Hill Folk Music on Hippie Hill

The Hill Folk playing some tunes at Hippie Hill in Tennessee.

Arlo Guthrie once stated, “Folk music is music that everyday people can play, and it inspired a lot of people to make their own music. That trailed into making your own pop music, and that's why garage bands started springing up everywhere.”

Guthrie was an original hippy, a song writer and was known for singing songs against social injustice. However, his only hit was the cover of Steve Goodman’s City of New Orleans.

His best known work was an 18-minute blues / satirical song called Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.

Little Drummer Boy

At age 14 he travels each year between New Orleans, where his mother lives and Nashville, where his father lives. He spends one school year at each location. As long as he keeps his grades up, he is allowed to hit the streets to drum on the sidewalk in order to make money.

As for the drumming, he taught himself his techniques, which are spectacular.

He said that his dad had a bunch of buckets laying around the house, because his dad was a panhandler, and he got the idea to use them as drums.

Talent would be an understatement.

"I taught myself how to play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the drums, and I kind of fake doing both of them. But drumming comes more natural to me, and it just feels better." -  Dave Grohl, Nirvana and later the Foo Fighters