Ecofolk: music for earth healers - ecologically oriented folk music - Brief Article

If you are a songwriter/poet/artist in this time and you are not writing about the changes you see, feel, and live in ... what the hell are you writing about? --Bear Dyken

I first became familiar with "ecofolk" music (my term) through befriending and traveling with a California-based group called the Clan Dyken. I heard them and other artists at protests against the Nevada Test Site and the Livermore Nuclear Lab, at Big Mountain benefits, at rallies against nuclear power and clear-cutting and for organic farming in rural California, against road building in Britain, for solar and against geothermal power in Hawai'i.

As I repeatedly heard the same groups, with similar messages, I sensed that I was witnessing the evolution of a new genre, which I've called ecofolk.

Movements create the music as much as music stokes the fire of cultural resistance. Protests, rallies, and actions without music and art are boring. It's disempowering to come to a boring protest. But musicians can help people make salient, memorable points, transform society--and have fun at the same time.

Ecofolk, the resurgence of folk music with a green message, is usually colorful, often spiritual, sometimes quite touching, and at other times wonderfully witty. Its roots can be found in the music of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Malvina Reynolds, Country Joe McDonald, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Phil Ochs, Kate Wolf, Jackson Browne, Bruce Cockburn, and Tom Lehrer. The No Nukes Festival album and film (1977) were early ecofolk, but quite mainstream.

I see three threads in this emerging genre. The first is activist, informing audiences about current issues; inspiring a new generation of activists; and fostering community. The second thread comprises songs reflecting the beauty, power, impact, and stature of wildness and wilderness, the geography of our home. The third thread is educational ecofolk for kids. All three have passion and pleas for environmental justice.

I tried out the "ecofolk" label on a few of the people I regard as its practitioners. Robert Hoyt, for one, does not consider himself an environmental musician. "I am a performer/ songwriter who writes what he feels and if that sometimes includes `environmental' themes, so be it. I am not an activist who also performs music but rather a musician who also happens to be an activist."

On the other hand, it works for activist/musician Darryl Cherney, who calls it "the sugar coating on the truth pill." Ecofolk, he says, "musically archives the deeds of activists and the pressing environmental issues of the day in a medium that is pleasing to the ear and easier to digest than, say, screaming slogans at someone."

This is music from the vernacular of community, rallies, and demonstrations. You can hear it at small clubs and regional festivals. So far, these are fringe artists. Mainstream media has not discovered any of them. Their CDs are often available only by mail order or from websites.

Here's a brief introduction to some of my favorite ecofolk musicians (the list doesn't claim to be definitive). Perhaps one of them will emerge as this generation's Pete Seeger.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Point Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group