In a recent article in “The New Yorker,” the author described a person she met as “looking like a folk singer.” The article had nothing to do with music, folk singing, or anything related. I reread the sentence and tried to conjure up an image of what a folk singer is supposed to look like, especially to a broad general audience. I have a long history with folk music. I’ve known some folk singers personally and have seen hundreds, probably thousands, perform in coffee houses, listening rooms, concert halls and festivals over the years. But despite that exposure, no single image comes to mind of what a folk singer is supposed to look like. In my experience, they are he and she and they; Black and white and brown and red and gray; from everywhere and anywhere.

Back in the ’60s, my college roommate taught himself to play the acoustic guitar and adopted a look, a persona, and an attire that I assume he thought captured what a folk singer should look like. It included a goatee, usually sunglasses, an old battered hat, jeans, and a flannel shirt with rolled-up sleeves a la Pete Seeger. For many of that era like my roommate, a folk singer looked like Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie. At least Bob Dylan thought so and copied Woody’s look, sound, voice, and songwriting style. 

Not everyone agreed. Interestingly, the Black folk and blues singers who were “discovered” in the ’60s and sometimes brought to Greenwich Village and the Newport Folk Festival had no interest in that kind of proletarian attire. They had worn jeans working in the fields and stripes in prisons and on chain gangs. So when Leadbelly, for example, came to perform, he was always impeccably dressed in a suit. Perhaps that’s what a folk singer looks like—a sharp dresser, well-groomed, with a 12-string guitar. I doubt that’s what the author of the article had in mind. Perhaps it was more the Joan Baez early look of bare feet and a long dress, or Mary Travers flicking her head of long straight blonde hair, looking elegant between the two scruffy guys with her.

Today, the folk singer persona seems to come in two primary varieties. One is the casual, every-person look: jeans or khaki pants, a T-shirt, and maybe a pair of boots—better to tap out the rhythm. The second type is those defining a signature look, or in today’s parlance, a brand. It might be a vest, a spiffy shirt and bow tie, or a particular hat—cowboy, bowler, or pork pie—and so on. There’s often an effort to match the attire and grooming—hair length, etc.—with the music, whether old-timey, Americana, or something going more country or urban.

Of course, I still have no idea what the author of the article had in mind about what a folk singer looks like, but the important part is what a folk singer sounds like. What’s the musicianship? What are the lyrics? How do they deliver them? When they’re good—really good—the look is much less important than what you’re hearing and what you are hearing can bring new images all their own. 

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 Ron Cooke is the author of a book of short stories and poems entitled Obituaries and Other Lies (available at Amazon); writes a well-received blog (ASSV4U.com/blog); and hosts a weekly radio show called Music They Don’t Want You to Hear on KTAL-LP in Las Cruces, NM.  He is also a founding director of A Still Small Voice 4U, a not for profit supporting arts, culture and community that presents folk concerts, sponsors artists, festivals and community groups. Ron is an avid cyclist, racer, blogger, sculptor and ne’er-do-well.