through the Golden Age recordings of early country music and blues, and early protest music, including People's Artists, and how they influenced what we all thought folk music was. From there he traces the route to 1949 and the breakout of the Weavers - culminating in the blacklisting that shut down some folk entertainers including Pete Seeger along with a number of Hollywood's finest. "Which Side Are You On" takes in a very broad sweep that makes most other books on the subject look narrow. This is probably the first book ever to put side by side in the same context people as disparate as Alan Lomax, Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Johnson, Bill Monroe, cowboy singers and poets, Ewan MacColl, Peter, Paul and Mary, Doc Watson, Laura Nyro, The Band, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Tom Waits, New Age music, newgrass, John Fahey, Eliza Gilkyson, Bruce Springsteen, Nanci Griffith, Paul Simon, Sheryl Crow, Jewel, and 21st century folk pop -- not to mention parallel developments in ethnic music such as Cajun, Zydeco, Canadian, Celtic, Hispanic, American Indian, Hawaiian, children's music (who else covers Raffi?) and more. That makes this book unique in my estimation. Most writers on folk music carve themselves out a stylistic niche - traditional songs, bluesmen, country musicians, folk-rockers -- and stay within it. Weissman takes the opposite approach, showing how widely folksong has been impacted by developments in popular, ethnic, rock and other forms of music, and how its ways of thinking and performing have been changed by them. The result is a first chance to see the folk scene as a grand parade leading onward into the future, triumphs, foibles and all. The "folk superstars" are here: Leadbelly. Woody Guthrie. Odetta. Dylan. Phil Ochs. Peter, Paul and Mary. Simon and Garfunkel. Joan Baez. Judy Collins. Joni Mitchell. So are many names that will be new to nearly every reader, with fascinating sto