Folk 101

"I ain't never heard no horse sing," quipped roots pioneer Leadbelly when he was asked to explain folk music. Which is another way of saying that folk is handed down from one generation to the next, by word of mouth. These tracks provide an overview of the folk song tradition, past and present. Woodie Guthrie and Bob Dylan lead the way.

Folk music can be hundreds of years old, an instant connection to the past, or written just last week. New or traditional, it's music delivered by superb singers, songwriters, and instrumental virtuosos: Bruce Cockburn, a master of many styles, wrote "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" after visiting Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico during the '80s.

Whether it's a 500-year-old ballad about a tragic love affair, or a brand-new protest against war or poverty, folk music speaks straight from the heart with a voice that defies time. Folk's extended Canadian clan includes Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Sarah Harmer, Ron Sexsmith, Great Big Sea, Neil Young, and the Cowboy Junkies.

If any popular genre can best be mapped by a family tree, it has to be folk music. Ideas and lyrics are handed down like heirlooms, and roots can be traced back to the Middle Ages, and further even, into the darker corners of history. As a reflection on human nature, folk cuts through politics: When Bob Dylan sang "The Times They Are A-Changing," self-accompanied by his simply strummed guitar and piercing harmonica, every word carried a physical charge. And that's exactly what Dylan had felt in the songs of forebears like Woody Guthrie. Stirring.