Venice ’25: Newport & the Great Folk Dream

It was home to stately mansions, like Seaview Terrace (used for exterior shots on Dark Shadows). However, in 1954 the Rhode Island city started attracting hip young visitors when it first hosted the Newport Jazz Festival. George Wein’s Festival Productions diversified with the Newport Folk Festival, which was even less elitist than the jazz festival—or so you would think. The folkies were decidedly lefty in their politics, but some had very strict notions as to what constituted proper folk music—and you’d better believe it was acoustic. This musical bias would be sorely tested in the early 1960s. As it happened, documentarian Murray Lerner shot a wealth of footage of the 1963-1966 Newport Folk Festivals, out of which only a fraction was seen in his film simply titled Festival. Highlights from that unseen treasure trove finally see the light of day in Robert Gordon’s Newport & the Great Folk Dream, which premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

If you know anything about Bob Dylan, you know the film is building up to the fireworks of the 1965 fest, when Dylan “went electric.” Lerner also produced a later documentary about that pivotal moment. In the early years, most of the angst focused on politics, particularly the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, the Newport Folk Festival offered a rare opportunity for social and cultural interaction between white hill country musicians and black blues and gospel artists.

Wisely, one of the primary [disembodied] interview voices is the of Joe Boyd (author of White Bicycles), who was Wein’s blues producer. He fondly remembers walking through the so-called “Blues House,” where the likes of Skip James and Son House performing informally in each room. Yet, he also hints at the Festival’s deep ideological divide when he recalls board members Alan Lomax and Theodore Bikel would be periodically act scandalized by the professional-grade sound-checks he provided for the performers, because it clashed with their paternalistic, noble-savage-idealizing conception of folk music.

Indeed, it is fascinating to see the kind of authenticity debate in folk that somewhat parallels criticism of Wynton Marsalis’s jazz gate-keeping in the 1990s, except the folk purists were probably more vehement. Regardless, the stacked line-up of blues legends truly blows the mind: James, House, Mississippi John Hurt, Jesse Fuller, John Lee Hooker, Fred & Annie McDowell, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and (controversially at the time) the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (because they were “electric”).

Pledge-Breaking: Legends of Folk

It was a time when folk singers could afford to pay rent in Greenwich Village. While jazz still has a toe-hold in Lower Manhattan (tenuous as it might be) and popular forms flourish, folk’s salad days in the Village (East or West) are essentially over. Yet, its musical influence persists, thanks to the major recording stars that emerged from those coffeehouses. Folk’s glory days are revisited in Legends of Folk: the Village Scene (promo here), a greatest hits special tailor-made for pledge-breaks, produced and directed by Jim Brown, which airs this coming Tuesday on New York’s WNET.

Hosted by the appropriately hospitable Noel Paul Stookey, the Paul of Peter, Paul & Mary, Legends never attempts to be an exhaustive survey, like Ken Burns’ ambitious (if somewhat controversial) Jazz. Like a compilation CD for your TV, it covers all the big names that were ever on the scene, mostly showing complete performances in their entirety.

Some of their choices are quite shrewd. It is rather eye-opening to see a rather outgoing young Bob Dylan singing “Blowin’ in the Wind,” compared to his comparatively reserved stage persona of recent years. Stookey and company are also well represented with a vintage recording of “If I Had a Hammer” that nicely showcases their harmonies, while serving as a dramatic contrast to the snoozy stereotype of folk songs. For those who are wondering, the Don McLean selection is not “American Pie,” which frees up a lot of time, but on the other hand, who really cares about “Castles in the Air?”

To its credit, Legends stretches the genre definition a bit, including artists from the blues and roots revival. Yet, frustratingly, the only musical performances that talking heads speak over are those from Mississippi John Hurt and The New Lost City Ramblers. This is particularly frustrating in the case of Hurt, because his segment is ostensibly about how great it was for a real deal old timer to final get some respect.

Quibbles of a jazz and blues fan aside, Legends is perfectly respectable music television, if never especially challenging or deep. It follows comfortably in the tradition of previous nostalgic jukebox specials frequently broadcast during pledge drives, almost like the Time-Life Music commercials you find yourself watching in spite of yourself. For old folkie-singer-songwriter types, Legends airs this coming Tuesday (8/9) on WNET, but do not be surprised if someone asks you for money.

(New Lost City Ramblers photo: David Gahr)