This week’s readings bring to mind an “authenticity” issue I discussed in a blog earlier this semester. In this blog, I related a story about my sister-in-law’s expectation of acquiring an authentic artifact from the Monte Alban site in Oaxaca, Mexico. I couldn’t stop thinking about the relationship between authenticity and expectation. I have a similar approach to the readings that Natasha does (especially Filene) as she called for people to see Dylan “as he is” or the “man himself.” Perhaps the expectation of what his music was represented an idea of authenticity that Bob Dylan, the artist hoping to maintain a career, could never represent forever.
Filene essentially defined the “Cult of authenticity” as a “thicket of expectations,” explaining how the Lomaxes created the criteria for determining what a folk singer looked and sounded like. In the case of Lead Belly, the Lomaxes saw authenticity in a person who had been imprisoned, separated from society, and thus able to represent the authentic folk music and usher in a folk revival. The Lomaxes defined authenticity based on their own expectations of its existence in ones separation from society. Some Dylan fans also labeled his early work, folk, and solidified their expectations of authenticity that failed to coincide with his transition to the electric guitar. These expectations, or for academics, their imaginations, seem to dominate the artist and the music. Since expectations are tied to reception, understanding they shape the perception of authenticity helps to illustrate the precarious terrain that folklorists enter when discussing authentic folk music.
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