![]() Jack Linkletter's introductions quickly set the week's university locale, and we go right into the songs. I don't remember the show wasting its air time with fluff and these discs likewise get right to the performances. Shout! arranges its Best of compendium onto three music-packed discs. In 1963, performers branded as 'fellow travelers' were as unwelcome as child molesters. I certainly wasn't aware of this fact at the time, and I don't know if many columnists championed Pete Seeger or protested the blacklisting. A show dedicated to the "open and free" music of America's youth censored its most interesting musicians. This was three years after the feature film blacklist had been broken with Spartacus. Pete Seeger was blacklisted from the show completely, causing other top names to refuse to participate, like Peter Paul & Mary. Teens of the time remember Manfred Mann cracking up during a TV 'performance,' embarrassed by the phoniness of it all.Īlthough few outlets at the time acknowledged the dispute, Hootenanny did start a controversy in the music world. marred by silly stage sets, synch playback and dumb 'with it' video switcher effects. After The Beatles frightened network executives, later Rock 'n' Roll TV performances tended to be over-controlled. Linkletter's you-are-there intros are brief and to the point, and the songs aren't interrupted by montage cuts or sponsor product placement. The best thing about Hootenanny is that the content came across intact: We see the performers doing their thing in a live situation with no playback lip-synching. The half-hour show taped on college campuses across the country and was hosted by Jack Linkletter. The Hootenanny TV show (1963) provided a rare opportunity to see many folk and quasi-folk groups in a variety format. Even better, the era carried a strong charge of hopefulness. The singers projected warmth, wisdom and a feeling of goodwill. Peace, racial harmony and spiritual values were good intolerance and aggression were bad. Heavily influenced by Gospel and the civil rights movement, the concert scene became a community meeting sing-a-long forum that pretended that correct-thinkers would all be in agreement on basic liberal agenda. Just being sarcastic about some subjects - government secrecy, the arms race - might make one an 'undesirable' performer.Īlthough much of its audience didn't think in terms of polarities, the Folk movement of this time was mainstream-liberal. Few of these funny men flirted with the notion of even appearing to be subversive, but the tone was there in their delivery. Stand-up wasn't just for New York any more and the late '50s spawned a new flock of comedic talent - Bob Newhart, Jonathan Winters, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby. They were the generation that read Mad magazine and went for the new espresso cafés. The college crowd that flocked to folk performances was the first group of post-war middle-class kids looking for new truths and ideas. Exremely popular in concert, the blacklisted group remained blacklisted from television. Likewise, the only Weavers songs to be given wide radio exposure were non-political hits like Goodnight Irene. the outright protest songs made famous by Woody Guthrie just weren't acceptable, and Guthrie himself simply wasn't heard much. By and large, the folk music permitted on the air were fairly non-political. Many of the new singing groups were young clean-cut types that sported clean short haircuts and ties, an image our parents would try to impose on us teens in the later longhair '60s. Not all offered renditions of Michael, Row the Boat Ashore. The college circuit became a hot ticket for traveling singers. Dozens of collegiate duos, trios, foursomes and entire families burst forward for recognition. Old folk-tradition hands such as the Weavers were joined by new voices Joan Baez and eventually Bob Dylan. Before this vacuum could be filled with the surfin' sound and the English invasion, America had a resurgence of folk music. When Elvis entered the Army and left the airwaves to novelty songs, other Rock 'n' Roll holdovers and young Italian men from Philadelphia, a gap opened up in pop music.
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