Folk Visions & Voices

Folk Visions & Voices

Author: Art Rosenbaum

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0820346497

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Sampling virtually all of the old-time styles within the musical traditions still extant in north Georgia, Folk Visions and Voices is a collection of eighty-two songs and instrumentals, enhanced by photographs, illustrations, biographical sketches of performers, and examples of their narratives, sermons, tales, and reminiscences.


Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands

Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands

Author:

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 1992-03-01

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 0820323896

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A valuable collection of folk music and lore from the Gullah culture, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands preserves the rich traditions of slave descendants on the barrier islands of Georgia by interweaving their music with descriptions of their language, religious and social customs, and material culture. Collected over a period of nearly twenty-five years by Lydia Parrish, the sixty folk songs and attendant lore included in this book are evidence of antebellum traditions kept alive in the relatively isolated coastal regions of Georgia. Over the years, Parrish won the confidence of many of the African-American singers, not only collecting their songs but also discovering other elements of traditional culture that formed the context of those songs. When it was first published in 1942, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands contained much material that had not previously appeared in print. The songs are grouped in categories, including African survival songs; shout songs; ring-play, dance, and fiddle songs; and religious and work songs. In additions to the lyrics and melodies, Slave Songs includes Lydia Parrish's explanatory notes, character sketches of her informants, anecdotes, and a striking portfolio of photographs. Reproduced in its original oversized format, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands will inform and delight students and scholars of African-American culture and folklore as well as folk music enthusiasts.


Nanci Griffith's Other Voices

Nanci Griffith's Other Voices

Author: Nanci Griffith

Publisher: Three Rivers Press (CA)

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13:

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In a lively celebration of the contemporary folk music scene, Nanci Griffith tells the story of her music evolution and introduces the songwriters and performers who contributed to her Grammy Award-winning album, "Other Voices, Other Rooms" and her new album, "Other Voices, Too: A Trip Back to Bountiful". 100 photos.


Shout Because You're Free

Shout Because You're Free

Author:

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 082034611X

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The ring shout is the oldest known African American performance tradition surviving on the North American continent. Performed for the purpose of religious worship, this fusion of dance, song, and percussion survives today in the Bolton Community of McIntosh County, Georgia. Incorporating oral history, first-person accounts, musical transcriptions, photographs, and drawings, Shout Because You're Free documents a group of performers known as the McIntosh County Shouters. Derived from African practices, the ring shout combines call-and-response singing, the percussion of a stick or broom on a wood floor, and hand-clapping and foot-tapping. First described in depth by outside observers on the sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia during the Civil War, the ring shout was presumed to have died out in active practice until 1980, when the shouters in the Bolton community first came to the public's attention. Shout Because You're Free is the result of sixteen years of research and fieldwork by Art and Margo Rosenbaum, authors of Folk Visions and Voices. The book includes descriptions of present-day community shouts, a chapter on the history of the shout's African origins, the recollections of early outside observers, and later folklorists' comments. In addition, the tunes and texts of twenty-five shout songs performed by the McIntosh County Shouters are transcribed by ethnomusicologist Johann S. Buis.Shout Because You're Free is a fascinating look at a unique living tradition that demonstrates ties to Africa, slavery, and Emancipation while interweaving these influences with worship and oneness with the spirit.


Folk Nation

Folk Nation

Author: Simon J. Bronner

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2002-08-01

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0742580237

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This lively reader traces the search for American tradition and national identity through folklore and folklife from the 19th century to the present. Through an engaging set of essays, Folk Nation shows how American thinkers and leaders have used folklore to express the meaning of their country. Simon Bronner has carefully selected statements by public intellectuals and popular writers as well as by scholars, all chosen for their readability and significance as provocative texts during their time. The common thread running throughout is the value of folklore in expressing or denying an American national tradition. This text raises timely issues about the character of American culture and the direction of American society. The essays show the development of views of American nationalism, multiculturalism, and commercialism. Provocative topics include debates over the relationship between popular culture and folk culture, the uniqueness of an American literature and arts based on folk sources, the fabrication of folk heroes such as Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan as propaganda for patriotism and nationalism, the romanticizations of vernacular culture by popularizers such as Walt Disney and Ben Botkin, the use of folklore for ethnocentric purposes, and the political deployment of folklore by conservatives as emblems of 'traditional values' and civil virtues and by liberals as emblems of multiculturalism and tolerance of alternative lifestyles. The book also traces the controversy over who conveyed the myth of 'America.' Was it the nation's poets and artists, its academics, its politicians and leaders, its communities and local educational institutions, its theme parks and festivals, its movie moguls and entertainers? Folk Nation shows how the process of defining the American mystique through folklore was at the core of debates among writers and thinkers about the value of Davey Crockett, John Henry, quilts, cowboys, and immigrants as symbols of America.


Wake Up Dead Man

Wake Up Dead Man

Author: Bruce Jackson

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780820321585

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Making it in Hell, says Bruce Jackson, is the spirit behind the sixty-five work songs gathered in this eloquent dispatch from a brutal era of prison life in the Deep South. Through engagingly documented song arrangements and profiles of their singers, Jackson shows how such pieces as "Hammer Ring," "Ration Blues," "Yellow Gal," and "Jody's Got My Wife and Gone" are like no other folk music forms: they are distinctly African in heritage, diminished in power and meaning outside their prison context, and used exclusively by black convicts. The songs helped workers through the rigors of cane cutting, logging, and cotton picking. Perhaps most important, they helped resolve the men's hopes and longings and allowed them a subtle outlet for grievances they could never voice when face-to-face with their jailers.


Folk

Folk

Author: Richard Carlin

Publisher: Infobase Publishing

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0816069786

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Presents brief entries covering the history, significant artists, styles and influence of folk music.


Prophet Singer

Prophet Singer

Author: Mark Allan Jackson

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2009-09-18

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1496800257

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Prophet Singer: The Voice and Vision of Woody Guthrie examines the cultural and political significance of lyrics by beloved songwriter and activist Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie. The text traces how Guthrie documented the history of America's poor and disadvantaged through lyrics about topics as diverse as the Dust Bowl and the poll tax. Divided into chapters covering specific historical topics such as race relations and lynchings, famous outlaws, the Great Depression, and unions, the book takes an in-depth look at how Guthrie manipulated his lyrics to explore pressing issues and to bring greater political and economic awareness to the common people. Incorporating the best of both historical and literary perspectives, Mark Allan Jackson references primary sources including interviews, recordings, drawings, and writings. He includes a variety of materials from the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and the Woody Guthrie Archives. Many of these have never before been widely available. The result provides new insights into one of America's most intriguing icons. Prophet Singer offers an analysis of the creative impulse behind and ideals expressed in Guthrie's song lyrics. Details from the artist's personal life as well as his interactions with political and artistic movements from the first half of the twentieth century afford readers the opportunity to understand how Guthrie's deepest beliefs influenced and found voice in the lyrics that are now known and loved by millions.