Various - Troubadours Vol.4, Folk And The Roots Of American Music (3-CD)

Deutschsprachige Ausgabe: BCD 17228

3-CD Digipak with 140-page booklet, 80 tracks. Total playing time approx. 257 mns.

The West Coast

If the East Coast primarily nurtured the contemporary folk scene, Los Angeles and San Francisco were parallel hubs of the folk music revival. In late 1945 Pete Seeger established People's Songs, Inc., to use folk and topical songs to further postwar progressive political and social issues. Within months composer/folksinger Earl Robinson opened the New York operation's first branch office in Los Angeles, attracting labor organizer and journalist Vern Partlow, and film industry professionals like actor Will Geer and arranger Sonny Vale. Its members included Richard Dehr and Frank Miller, who performed folk songs as The Easy Riders.

Los Angeles was also the original home of Charter Records, a label that served People's Songs members with recordings by Seeger, Morry Goodson and Sonny Vale, and calypsonian Sir Lancelot. It also encouraged events up north in San Francisco, where Malvina Reynolds found kindred spirits among the People's Songs activists. With Seeger's encouragement she became a master composer of satiric, poignant and enduring songs.

Although People's Songs dissolved in 1949, it helped seed a vital West Coast folk community. Terry Gilkyson, a Pennsylvania native who moved to Los Angeles in 1947, struck gold with his folk-flavored The Cry Of The Wild Goose. Gilkyson's understated Decca recording spawned multiple cover versions, including Frankie Laine's chart-topping Mercury single in 1951. In a joint session with The Weavers, Gilkyson sang the lead on On Top Of Old Smoky, which rose to No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart. In 1955 he joined Dehr and Miller's Easy Riders. Besides jointly collaborating on Memories Are Made Of This, the Easy Riders accompanied Dean Martin on his No. 1 hit single.

If the early New York folk scene fostered an alluring Bohemian atmosphere, the West Coast singers created a sunnier approach. Many performers were tied to the entertainment industry, writing scores or acting in films and television. Performers like Rod McKuen, Mason Williams, Mike Settle, Travis Edmonson, Van Dyke Parks and John Stewart were gifted lyricists and skilled, melodic composers. When Bob Dylan shook up the East Coast folk music community in 1962, their careers and styles were already established.