Popular Folk Music Comes of Age, 1955–1956

This chapter describes the folk music scene from 1955 to 1956. It discusses the formation of the Hillbilly-Folk Record Collectors' Club and launching of the quarterly Hillbilly-Folk Record Journal in early 1954, in Britain; how the skiffle provided a dramatic boost to the popularity of folk-style music in Britain; the sudden popularity of a different musical hybrid, calypso, in the U.S.; how folk music was linked with the developing countercultural movement—poetry, films, novels, comic books, jazz, comedy—spreading across the U.S. in the mid-1950s; the emergence of Harry Belafonte; and the rising popularity of international music in the U.S., spurred by people's search for international understanding and world peace during the harsh years of the Cold War.