As a folk and Americana DJ who dates back to 1978, conventional wisdom would dictate that you can't predict the life expectancy of a new trend when it is only a week old. But it may already be safe to declare that the days of folk music being dominated by leftists, Communists, and atheists has officially ended.
For decades, the dismal impact folk music was having on American culture and media, and its corresponding financial returns, inspired the late Utah Phillips to rhetorically ask, "How do you make a million dollars in folk music?" His answer: "Spend two million."
I think the reason for such futility is now obvious. The ability of leftists, Communists, and atheists to truly connect with the struggles, joys, and values of average Americans has always been quite limited.
The incubation of this dominant folk music orientation could not have been more odious and inorganic. When you really trace it back, it would not have existed without the University experience of the late 1950's and '60's. A large number of Marxist professors infiltrated these institutions after World War II, joined by their patriarch-hating, feminist counterparts in the 1970's. They determined the curriculum, the culture, and the policies.
As any adult knows, university life is a far cry from real life. Until our youth get out of the classroom, pay their own bills, and experience how the world really works, they are very impressionable, and to a large degree, believe everything they are taught. King Solomon and Vladimir Lenin didn't have much in common. But both realized the importance of training up a child in the way he should go so that when he is old, he will not depart from it. Furthermore, who financed these professors and their activist groups? Often, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the CIA's MK Ultra. Hardly the prime demographic of folk music, wouldn't you say?
Fast forward to earlier this month, August 2023. An independent artist suddenly emerges, not out of the most bureaucratic, privileged, collectivist, over-priced, and wealthy institution in western society. This artist, an aspiring farmer living off the grid, emerged from a remote part of Virginia, eking out a living on his own. He is not a Communist. He believes strongly in American free enterprise and meritocracy. He is not an atheist. He's a Bible believing Christian with traditional values. And yes, he is a male. And it's just him and his dobro guitar.
When Oliver Anthony performed at his local farmer's market back in June, twenty patrons shuffled by to watch him. A few days ago, he returned for a repeat performance. It caused a traffic jam with well over a thousand descending on the market. Back in the '80's and 90's, it took a lot of work to get a thousand people to show up for a folk concert. But for this gentleman, it was no work at all because he was a true, overnight sensation.
At this post-covid point in history, people are waking up. The red pill realities of who we truly are, and the reason the rulers of this world want us weak, deceived, and prematurely dead, is hitting many quite hard.
The struggles of the working class in 2023 are far more MAGA than Marx. With Oliver Anthony, folk music is finally reflecting it. This turning point is long overdue.
