Revival Folk?

As some of you may know or have heard before, often the folk genre from the 50' s and 60's is referred to as revival folk. Why? Well, I'm here to tell you!

The return of popular folk music in the 1960's was called the revival folk music for one reason - cause it was being revived! Folk music has been around for basically ever - those guys who lived in the medieval times and walked around singing songs on those old stringed instruments? Those are basically folk songs.

The old traditional way to explain folk songs is that folk songs are anything that can be passed on through oral communication, and tell a story. They often talked about something that could be shared universally, not just with one specific group of people.

In the sixties, folk changed the definition slightly. Folk music began to be recorded by some of the greats, such as Bob Dylan. This kind of broke the originally way of passing on folk music. But now everybody had the ability to hear the type of messages folk singers wanted to pass on and it became huge. It also began to use some less traditional instruments, like drum kits. In the past folk had basically been guitar and voice, and now it was expanding to include all sorts of instruments. Folk singers claimed to right to write, perform, and record to their own standard, not anybody elses!