When folk was hip - Guardian feature by Joe Boyd

Rock'n'roll was once a working-class occupation. Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Billy Fury and Johnny Hallyday saw music as a way out and up, like sport, hell-fire preaching or trade union politics. That Fury and Hallyday didn't grow up picking cotton or shining shoes mattered very little. They weren't students of the music, but clung to it as unselfconsciously and with the same desperate energy as their mass audiences.

Bob Dylan is credited with many revolutionary acts: bringing eloquently passionate politics into folk music; turning Brando and Dean's rejectionist sneers into musical notes; plugging his bardic songwriter aesthetic into an electric amp and thereby changing the world. But what is rarely mentioned is the way he (with help from Mick Jagger) brought the middle classes into the heart of popular culture.

Read the full article here.

Witchseason Weekender @ the Barbican this coming weekend (18-19 Jul), with screenings of cult documentaries such as Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before, Witchseason on Film (Double Bill) and live performances by Fairport Convention and Very Cellular Songs: Incredible String Band featuring Mike Heron and Clive Palmer, Richard Thompson, Danny Thompson, Alasdair Roberts, Trembling Bells, Dr Strangely Strange & Robyn Hitchcock.

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