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Blues musician Big Bill Broonzy, upon being asked “What is folk music?” is purported to have answered, “All music is folk music. As with any vital art form, there are passionate debates. It’s Been Good to Know Yuh,” “Single Girl, Married Girl” “Midnight Special,” and dozens more.įolk music is a living art form that tells and retells its history, even as it creates it.įolk music is a living art form that tells and retells its history, even as it creates it. I took up the guitar and learned to play the songs I had been singing my whole life, including the beloved folk classics “Gold Watch and Chain,” “Goodnight, Irene,” “So Long. My ears were filled with the music of hootenannies and song circles, the glorious sing-along music of the union, civil rights, and antiwar movement songs, along with the blues, hymns, and gospel tunes that undergirded them. I grew up listening to her giving music lessons. She taught me the power of music through the work of great folk singers and musical ambassadors such as Pete Seeger and his American Folk Songs for Children and Woody Guthrie’s Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child-the joyous, raucous albums that inspired and empowered me. She sang me to sleep with mournful lullabies from eastern Europe, the British Isles, and the American South. My mother, Dorothy Udin, gave me a great gift: the world of folk music and folk musicians. We were all singers, and singing could change the world. Everyone’s voice mattered, regardless of fame, or skill, or any other label. What all these musicians, music lovers, pickers and players, songwriters, painters, poets, dancers, political activists, and their husbands, wives, and children had in common was singing.
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Some had recognizable names-Doc Watson, Jean Ritchie, Hedy West, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Pete and Mike Seeger, Joan Baez-but most did not. They were working people, union people, family people, and traveling people. Others played and sang for the sheer joy of it. Some were musicians who played and sang for a living.
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My life has seen an endless flow of musicians, activists, and artists eddying through my home and the Folk Music Center my parents founded and I maintain today.