Three prominent folklorists wrote these essays in the 1970s about Dorrance Weir of upstate New York and his song "Take that Night Train to Selma," Joe Scott of Maine and his song "The Plain Golden Band," and Paul Hall of Newfoundland and "The Bachelor's Song."
Holehole bushi, folk songs of Japanese workers in Hawaii's plantations, describe the experiences of this particular group caught in the global movements of capital, empire, and labor during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this book author Franklin Odo situates over two hundred of these songs, in translation, in a hitherto largely unexplored historical context.
The Beautiful Music All Around Us presents the extraordinarily rich backstories of thirteen performances captured on Library of Congress field recordings between 1934 and 1942 in locations reaching from Southern Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta and the Great Plains. Including the children's play song "Shortenin' Bread," the fiddle tune "Bonaparte's Retreat," the blues "Another Man Done Gone," and the spiritual "Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down," these performances were recorded in kitchens and churches, on porches and in prisons, in hotel rooms and school auditoriums. Documented during the golden age of the Library of Congress recordings, they capture not only the words and tunes of traditional songs but also the sounds of life in which the performances were embedded: children laugh, neighbors comment, trucks pass by. Musician and researcher Stephen Wade sought out the performers on these recordings, their families, fellow musicians, and others who remembered them. He reconstructs the sights and sounds of the recording sessions themselves and how the music worked in all their lives. Some of these performers developed musical reputations beyond these field recordings, but for many, these tracks represent their only appearances on record: prisoners at the Arkansas State Penitentiary jumping on "the Library's recording machine" in a rendering of "Rock Island Line"; Ora Dell Graham being called away from the schoolyard to sing the jump-rope rhyme "Pullin' the Skiff"; Luther Strong shaking off a hungover night in jail and borrowing a fiddle to rip into "Glory in the Meetinghouse." Alongside loving and expert profiles of these performers and their locales and communities, Wade also untangles the histories of these iconic songs and tunes, tracing them through slave songs and spirituals, British and homegrown ballads, fiddle contests, gospel quartets, and labor laments. By exploring how these singers and instrumentalists exerted their own creativity on inherited forms, "amplifying tradition's gifts," Wade shows how a single artist can make a difference within a democracy. Reflecting decades of research and detective work, the profiles and abundant photos in The Beautiful Music All Around Us bring to life largely unheralded individuals--domestics, farm laborers, state prisoners, schoolchildren, cowboys, housewives and mothers, loggers and miners--whose music has become part of the wider American musical soundscape. The hardcover edition also includes an accompanying CD that presents these thirteen performances, songs and sounds of America in the 1930s and '40s.
This authoritative reference work investigates the roots of the Sacred Harp, the central collection of the deeply influential and long-lived southern tradition of shape-note singing. David Warren Steel and Richard H. Hulan concentrate on the regional culture that produced the Sacred Harp in the nineteenth century and delve deeply into history of its authors and composers. They trace the sources of every tune and text in the Sacred Harp, from the work of B. F. White, E. J. King, and their west Georgia contemporaries who helped compile the original collection in 1844 to the contributions by various composers to the 1936 to 1991 editions. Drawing on census reports, local histories, family Bibles and other records, rich oral interviews with descendants, and Sacred Harp Publishing Company records, this volume reveals new details and insights about the history of this enduring American musical tradition. David Waren Stel is an associate professor of music and southern culture at the University of Mississippi. Richard H. Hulan is an independent scholar of American folk hymnody.
