The Newport Folk Festival 1960 Volume 1

Following on from his inaugural success in the summer of 1959, the second Newport Folk Festival took place in the late June of 1960 in the idyllic setting of Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island. The location has been described as having "glimmering, clear blue water surrounding the small vivid green peninsula with hundreds of beautiful boats rocking along the water".

Stalwart folk musician Pete Seeger (born 1919) had appeared at the First Newport Festival and did so again in 1960. Seeger has always been a supporter of civil rights, racial equality and anti-militarism and as such was a victim of the McCarthy witch-hunts of the Fities. At the time when he appeared at the Newport Festival he had been refused permission to play at a childrens school on the grounds that he might promote a communist agenda or plot the overthrow of the government.

It may seem surprising to see John Lee Hooker´s name at a folk festival, but of course the blues is just another form of American folk music - som would argue the most important - and this was at a time when music genres were not as rigidly pigeonholed as they are today.

Irish musician Tommy Makem gives an electrifyingly dramatic performance of the anti-war song "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye".

Excerpts from the sleeve notes:

"It was Tommy Makem, of County Armaghm, Ireland, strutting back and forth on the stage and piping away. And then the 27-year-old singer who regularly performs with the Clancy Brothers, put down the bagpipes and started to sing with his own very able set of vocal pipes. You can heat Makem, supported by Pete Seeger and Eric Weisberg, in two richly different moods: the sardonic, defiant, declaratory singer reviling the effects of war in "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye," and the lyric, playful minstrel in "The Whistling Gypsy"."

Tracklist:

Pete Seeger
- East Virginia Blues
- In The Evening
- Hieland Laddie
John Lee Hooker (with Bill Lee, string bass)
- Hobo Blues (or Dusty Road)
- Maudie
- Tupolo (or Backwater Blues)
Alan Mills (with Jean Carignan, fiddle)
- A Si Mon Moine Voulait Danser
Jean Carignan
- Le Reel Du Pendu
Alan Mills
- I Know An Old Lady
- La Bastringue (with Jean Carignan, fiddle)

Tom Makem
- Brian Boru
- Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye
Tom Makem (with Pete Seeger, banjo & Eric Weisberg, g)
- The Whistling Gypsy
Jimmy Driftwood (with Peter Seeger, banjo)
- Old Joe Clark
Jimmy Driftwood
- The Unfortunate Man
The New Lost City Ramblers
- Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms
Mike Seeger
- The Man Of Constant Sorrow
- Foggy Mountain Top

The Newport Folk Festival 1960, Volume 1
(192 kbps, front cover included)