The Oxford English Dictionary traces it back as far as 999: "Þa elkede man fram dæge to dæge, & swencte þæt earme folc þe on ðam scipon lagon." Chaucer used it, in Middle English, c1405, that's surprisingly readable: "Vp on thise steedes, grete and whyte Ther seten folk."
And here's Alexander Hamilton, with American terseness: "There were Folks killed in 1723." That made me think of Ilhan Omar's "Some people did something."
Incidentally, the Alexander Hamilton who said "There were Folks killed in 1723" is not the Alexander Hamilton who co-wrote the Federalist Papers. It was some other guy with the same name.
And I see at the link that the other Alexander Hamilton was not an American, but a Scot. So that must be Scottish terseness. And I am retrospectively less reminded of Ilhan Omar.
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"Reclaiming" - like they are the same Black folk from 100 years ago who's songs were stolen by Dylan and others. To the NYT they are all the same across time, geography, and cultures.
Some Folks
Folk, folc, volk. And as we say down here in Texas, "Them folks," specifically meaning recent immigrants and other outsiders to Texan hivemind. The diversity approved southernism "All y'all" is inclusive of all those within hearing, or under discussion, as well as them folks, as used in the sentence, "ALL y'all can go f**k yourselves. And I so mean them folks, too."
Perhaps I am not as chipper as is normal, I just came back from doing my Thanksgiving shopping at the HEB superstore, along with about 10,000 other people who also wanted to beat the Saturday crowds.
Does "folk" mean "people in general"? Or does it mean people of a lower socio-economic bracket? Chaucer's usage may indicate a division in the pilgrims. The priests, the nuns, the knights are one elevated group. The miller, the cook, even the wife are a lower order, the "folk". Also, does Hamilton mean a general group of people, or is he referring to laborers?
Rap is folk music.
Biden uses "folks" to address his listeners all the time.
The Souls of Black Folk was a once-famous book.
The contrast to horses is usually attributed to Duke Ellington.
Editor: Whadya got for me?
Reporter: Well, the community theater is doing the grinch.
Editor: What's the race angle?
Reporter: Well, Cindy Lu Who is played by a black girl.
Editor: Better if she was a black boy. Can you paint her understudy as a racist?
Reporter: Her understudy is 11.
Editor: ?
Reporter: Her understudy is black.
Editor: What else you got
Reporter: Well, folk music is having a bit of a moment.
Editor: Fine. But race it up good. I want to see race in every sentence. The story here is race race race. Got it?
Reporter: This is not my first day.
Broonzy, inventor of the FolksWagon.
Anne, it's refreshing to see a little Old and Middle English here. More please.
Rap is folk music--which the folks who make it can have.
But the idea that music belongs to a particular group--and only a particular group is just silly. Who "owns" Beethoven? Who "owns" Nobel prize winning Bob Dylan's music? Who "owns" Ben E. King's music--written by Jewish guys Lieber, Stoller and Pomus?
Music gets out in the world and, if the music is attractive and good, becomes an earworm in many, many people.
as the old saying goes.. There are Two Types of music: Popular, and Unpopular.
Want to see the difference? Does the government (NEA, NEH) fund them? or do they pay for themselves?
"The contrast to horses is usually attributed to Duke Ellington"
I'm seeing that it's sometimes attributed to Ellington or Louis Armstrong but usually attributed to Broonzy.
Rap is folk music
They'll be rap'n around the fire when it's lit since it was procured.
Folk song is a genre. Then there's subgenres, traditional, modern. There's also links via people who like some of them and some of other genres for the same reason, musically. Say Eric Clapton acoustic Layla vs Judy Collins La chanson des vieux amants.
Pete Seger's folk is musically banal.
Imus said of Bluegrass that even people who play bluegrass don't like bluegrass. The formula wears you down.
I first heard Clapton's Layla as Rush's parody Shalala.
"So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages," - from the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
“Does "folk" mean "people in general"? Or does it mean people of a lower socio-economic bracket?”
