Folk music was born out of the strife of the working man.
The spare, socially-conscious songs, played mostly on acoustic
guitar, grew up in the Dust Bowl. They got taken around the entire
country in a sweep of popularity in the late 1950s and ’60s.
One of the most legendary spots for folk music dissemination was
Washington Square in downtown Greenwich Village, a place where
people would gather round to play and listen to all types of folk
music.
The Washington Square Memoirs concert at Royce Hall on Saturday
night was a show put together to reflect that community’s
importance in folk music history. At the show were folk music icons
Mike Seeger, Tom Paxton, John Hammond and Loudon Wainwright III.
People interested in a comprehensive spattering of this era of folk
can pick up the triple album “Washington Square Memoirs: The
Great Urban Folk Boom, 1950-1970.”
The concert’s artists represented different facets of the
malleably defined genre that is folk. But the gorgeous Royce Hall
didn’t help transport the audience to an urban Washington
Square ““ type setting. The show at times felt stilted in its
attempt at genuine folky goodness, and none of the artists were
able to get the audience into a truly inspired campfire
sing-along.
Mike Seeger, one in the long line of Seeger family musicians
most famously known for his half-brother Pete, opened the show with
some real good “old-timey” jams. With educationally
enriching introductions to his songs and a sweet Southern voice,
Seeger charmed the audience with his impressive display of skill on
a variety of instruments from the quills, a panpipe-like
instrument, to an African gut string banjo.
Blurring the lines of genre, John Hammond played some genuine
blues. With covers of songs by greats like Muddy Waters and Robert
Johnson, Hammond’s set was charged with emotional ruggedness.
This guy has some major chops as a blues guitarist and his vocals
were passionate, if less acrobatic.
Tom Paxton and Loudon Wainwright III represented two sides of
the same genre coin. They both played topical songs and
straight-ahead folk/folk rock. Paxton was the night’s lone
disappointment. He played a set that was much too long. And while
his singing and guitar playing was certainly adequate, his songs
were too predictable. He played novelty songs and songs that
attempted a broader social-consciousness, but in all cases the
lyrics were too inane.
Wainwright was just the opposite. Though he was the youngest
artist on the bill, he played the headlining set and got the
loudest audience applause. Wainwright played songs that
shouldn’t have worked in theory, but they did. He sang a
birthday song for Bob Dylan, a send-up of Los Angeles and a song
about the after-life. These sounded like half-baked ideas when
introduced, but Wainwright’s lyrics were infused with such
wit it didn’t matter. He also played songs about his family,
coming at it from unexpected angles that were surprisingly
poignant.
Memoirs highlighted most of what is best about folk music
““ that, despite its label as a static genre, it is full of
life and the unexpected.