Folk Rock – Blues As the New Popular Form Folk music, also known as folk-blues
Folk rock,
Folk music is a genre of traditional popular music originally derived from the folk songs of rural folk tribes throughout the Great Plains, the Mississippi Delta, and elsewhere. Because the American folk song revival gathered pace in the 1950’s and ’60s, though, it only came natural that a new genre that prized the pureness of its acoustic guitar work and its separation from commercial popular music would eventually take hold. Its heyday wasn’t until the arrival of such musical greats as Joni Mitchell,
Stanley Myers, and the Dixie Chicks.
But as it did, Folk music rock fizzled out, perhaps because the musical styles of these early performers were too much of a departure from traditional folk music to attract the audience the same way folk rock did.
Today, folk rock is back
Today, folk rock is back, but not just yet. In this new revival, there is a renewed interest in acoustic guitar work, more in line with the early music of the Great Plains folk-bands. But more importantly, folk rock retains its place as a central element in the emerging folk revival. Folk music has always had a strong kinship with the blues. The two styles are, in fact, one and the same. The acoustic guitar is the main ingredient in folk songs, especially those written for rock and roll and folk groups like the Bluegrass Revival. The blues evolved from an acoustic- based music style and was eventually adapted by gospel and blues musicians. So even though the two styles may seem to share very little in common, they share a common musical ancestry with folk songs.
Blues music
Blues music has, of course, always been in vogue. It was the popular music style of the South from the early days of slavery up through Reconstruction. Many historians agree that the blues came to America in the late 19th century as a result of the influx of freed slaves into the Deep South. Although the migration to the north helped to spread the blues to other parts of the country, it wasn’t until after the end of the Jim Crow era in the late 1940s that the blues reached its zenith. and began to be popular as a major export. To this day, many of the blues songs that you hear on radio stations around the world are actually made using a guitar effect pedal, the same as the ones that are used in today’s folk songs. And like today’s popular songs, blues tunes were written over time to be flexible enough to fit in with a variety of styles.
Blues music is a beautiful genre
A beautiful genre, because it allows for experimentation with time. If you listen to it today and listen to it a half a century ago, you’ll find that the style of the songs and the harmonies are different from one to the next. That is, in some cases, because the style was evolving as the songwriter’s voice changed and the music changed over the years.
IT Tries To Break Them.
The key to the success of today’s blues music is that it doesn’t try to conform to the standard rules of the genre as much as it tries to break them. Because it is a free form of expression and because it does not attempt to conform to any particular form of popular music, it does not need to have its sound to follow a certain pattern. As a result, the music of blues is one of the few genres of music where the changes in style
