Inauthentically Authentic

By Kelley Merriam Castro (or am I?)

The topic of authenticity reared its head again this week in the readings, in the ironic, and complex ways that makes the study of folk culture both fascinating and exasperating.  The Lomax team found authenticity in the deprivation of freedom -- Lead Belly's decade in prison supposedly isolated him from the modern world and made him more authentically "folk."  Folk music traditions as I understand them, are oral traditions created and sung by people to meet specific needs.  They are lively and relevant rather than canonic.  Yet those who observed the evolution of Lead Belly's music after he left prison interpreted his changes as a degeneration of his original sound rather than the evolution of a folk style to meet a changing reality, audience and scene.  Dylan faced a similar challenge in his evolution into electric, rock styles by those who identified him as "folk".  For both of these singers and songwriters, Filene defends their musical growth and change as part of the growth and evolution of a musician, and in the case of Dylan, finds folk roots throughout his career. 

The not-very-subtle irony of Bob Dylan's own "authenticity," of course, lies in the complete inauthenticity of his own persona, his decision to invent a name and inconsistent personal history, and occasionally provide nonsense answers to interviewers.  Filene parallels this to Pete Seeger's own stated desire to be able to hide behind a pseudonym at times, and relates it to the very contradiction the concept of "authenticity" imposes -- Pete Seeger, the six-figure-earning wandering "everyman," versus Mr. Zimmerman-come-Dylan.  Neither stemmed from the "authentic" racialized folk music roots that ultimately inspired them.  Yet both found ways to fashion a life of musical and cultural experiences that rejected rat-race 9-5 middle and upper-class America, granting them at least a little street cred as wandering minstrels. 

In an odd way (and at the risk of blasphemy for my colleagues in ethnomusicology who adore all the Seegers), almost because of his blatant and outright invention, Dylan could be interpreted as more authentic than Lead Belly or Pete Seeger.  Dylans wandering minstrel quality took on a whole new dimension and cut through questions of identity and truth itself.  Lead Belly sought to conform more closely to convention as his career progressed, rendering his authenticity suspect by folklorists.  Seeger lamented the bifurcation between the success he had become and the working-class simplicity he meant to impart.  And Seeger attempted to define Dylan and wall him into a static acoustic folk scene.  Dylan rejected the limitations of the folk convention and blast into the electric rock scene, never mind the criticism.  He rejected even the framing placed on him by his own name and heritage, defining himself as he thought he should be.  He rejected the conventions of news interviews, giving nonsense answers when he became bored with the routine. 

Here, then, the inauthentic has become mingled and infused with the authentic, demonstrating how complicated, futile, misleading  or unnecessary the quest for authentic folk can be.  Marcus and Cantwell recall with deep emotion their first reactions to Dylan and what his music signified to them.  Whether he was actually Bob Dylan or somebody else, whether he was folk, rock, or electric, whether he felt like answering questions that day or not -- the moment of defining "authenticity" for him, or any musician for that matter, resided more in how the listener responds to the music and performer than in the performer him- or herself.  It seems the true folk musicians, those who adapt their songs to local scenes, traditions and moments, and allow it to evolve with the time, understand that the real authenticity in folk music is not in the musician or the music, but in the moment of reception -- that moment where the listener hears and interprets the music and finds it real.

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My blog post ends here, but I was googling around and found this:

http://folkmusic.about.com/od/bobdylan/a/Bob-Dylan-Plagiarism.htm

And, I was coursing YouTube to listen to Lead Belly, Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger and others, and could not resist sharing this:

See y'all in class!