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May 16, 2019 · 10 Influential Political and Protest Folk Music Artists. Singer Joan Baez strumming guitar during protest march (Vietnam War) in Trafalgar Square. Music is a powerful tool that many singers, songwriters, organizers, and activists have used as a means of protest.
- Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit” This track has to be at the top of the list; it’s that influential. One of the first racism protest songs to be recorded in popular music, 1939’s “Strange Fruit” is based off a poem written by Abel Meeropol.
- Woody Guthrie, “This Land Is Your Land” One of the most iconic songs in American lore, “This Land Is Your Land” is actually such an important protest song for the verses that aren’t typically sung.
- “We Shall Overcome,” Pete Seeger. Written as a gospel hymn by a Methodist minister in 1900 and originally adapted during a tobacco workers strike in 1945, “We Shall Overcome” came to represent defiance, endurance, tenacity and sheer determination.
- Bob Dylan, “Blowin’ in the Wind” The tune that endeared Dylan to legions of card-carrying folkies, “Blowin’ in the Wind” remains the standard template for every protest song that’s come along ever since.
Feb 21, 2017 · As America enters its most turbulent political time in decades can folk regain the social relevance it once had as the musical voice of resilience and resistance?.
Political Folk follows in the footsteps of the legendary Woody Guthrie, whose highly polemical folk songs inspired a generation of tough-minded, activist singer/songwriters including Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs; simply, protest music follows the aesthetic traditions of folk, but with lyrics which take a definite, usually left-wing, political stance.
Apr 12, 2017 · The ’80s and ’90s didn’t produce buckets of protest music, but they did lay the groundwork for what politically charged songs can look like in an era without a galvanizing political movement.
- Bridgett Henwood
Dec 7, 2020 · 2020's protest playlist is as diverse as popular music itself, but there's still room for a good old folk music broadside. This one hits hard by confronting its likely audience.
Political Folk follows in the footsteps of the legendary Woody Guthrie, whose highly polemical folk songs inspired a generation of tough-minded, activist singer/songwriters including Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs; simply, protest music follows the aesthetic traditions of folk, but with lyrics which take a definite, usually left-wing, political stance.
