TY - JOUR
T1 - A Bridge Too Far?
T2 - Cosmopolitanism and the Anglo-American Folk Revival, 1945-1965
AU - Carter, Dale
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - This article offers an interpretive reading of the Anglo-American folk music revival, from its post-war roots to the early 1960s. The nature and development of the revival, it argues, can be illuminated by the multi-faceted concept of cosmopolitanism, a property rarely associated with such expressive forms. Through a study of the relationship between two folk music promoters, American Alan Lomax and Anglo-Scot Ewan MacColl, the article shows how folk, a genre associated with local or national identities, lent itself to trans-national elaboration after World War Two, and why that process in turn fostered tensions within the revival. These tensions, it concludes, transformed folk's cosmopolitanism and marginalized Lomax and MacColl; an appreciation of them throws new light on folk music and on the meaning of Bob Dylan's emergence from the revival in the early 1960s.
AB - This article offers an interpretive reading of the Anglo-American folk music revival, from its post-war roots to the early 1960s. The nature and development of the revival, it argues, can be illuminated by the multi-faceted concept of cosmopolitanism, a property rarely associated with such expressive forms. Through a study of the relationship between two folk music promoters, American Alan Lomax and Anglo-Scot Ewan MacColl, the article shows how folk, a genre associated with local or national identities, lent itself to trans-national elaboration after World War Two, and why that process in turn fostered tensions within the revival. These tensions, it concludes, transformed folk's cosmopolitanism and marginalized Lomax and MacColl; an appreciation of them throws new light on folk music and on the meaning of Bob Dylan's emergence from the revival in the early 1960s.
KW - folk music revival; cosmopolitanism; Anglo-American; Alan Lomax; Ewan MacColl; Bob Dylan
M3 - Journal article
SN - 1466-0407
VL - 29
SP - 35
EP - 52
JO - European Journal of American Culture
JF - European Journal of American Culture
IS - 1
ER -