UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940–1970

"Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival & American Society, 1940-1970" by R. D. Cohen
Ronald D. Cohen

A Choice Outstanding Academic Book

A well-informed chronicle of the folk music boom in mid-twentieth-century America

For a brief period from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, folk music captured a mass audience in the United States, as college students and others swarmed to concerts by the likes of Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan. In this comprehensive study, Ronald D. Cohen reconstructs the history of this singular cultural moment, tracing its origins to the early decades of the twentieth century.

Drawing on scores of interviews and numerous manuscript collections, as well as his own extensive files, Cohen shows how a broad range of traditions–from hillbilly, gospel, blues, and sea shanties to cowboy, ethnic, and political protest music–all contributed to the genre known as folk. He documents the crucial work of John Lomax and other collectors who, with the assistance of recording companies, preserved and distributed folk music in the 1920s. During the 1930s and 1940s, the emergence of left-wing politics and the rise of the commercial music marketplace helped to stimulate wider interest in folk music. Stars emerged, such as Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, and Josh White. With the success of the Weavers and the Kingston Trio in the 1950s, the stage was set for the full-blown "folk revival" of the early 1960s.

Centered in New York's Greenwich Village and sustained by a flourishing record industry, the revival spread to college campuses and communities across the country. It included a wide array of performers and a supporting cast of journalists, club owners, record company executives, political activists, managers, and organizers. By 1965 the boom had passed its peak, as rock and roll came to dominate the marketplace, but the folk revival left an enduring musical legacy in American culture.

"Thorough, engaging, and informative, this book makes a significant contribution to the field and will be valuable to those teaching or taking courses in American music of the twentieth century."

Paul F. Wells, director, Center for Popular Music,
Middle Tennessee State University

"Cohen's book goes far toward documenting the cultural phenomenon of the mid-20th-century folk music revival, particularly telling the story of the scene's political and musical roots in and around New York City. This book will become a central piece of the whole story as it continues to be told in cities and venues around the country."

Betsy Siggins and Millie Rahn
Club Passim/ New England Folk Music Archive Project
"There is an enormous amount of historical information here. It is wonderful to have it all available in one place."

Norm Cohen, author of Folksong America: A
Twentieth-Century Revival

Ronald D. Cohen is professor of history at Indiana University Northwest and editor of Agnes "Sis" Cunningham and Gordon Friesen's Red Dust and Broadsides: A Joint Autobiography (University of Massachusetts Press, 1999).

Music / American Studies
384 pp.
$70.00s library cloth edition, ISBN 1-55849-346-8
$29.50s paper, ISBN 1-55849-348-4
November 2002
To order the paperback edition online, click on "ADD TO CART"
To order either edition by mail or fax, click here for an order form

about placing orders on our secure server
ADD TO CART | VIEW CART | CHECKOUT