Search - Various Artists :: Generations Of Folk, Vol. 1: Festivals Of Folk

A nice little showcase of the diversity of the folk revival

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 01/26/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The only serious complaint with the entire "Generations of Folk" series is that you only get a dozen tracks of classic folk bit of everything. You have songs by the founding fathers of the folk revival with Pete Seeger ("The Bells of Rhymney") and the Weavers ("Goodnight Irene"), the two great voices in Joan Baez ("The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down") and Judy Collins ("Let's Get Together"), the biggest selling group in the Kingston Trio ("Tom Dooley"), and the sugary singing groups the Rooftop Singers ("Walk Right In") and the Serendipity Singers ("Don't Let the Rain Come Down"). On this short list already there are five classic folk songs, but this album also has a couple of reminders of how often folk singers were covering music. Volume 1 is "Festivals of Folk" and it provides a little songs or having their songs covered, with Jose Feliciano's version of "La Bamba" and the original version of "You Were on My Mind" by Ian & Sylvia (the first song Sylvia Tyson ever wrote). But the final proof of the pudding are the final three songs, which has Odetta's version of "I Had a Hammer," Richard Farnina & Mimi Farina's "Reflections in a Crystal Wind," and Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Mister Can't You See." It seems strange to throw them in on the same album that has the Serendipity Singers, but that is exactly how diverse the folk movement was at its heights and "Festivals of Folk" does a great job of getting that across. There might be only a dozen songs on this album, but most of them are very good and the rest are worth the having. The rule of thumb on collections like this is whether or not you can get five songs worth the having that are currently not in your music library, and even with the hits on this one most of you will be able to find those five songs. There are three other albums in the "Generations of Folk" series dealing with "Protest & Politics," "Classic Harmonies," and "The Troubadors.""