[HANASHIR:14588] 60s Folk Music

[Jeff Klepper <jeffklepper...>]

Friends,

I was thinking of the precious Shabbat we spent with Theo Bikel at Hava
Nashira, and the coincidental release of the film "A Mighty Wind". If any
single person made Folk Music a household word, Theo would be a candidate
for sure.  

The best book I've read about that era is When We Were Good by Robert
Cantwell. His story revolves mostly around the Kingston Trio and the
Weavers/Pete Seeger.  But there is much more that still needs to be said
about the legacy of folk music, not the least being the influence of Jews:
Bikel, Dylan, Yarrow, Phil Ochs Oscar Brand, Harold Leventhal (he managed
the Weavers and Pete Seeger), Simon and Garfunkel, Shlomo Carlebach and on
and on.  

In the wake of A Mighty Wind, the 60s Folk Revival has taken some diss-ing
in the media.  But what we - all of us - have created in Jewish camps and
now at Hava Nashira and CAJE is proof that the Folk Legacy has has seeped
into our consciousness and transformed the very essence of what we do every
day.  One example: a new "trend", the incorporation of Middle East and
African chant styles into our Jewish song repertoire, represents yet again
the creative borrowing Jews have always done from the cultures in which we
have contact, fueled and speeded in the 21st century by the internet and
CDs.

Adrian Durlester is 100% right that the decision of the Milken Jewish Music
Archives to relegate Jewish folk and pop music to a secondary status (maybe
less than secondary - that remains to be seen) is a serious omission.

Anyway, I came upon an interesting article by Richard Corliss in Time.  A
nice blast from the past for those of us who lived through the 60s.  Here it
is: http://www.time.com/time/columnist/corliss/article/0,9565,445267,00.html

Shabbat Shalom,
jeff

------------------------ hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org -----------------------+