Folk Rock

Folk narrative was fitted with a twelve-string guitar and a rock kit in Los Angeles in 1965.

Related

ContemporaryAcoustic GuitarVoiceStrophic Form

Folk rock put folk narrative and harmony onto electric guitar, bass and drums, appearing in Los Angeles and New York in 1965.

Origins and era

In January 1965 the Byrds recorded Mr. Tambourine Man in Los Angeles and released it in April; the twelve-string chime and vocal harmony became the template. That July, Dylan brought a band onstage at the Newport Folk Festival, having already recorded Like a Rolling Stone. Folk clubs in Los Angeles and the beat of the British Invasion supplied the ground, and in 1967 Britain's Fairport Convention electrified traditional song.

What you hear

Tempos are usually medium, between 100 and 130 BPM. The kit plays a standard rock two and four, bass follows the roots, a twelve-string electric guitar produces a dense chime, voices stack in two or three parts, and tambourine weights the backbeat. Melodies often come from folk song and use strophic form, one tune repeated under many verses, so the story moves through words rather than harmonic change. Dylan's delivery pushes accents to the end of lines that often run past the bar. Bass leaps from root to fifth, the drummer saves cymbals for the chorus, and verses often keep only tambourine and guitar. The arrangement stretches the folk phrase so electric resonance fills the end of each line. Harmony usually enters at the end of a verse, leaving the first lines to one voice.

Key figures

McGuinn of the Byrds defined the twelve-string tone, and Dylan brought lyrical density and an electric band. Fairport Convention joined British traditional song to rock rhythm, while the Mamas and the Papas took the harmony side toward mainstream pop. Singers such as Judy Collins and Tom Rush carried folk material to city audiences.

Lineage

American and British folk song and the narrative tradition around Woody Guthrie feed in, along with the British Invasion beat. Country rock, the singer-songwriter era and 1990s alternative folk come out. It also fixed the identity of the author-singer, giving lyrics a weight in rock equal to tone. Its audience later split, one path toward the singer-songwriter, another toward country rock and large halls.

Common misunderstandings

The common claim is that Dylan invented folk rock alone, though the Byrds' single came out first and the band made the arrangement. Another is that Newport was a clean break, when Dylan had already worked with electric sound. Equating folk rock with protest song also misses its many songs about love, landscape and private life.

Sources

• Richie Unterberger, Turn! Turn! Turn! The 1960s Folk-Rock Revolution（Backbeat Books, 2002），用于核对洛杉矶场景与年代
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry Folk Rock，用于交叉核对风格与谱系

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.