Gone to the Country: The New Lost City Ramblers and the Folk Music Revival (review)

The New Lost City Ramblers were a trio of New York-born musicians—Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tom Paley (replaced after 1962 by Tracy Schwarz)—who recorded for Folkways after 1958 and became one of the pillars of the urban folk-music revival. Although their heyday came in the late fifties and early sixties, the Ramblers did not officially disband until Mike Seeger's death in 2009. They were unique. They were virtually the only musical act in the folk revival that really tried to revive something. Other so-called folk acts, such as the Kingston Trio and the Limeliters, often performed old or old-sounding songs, but mainly just to entertain people or to promote a political cause, and certainly with no intent to recreate the styles in which they were originally performed. The Ramblers instead pursued a mission to demonstrate the beauty and social relevance of old-time southern rural music. Not only did they accomplish this objective, but they also inspired a string band movement that still thrives in the United States. They consciously revived not only the songs, but also the instruments and styles of an earlier era, the years between 1922 and 1942, when hillbilly and blues musicians disseminated their music through commercial 78-rpm recordings and radio broadcasts. Unlike any act that came before them, the Ramblers joyously embraced and asserted the folkloristic relevance of these commercial sources.

The Ramblers entertained their listeners—mostly young, educated, and northern— with the novelty, presumed exoticism, and good musicianship of their performances. But the Ramblers also educated their audiences. They always acknowledged their sources, informed their listeners about the rich legacy of commercial recordings that had preserved this music, and made faithful attempts to replicate the sounds and styles of this tradition. In so doing they paid tribute to the working-class culture that had produced the music. While publicly eschewing any political intent, the Ramblers nevertheless made a profound democratic statement: they asserted the worth of plain people and the music they made.

Although the Ramblers made impressive contributions to the preservation and popularization of roots musical styles in the United States, they never won complete acceptance from the folklore establishment. Their reception, at best, was mixed. In the mid-sixties they won some collaboration from a few scholars such as D. K. Wilgus, Archie Green, and John Greenway, who were sometimes described as "hillbilly folklorists" because of their interest in old recordings, radio broadcasts, and other popular culture artifacts. Through their pioneering work the 78-rpm recording gained credence as a source that was as valid as a weathered manuscript. Some scholars, though, rejected the Ramblers as "slavish imitators" or viewed their attempts at stylistic authenticity as incongruous undertakings by city boys who could not possibly recreate the music of someone else's culture. Ray Allen, on the other hand—a professor of music and American studies at Brooklyn College, City University of New York—takes the Ramblers seriously, appreciates their music, recognizes the role that they played in the emergence of a vigorous old-time music string band culture, and grapples successfully with the debates concerning authenticity in American roots music.

Allen admires the Ramblers, but is balanced and critical in his treatment of their music. While recognizing their versatility, he suggests that their popularity came from qualities that were peripherally related to musicianship: the novelty of their songs, showmanship, and self-deprecating humor. The Ramblers were good, but not great, musicians. To hear virtuoso musicianship meant listening to Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Merle Travis, or Doc Watson. But, on the other hand, most fans and listeners would never have known about Charlie Poole, the Carter Family, Uncle Dave Macon, and other old-time musicians without the loving patronage devoted to them and their music...