British folk rock
| Electric folk | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | 1960s, United Kingdom |
| Typical instruments |
Electric or acoustic versions of the following:
|
| Subgenres | |
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Medieval folk rock (complete list) |
|
| Fusion genres | |
Electric folk is the name given to the form of folk rock pioneered in England from the late 1960s, and most significant in the 1970s, which then was taken up and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, to produce Celtic rock and its derivatives. It has also been influential in those parts of the world with close cultural connections to Britain and gave rise to the genre of folk punk. By the 1980s the genre was in steep decline in popularity, but has survived and revived in significance, partly merging with the rock music and folk music cultures from which it originated. Although in Britain the term folk rock is often used synonymously with electric folk, commentators have returned to this term as a means of distinguishing this as a clear and distinct category within the wider folk rock genre.
When English bands of the late 1960s and early 1970s defined themselves as 'electric folk' they were making a distinction with the already existing 'folk rock'. Folk rock was (to them) what they had already been producing: American or American style singer-songwriter material played on rock instruments, as undertaken by Bob Dylan and the Byrds from 1965. They drew the distinction because they were focusing on indigenous (in this case English) songs and tunes. This is not to say that all the proponents of electric folk totally abandoned American material, or that it would not be represented in their own compositions, but their work would be characterised by the use of traditional English songs and tunes and the creation of new songs in that style, using the format and instruments of a rock band with the occasional addition of more traditional instruments.
The result of this hybridisation was an exchange of specific features drawn from Traditional music and Rock music. These have been defined as including:
Not all of these features are found in every song. For example, electric folk groups, while predominantly using traditional material as their source for lyrics and tunes, occasionally write their own (much as traditional musicians do).
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