One of the Spectator's Books of the Year 2012 'Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain For we've received orders for to sail for old England But we hope in a short while to see you again' One of the great English popular art forms, the folk song can be painful, satirical, erotic, dramatic, rueful or funny. They have thrived when sung on a whim to a handful of friends in a pub; they have bewitched generations of English composers who have set them for everything from solo violin to full orchestra; they are sung in concerts, festivals, weddings, funerals and with nobody to hear but the singer. This magical new collection brings together all the classic folk songs as well as many lesser-known discoveries, complete with music and annotations on their original sources and meaning. Published in cooperation with the English Folk Dance and Song Society, it is a worthy successor to Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L.Lloyd's original Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. 'Her keen eye did glitter like the bright stars by night The robe she was wearing was costly and white Her bare neck was shaded with her long raven hair And they called her pretty Susan, the pride of Kildare' In association with EFDSS, the English Folk Dance and Song Society
The timely, passionate, and humanely political work of America's greatest folk singer and songwriter is presented through his own words and art – curated by Woody's daughter – in this essential self-portrait, including never-before published lyrics and personal writing, and testimony from contemporary writers and musicians on his powerful relevance today. Woody Guthrie and his passionate social politics are as crucial today as they have ever been. A powerful voice for justice, and the author of more than 3,000 songs (including "This Land is Your Land"), he was also a poet, painter, illustrator, novelist, journal keeper, and profuse letter writer. Curated by his daughter Nora and award-winning music historian Robert Santelli, this fresh, intimate, and beautifully designed book thematically reveals Woody's story through his own personal writings, lyrics, and artwork, urgently bringing his voice to life. Featuring never-before-published lyrics to some of his greatest songs, personal diary entries, doodles, quips and jokes, and piercing insights on his politics and justice, this is an undeniable and important celebration of Woody's vibrant life's work. Created to be enjoyed by all – those interested in folk music or those interested in Woody's thoughts on Life in all its aspects, from Politics and Spirituality, to Love and Family – this book reflects Bob Dylan's thoughts on Woody Guthrie; "You can listen to his songs and learn how to live." ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL SONGWRITERS IN AMERICAN MUSIC HISTORY: Woody Guthrie has had a profound impact on American musicians, writers, politicians (and the everyman who found solace and kinship in Guthrie's writings and political beliefs), who have been shaped by his music and activism – namely the great founding father of songwriting himself, Bob Dylan, for whom he was a mentor. Others who have named Guthrie as a major influence include Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, John Mellencamp, Billy Bragg, Joe Strummer, and Jerry Garcia, just to name a few. RARE ARCHIVAL MATERIAL: This is Woody's life told primarily in his own words, with never-before published handwritten lyrics, artwork, journals, and much more. WORDS OF WISDOM RELEVANT TODAY: Woody Guthrie's lyrics and writings carry pointed relevance to our world today – he wrote powerfully about economic inequality, immigration reform, fascism, war, corruption from capitalism gone wild, patriotism, and environmentalism – not to mention spirituality of all kinds, love, and family. EXCLUSIVE CONTRIBUTORS: Includes new writing about Woody and his music by Chuck D., Ani DiFranco, Douglas Brinkley, Jeff Daniels, Arlo Guthrie, and Rosanne Cash. Perfect for: • Music lovers • Musicians and artists • Political activists and historians • Fans of Americana
Why do people consider aesthetic qualities as well as utilitarian ones in the making of everyday objects? Why do they maintain traditions? What is the nature of their creative process? These are some of the larger questions addressed by Michael Owen Jones in his book on craftsmen in the Cumberland Mountains of eastern Kentucky. Concentrating on the work of one man, woodworker and chairmaker Chester Cornett, Jones not only describes the tools and techniques employed by Cornett but also his aspirations and values. Cornett possessed a deep knowledge of his materials and a mastery of construction methods. Some of his chairs represent not objects of utility but aesthetic developments of the chair form. Cornett sought to cope with the problems of his life, Jones maintains; their massiveness provided a sense of security, the virtuosity of their design and construction, a feeling of self-esteem. Jones also compares other area craftsmen and their views about their work.
“The spirit of balladry is not dead, but slowly dying. The instincts, sentiments, and feelings which it represents are indeed as immortal as romance itself, but their mode of expression, the folksong, is fighting with its back to the wall, with the odds against it in our introspective age.” This statement by Josiah Henry Combs is that of a man who grew up among the members of a singing family in one of the last strongholds of the ballad-making tradition, the Southern Highlands of the United States. Combs was born in 1886 in Hazard, Kentucky, the heart of the mountain feud area—a significant background for one who was to take a prominent part in the “ballad war” of the 1900s. Combs’s intimate knowledge of folk culture and his grasp of the scholarly literature enabled him to approach the ballad controversy with common sense as well as with some of the heat generated by the dispute. Although in the early twentieth century there was probably no more controversy about the nature of the folk and folksong than there is today, it was a different kind of controversy. Many theories of the origins of folksong current at that time, such as the alleged relationship of traditional ballads to “primitive poetry,” did not take into account contemporary evidence. Combs said, “Here as elsewhere, I go directly to the folk for much of my information, allowing the songs, language, names, customs . . . of the people to help settle the problem of ancestry. . . . In brief, a conscientious study of the lore of the folk cannot be separated from the folk itself.” Folk-Songs du Midi des États-Unis, published as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Paris in 1925, was an introduction to the study of the folksong of the Southern Appalachians, together with a selection of folksong texts collected by Combs. Folk-Songs of the Southern United States, the first publication of that work in English, is based on the French text and Combs’s English draft. To this edition is appended an annotated listing of all songs in the Josiah H. Combs Collection in the Western Kentucky Folklore Archive at the University of California, Los Angeles. The appendix also includes the texts of selected songs. The aim of this edition is to make the contents of the original volume more readily available in English and to provide an index to the Combs Collection that may be drawn upon by students of folksong. The book also offers texts of over fifty songs of British and American origin as sung in the Southern Highlands.