Folk Music in America

Abstract

Let us begin by considering the political and social background in which the Folk Music Revival took place in America. First of all, the political background in which this movement took place saw the birth of the American New Left. Although it has been several times opposed to the American Old Left, while the Old Left centralized its protest on the demonstrations of “unemployed and poor people” attacking the social system, the New Left centralized its main activities on “anti-bureaucratic, spontaneous and anti-authoritarian” individuals meant to dismantle hierarchical values in society and politics (Neustadter 40). Such as, one of the most important goals of the New Left was the idea of rising social consciousness through theatres, anti-war demonstrations, expositions of the absurdity of the system and “discursive rather than persuasive” music (Neustadter 49). Therefore, it is as if the need to declare something aloud has brought human beings to analyse their positions through social activism aimed to put them face to face with the outside world.