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 Jethro Tull
In the wake of the 60’s, a Folk revival started on both sides of the
Atlantic, and got quickly linked with a protest movement, not always,
but often linked to more left-wing tendencies, which did not sit well
with the authorities. BOB DYLAN, JOAN BAEZ, WOODY GUTHRIE, JOHN DENVER,
BUFFY STE-MARIE, but also the FARINA couple Richard and Mimi for the US
and SHIRLEY COLLINS and EWAN McCOLL (mentor of BERT JANSCH, JOHN
RENBOURN ) for the UK and HUGUES AUFRAY in France. In Quebec, there was
the “Chansoniers” phenomenon among which CLAUDE LEVEILLE and FELIX
LECLERC were the most popular, waking up the sleepy “Belle Province”
and stand up for itself from the English rule. The English part of
Canada also brought up JONI MITCHELL, LEONARD COHEN (although he was
from Montreal) and NEIL YOUNG.
As DYLAN turned electric with his Highway 61 Revisited album, much to
the dislike of purists who yelled for treason, Folk Rock was born,
opening the floodgates for younger artists to turn on the electricity.
As DYLAN soon abandoned to style to create Country Rock with his next
album, his British equivalent Scotsman DONOVAN stayed true to Folk
Rock. In the US, THE BYRDS were the main promoters of the style by now,
culminating with the superb “Eight Miles High” track with a lengthy
(for the times) guitar solo of almost one minute. But countless other
bands on the west coast, such as LOVE, JEFFERSON AIRPLANE (and later
its spin-off HOT TUNA), GRATEFUL DEAD, QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE,
PEARLS BEFORE SWINE, and TIM BUCKLEY all started in the folk rock
realm. Even San Fran’s SANTANA with its Latino traditional music and,
on the east coast, NY’s THE LOVING SPOONFUL had folk roots.
Notwithstanding the immense popularity of SIMON & GARFUNKEL and
their delicious harmonies, Folk Rock was appealing only to the rock
public as the older generations turned their backs in folkies.
In the UK, following on their countrymen DONOVAN, many Scotsmen were
very influent in exploring new grounds for folk rock: INCREDIBLE STRING
BAND (led by Scots Palmer and Williamson) with their two highly
influential albums “5000 Layers Or The Spirit Of The Onion” & “The
Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter” and THE PENTANGLE (led by other Scots
Renbourn, Jansch and McShee and their superb bassist Danny Thompson)
and its incredible fusion of folk, blues and jazz style were very
instrumental in developing the style to the same extent as FAIRPORT
CONVENTION and THE STRAWBS who by that time were still more
conventional US “west-coast folk rock”. The single artistes in folk
rock became known as Folk Troubadours were also numerous and often
presented a more progressive side of folk: AL STEWART, NICK DRAKE, ROY
HARPER, TYRANOSAURUS REX (actually a duo of Steven Took and Marc Bolan)
, JOHN MARTYN etc…
However, the real angular album that will lead to further change of
Folk Rock is FAIRPORT CONVENTION’s “Liege & Lief” album, that
proved to be highly influential for another generation of groups: this
album concentrated into electrifying seminal English traditional folk
and retained that quaint Englishness taste. It is interesting to see
that both leaders of FAIRPORT quit the band after this success to go
their respective way: Sandy Denny to a solo folk songwriting career and
Ashley Hutchings to a very traditional folk rock. By this time, most
connoisseur were talking of Acid Folk, Psych Folk, and Progressive
Folk, all having limited differences and no particularly drawn-out
limits or boundaries, but all relying on experimental or groundbreaking
adventures and good musicianship but not necessarily of an acoustic
nature.
Groups like THE THIRD EAR BAND and QUINTESSENCE relied on eastern
Indian music influences and, sometimes, medieval tones. Other groups
like the weird COMUS, THE TREES, SPYROGIRA, FOREST, the superb JAN
DUKES DE GREY (all listed in the ProgArchives) but also TRADER HORNE,
TUDOR LODGE, FOTHERINGAY, MAGNA CARTA, TIR NA NOG (all of whom could
also be in the ProgArchives) were out to break new ground but with less
commercial success as their predecessor. By 1972, all of the glorious
precursors bands were selling fewer records and had problems renewing
themselves and a newer generation of groups was relying in a more
Celtic jigs or really traditional sounds. Such as HORSLIPS, DANDO
SHAFT, STEELEYE SPAN, AMAZING BLONDEL, ALBION DANCE BAND and SPRIGUNS
OF TOLGUS. Although JETHRO TULL had some definitive folk roots right
from the start, their only albums that can be regarded as Prog Folk are
77’s Songs From The Woods and 78’s Heavy Horses. Ian Anderson (another
Scots) was very keen in acoustical traditional songs. Some Folk
Troubadours such as TIM BUCKLEY and JOHN MARTYN started turning records
more and more axed towards fusing jazz and folk (a bit in what THE
PENTANGLE were doing) , others became more and more electric and they
started to be referred to as Singer Songwriters especially those with
country rock influences.
In Germany, HOELDERLIN (and their fantastic debut album), EMTIDI,
OUGENWEIDE, CAROL OF HARVEST, WITTHEUSER & WESTRUPP were exploring
German folk while KALACAKRA , SILOAH and EMBRYO were indulging with
Indian music. In South America, most notably in Chile, LOS JAIVAS (very
bent upon Andean Indian music) and EL CONGRESSO (more Spanish-Latino
folklore) were using folk in their rock, so much that some press talked
about them referring it with the hateful term Inca Rock. In Quebec, the
progressive movement exploded with the cultural identity and the
Chansoniers tradition and this was carried out with LES SEGUIN and
HARMONIUM and so many more. In France, many groups were out for folk
rock such as RIBEIRO ALPS, TANGERINE, and ASGARD. In Spain, Flamenco
playing a dominant role as well as Basque folk, TRIANA, ITOIZ and
HAIZEA were the head of the movement once the Franco regime fell apart
after his death.
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Prog folk 
