The decline and rebirth of folk-protest music

In 1965, Bob Dylan made the first important move against protest music. Indeed, Dylan declared his artistic independence from movements and national issues. Thus, like so many folk music trends, the movement away from specific, topical protest songs was initiated by Bob Dylan, the most creative and influential American performer of the 1960s. In 1965 he also combined folk music and rock &s;n&s; roll, which the music industry labelled folk-rock. Protest songs were always a part of American folk music and showcasing them within the folk spectrum gave them a wholesome image. Rock had assimilated the whole of American music, from ragtime to gospel and it now added folk music. Here and there, record stores began filing folk-protest albums in with those of the rock superstars. Nonetheless, a few popular singers who had been affected by folk-protest in the 1960s when they were growing up continued to write a message song or two along with their more popular songs.