Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940-1970 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940-1970 Jack Shortlidge Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940–1970. By Ronald D. Cohen. (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 364, notes, index.) Rainbow Quest places the folk music revival of the late 1950s and 1960s, or "the great folk scare" as it is frequently called by participants, in its historical context. Ronald D. Cohen, a professor of history at Indiana University Northwest, begins by summarizing the careers of record-company producers, folklorists, and other participants who helped spark a general interest in American folk music through their fieldwork and recordings, starting early in the twentieth century. The English ballad collector Cecil Sharp, the poet Carl Sandburg, and the folk-song collector John Lomax are all discussed as people whose ground-breaking work and interests helped set the stage for a larger folk music revival. The first section also provides an interesting discussion of 1920s recording artists, including Blind Lemon Jefferson, the Texas singer and guitarist, and Jimmie Rodgers, the first widely popular singing star to record country and western music. The first part of the book traces the connection that early rural recording artists had with what eventually became identified as American folk music. Cohen then presents a nationwide survey of folk revival artists, publications, concerts, and festivals, especially in urban centers such as New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Philadelphia, paying particular attention to the Newport Folk Festivals of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Cohen's book describes the social milieu of the urban folk music revival, particularly in New York City—the Sunday hootenannies at Washington Square, the nurturing atmosphere of Israel Young's Folklore Center store in Greenwich Village, the chronicling of the urban folk movement by Sing Out! magazine, and the influential recordings of key revivalists, as well as traditional musicians, by Moses Asch of Folkways Records. The musical career of Pete Seeger receives special attention, as does his connection with liberal and radical politics and social issues. What Cohen does not do is discuss the music itself in any detail. He repeatedly quotes or paraphrases the writings of newspaper columnists, academic folklorists, and editors and writers for folk music publications such as Broadside or The Little Sandy Review when they write about the blossoming popularity of revivalist performers and their young followers on college campuses during the late 1950s and 1960s. Cohen has gleaned stories from his interviews with key figures in the revival, or, as is more often the case, from publications, memoirs, and letters in folklore archives such as the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. A reliance on the words of others means that Rainbow Quest does not have a strong authorial presence or an overall vision to connect the myriad events and figures into a cohesive whole. Cohen clearly knows a great deal about the folk revival years, from both personal experience and intensive research. Some of his past activities underscore this interest—such as the "Wasn't That a Time" folk revival conference at Indiana University in 1991. At this meeting, speakers and panelists recounted stories about their own involvement with the music and at legendary events, such as the 1965 Newport festival that featured Bob Dylan's debut with a rock 'n roll backup band. Cohen also coproduced Songs for Political Action, a ten-CD anthology of music from the folk revival era, for Bear Family Records. These projects have the personal passion that is lacking in much of Rainbow Quest. Only intermittent stories give a real feeling for the people and the era that is being covered, such as a prologue in which three [End Page 129] young folkies from New York—Guy Carawan, Frank Hamilton, and Jack Elliott—take a summer trip in 1953 to the Blue Ridge Mountains and other points south in search of authentic American folk music, where they have a memorable meeting with an irascible and suspicious Bascom Lamar Lunsford at the Ashville Folk Festival. As a general survey, Rainbow Quest is a useful resource. The book covers many figures, recordings, important performances, and other...