ABSTRACT
The folk songs, tunes, dances, stories and passions of past generations continue to attract the attention of succeeding cohorts of researchers, artists and archivists. Some might feel that our algorithmic rationality has placed us as human beings ‘out of kilter’ with the natural world and that the peoples need to remind ourselves to abide by environmental-based laws and lore. Across the British Isles during the 19th and early 20th centuries, what came to be described as folk-related narratives and musical practices were brought to the fore via revivalists collecting folk songs, ballads, tunes and dances. It is therefore appropriate to bear in mind just how important the US folk revival was to mid-20th-century conceptions of folk authenticity, for in many respects the diversity of thinking that came to overtake elitists of both the political Left and liberal Right concerning the trajectory of the British folk revival at least in part surfaced in the United States.
