The Pennywhistlers were an American singing group founded by folklorist and singer Ethel Raim and popular during the 1960s folk music revival

American folk music revival

The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...

. They specialized in Eastern European choral music, sung primarily A cappella

A cappella

A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...

. Folk singer Theodore Bikel

Theodore Bikel

Theodore Meir Bikel is a character actor, folk singer and musician. He made his film debut in The African Queen and was nominated for an Academy award for his supporting role as Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones ....

, in his autobiography Theo, called them "the closest to the real thing in authenticity in the United States." They toured throughout the 1960s, appearing at the Sing Out!

Sing Out!

Sing Out! is a quarterly journal of folk music and folk songs that has been published since May 1950.-Background:Sing Out! is the primary publication of the tax exempt, not-for-profit, educational corporation of the same name...

hootenanny at Carnegie Hall, the Fox Hollow Festival

Fox Hollow Festival

The Fox Hollow Festival or Fox Hollow Festival of Traditional Music and Arts was a folk festival held on the estate of folksingers Bob and Evelyn Beers in Petersburgh, New York each summer from 1966 to 1980, usually in August....

, and the Mariposa Folk Festival

Mariposa Folk Festival

The Mariposa Folk Festival was founded in 1961 in Orillia, Ontario. It was held in Orillia for three years before being banned because of disturbances by festival-goers. After being held in various places in Ontario for a few decades, it returned to Orillia in 2000. Ruth Jones, her husband Dr...

, among others. They shared the bill with performers such as Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

, Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

, Reverend Gary Davis

Reverend Gary Davis

Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis, was an American blues and gospel singer and guitarist, who was also proficient on the banjo and harmonica...

, Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...

, and many others.

Recordings

• The Pennywhistlers (Folkways Records FW-8773, 1963)
• The Pennywhistlers: A Cool Day and Crooked Corn (Nonesuch H-72024, 1965)
• The Pennywhistlers: Folksongs of Eastern Europe (Nonesuch H-72007, 1967)
• Songs of the Earth (with Theodore Bikel) (Elektra)