At least in Germans the “volk” is more like the yeomanry, the solid and respectable middle class. Not the rabble, or professionals. The volk carry the soul and memory of the nation.
Because blacks really invented folk music (of course!).
But after claiming the ancient Egyptians were black and had already invented airplanes, call me skeptical.
There is no Wakanda. Deal with it.
Also, Seeger was a communist, the lowest form of life.
"as the old saying goes.. There are Two Types of music: Popular, and Unpopular."
There are two kinds of music: Country and Western.
Fixed it...
Isn't most folk music originally evolved from English music of the 14-16th century?
Black's didn't invent that music. The adapted it, built on it, improved it (sometimes) ruined it (other times) and made their own music from it
Rap came, sort of, from Dylan and Guthrie's (and others) talking blues, which came frome black talking blues, which came from white talking blues which came to America with old English talking blues.
All Under a variety of names formats and structures. And my explanation is greatly oversimplified
John Henry
I had an aunt who was a music prof at Columbia. She also had a gig with Folkways Records. In the 50s and 60s she used to send my cousins and us dozens of records every year.
Some truly bizarre. Lamma chants of Tibet. Some more mainstream like Pete seeger, Ewan McCall, big bill broonzy woody Guthrie and the like.
But also a lot of really old folk music.
Folkways didn't do liner notes. They did liner books. A single disk might come with a 12 page 8-1/2x11 book with lyrics and lots and lots of explanations and history.
A great record label
John Henry
"Ein volk, ein Reich, ein fuehrer" sounds so much more benign when our current fuehrer says it in English.
Although I think Brandon's politics are more fascist than national socialist.
John Henry
Incidentally, the Alexander Hamilton who said "There were Folks killed in 1723" is not the Alexander Hamilton who co-wrote the Federalist Papers. It was some other guy with the same name.
Maybe someday the attribution will be clear to all of us--Ellington is only the first person I recall getting the credit. Perhaps as far back as my teen years.
Western classical music (broadly defined) renewed itself and its appeal by adopting and adapting popular or folk forms, especially dances.
One of my music and musicology faculty colleagues (a Harvard classics grad) also performed acoustic blues, so authentically you can hear the hiss and pop of the old recordings . . .
John Henry:
“Isn't most folk music originally evolved from English music of the 14-16th century?”
I thought too that the troubadour bards were the inventors of the sweet music of love that tortured your soul. The first hippie and soul musicians that sang of lost and compromised mating.
Woody, Burl Ives, Pete Segar, the Jug band, all singing about candy mountains and having hammers for use at various points in the day and John Henry the steel driving man and Donovan having snails on his gate were extremely boring. It’s culmination was the great Mighty Wind movie that created better music in semi satire than the true folks men ever knew.
“Isn't most folk music originally evolved from English music of the 14-16th century?”
No three chord stuff there. Counterpoint etc. It was more classical.
John Dowland
I haven't heard many black folk musicians that I like yet. Just snippets of things here and there. The Neo-folk scene's been lively, though.
Skeptical Voter said...
"Rap is folk music--which the folks who make it can have."
Wow. Rap is Jazz
Jazz is America's Classical Music
America's Classical Music Is transformative, transcendent, and inspired
We, "the folks who make it" are glad to take it off your hands, thanks
I liked reading y'all better when you talked about the 5th Dimension and Liza.
John Henry, a college roommate of mine, a music major, went on to become the conductor of a famous orchestra. As an undergrad, however, he once destroyed a vinyl record I'd bought for laffs at a surplus music sale on campus. It was "folk music," of a sort, Haitian Voodoo chants. Recorded in the 1950s live by an academic ethnographer during supposed Voodoo ceremonies in the backwoods of the island, it sounded like some drunken guys just howling, as if they sang solely to get a big tip from the white guy with the tape recorder.
My roomie not only smashed the record after listening to part of one side, he took the cover and the broken record outside and burned them, to insure their nonexistence.
I wasn't even mad, because I'd already played the record once and it was truly abominable listening, and also because I knew he was destined for greatness and I could tell this story about the proper treatment of music that lies beyond the tastes of most people.
I hate folk music.
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