Abstract
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.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | European Journal of American Culture |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages (from-to) | 35-52 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| ISSN | 1466-0407 |
| Publication status | Published - 2010 |
Keywords
- folk music revival; cosmopolitanism; Anglo-American; Alan Lomax; Ewan MacColl; Bob Dylan