Geoff Bartley

Musician

Geoff Bartley 5: The “folk scare” in the sixties--we call it that, it’s a joke--the folk movement, the folk revival of the 1960s, it can be seen, certainly, that folk music, whatever that means, people talking about, what, race issues, social issues, politics, the culture, running headlong into the idea of a business model. Bob Dylan’s manager held auditions for Peter, Paul and Mary. They sang beautiful stuff, they played well, they sang well, they sang things that, you know, Bob Dylan songs that had messages and stuff like that, but it was packaged in a way that Middle America could digest. It sounded nice. And I don’t think even a group like Peter, Paul and Mary, I think they’d be laughed off the stage now.