Just how "Irish" is traditional Irish music? Trad Nation combines ethnography, oral history, and archival research to challenge the longstanding practice of using ethnic nationalism as a framework for understanding vernacular music traditions. Tes Slominski argues that ethnic nationalism hinders this music's development today in an increasingly multiethnic Ireland and in the transnational Irish traditional music scene. She discusses early 21st century women whose musical lives were shaped by Ireland's struggles to become a nation; follows the career of Julia Clifford, a fiddler who lived much of her life in England, and explores the experiences of women, LGBTQ+ musicians, and musicians of color in the early 21st century.

Music.

An important anthology of Irish and Celtic solos for the 5-string banjo featuring a comprehensive, scholarly treatise on the history, techniques, and etiquette of playing the banjo in the Celtic tradition. Includes segments on tuning, pick preferences, and tablature reading followed by 101 jigs, slides, polkas, slip jigs, reels, hornpipes, strathspeys, O'Carolan tunes, plus a special section of North American Celtic tunes. A generous collection of photos of Irish folk musicians, street scenes, and archaeological sites further enhances this fabulous book. All of the solos included here are written in 5-string banjo tablature only with a few tunes set in unusual banjo tunings. the appendices provide a sizable glossary and a wealth of information regarding soloists and groups playing Celtic music, Irish festivals, music publications, on-line computer resources, cultural organizations, and more. If you are serious about playing Celtic music on the 5-string banjo, or if you don't play the banjo but simply want to expand your knowledge of the Celtic music tradition-you owe yourself this book. the first-ever CD collection of Irish and Celtic music for 5-string banjo provides 68 lovely melodies and demonstrates revolutionary techniques for playing highly ornamented tunes and rolling back-up. Recorded in stereo with virtuosos Gabriel Donohue (steel- and nylon-string guitar and piano) and Robbie Walsh (bodhran- frame drum played with a stick), the five-string banjo is out front and plays through each melody in real-life tempo with authentic Celtic chordal and rhythmic backing. the recording features the music of all Six Celtic Nations and includes jigs, reels, hornpipes, slides, polkas, marches, country dances, larides, andros, slipjigs, strathspeys, airs and O'Carolan tunes. 35 songs in the book are not on the CD.

This book explores how, and why, the blues became a central component of English popular music in the 1960s. It is commonly known that many 'British invasion' rock bands were heavily influenced by Chicago and Delta blues styles. But how, exactly, did Britain get the blues? Blues records by African American artists were released in the United States in substantial numbers between 1920 and the late 1930s, but were sold primarily to black consumers in large urban centres and the rural south. How, then, in an era before globalization, when multinational record releases were rare, did English teenagers in the early 1960s encounter the music of Robert Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller, Memphis Minnie, and Barbecue Bob? Roberta Schwartz analyses the transmission of blues records to England, from the first recordings to hit English shores to the end of the sixties. How did the blues, largely banned from the BBC until the mid 1960s, become popular enough to create a demand for re-released material by American artists? When did the British blues subculture begin, and how did it develop? Most significantly, how did the music become a part of the popular consciousness, and how did it change music and expectations? The way that the blues, and various blues styles, were received by critics is a central concern of the book, as their writings greatly affected which artists and recordings were distributed and reified, particularly in the early years of the revival. 'Hot' cultural issues such as authenticity, assimilation, appropriation, and cultural transgression were also part of the revival; these topics and more were interrogated in music periodicals by critics and fans alike, even as English musicians began incorporating elements of the blues into their common musical language. The vinyl record itself, under-represented in previous studies, plays a major part in the story of the blues in Britain. Not only did recordings shape perceptions and listening habits, but which artists were available at any given time also had an enormous impact on the British blues. Schwartz maps the influences on British blues and blues-rock performers and thereby illuminates the stylistic evolution of many genres of British popular music.

This book brings together important material from a range of sources and highlights how government organizations, musicians, academics and commercial companies are concerned with, and seek to use, a particular notion of Irish musical identity. Rooting the study in the context of the recent history of popular, traditional and classical music in Ireland, as well as providing an overview of aspects of the national field of music production and consumption, O'Flynn goes on to argue that the relationship between Irish identity and Irish music emerges as a contested site of meaning. His analysis exposes the negotiation and articulation of civic, ethnic and economic ideas within a shifting hegemony of national musical culture, and finds inconsistencies between and among symbolic constructions of Irish music and observed patterns in the domestic field. More specifically, O'Flynn illustrates how settings, genres, social groups and values can influence individual identifications or negations of Irishness in music. While the apprehension of intra-musical elements leads to perceptions of music that sounds Irish, style and authenticity emerge as critical articulatory principles in the identification of music that feels Irish. The celebratory and homogenizing discourse associated with the international success of some Irish musical forms is not reflected in the opinions of the people interviewed by O'Flynn; at the same time, an insider/outsider dialectic of national identity is found in various forms of discourse about Irish music. Performers and composers discussed include Bill Whelan (Riverdance), Sinead O'Connor, The Corrs, Altan, U2, Martin Hayes, Dolores Keane and Gerald Barry.

In the Spring 2011 issue of Southern Cultures -- The Irish Issue -- Front Porch by Harry L. Watson "The authors in this special issue on Ireland and the South argue that the Irish left an outsized imprint on the cultures of the American South and forged a persistent affinity between Ireland and the South." "A lengthening chain in the shape of memories" The Irish and Southern Culture by William R. Ferris "Irish rockers U2 are committed fans of B.B. King and wrote the song 'When Love Comes to Town' at his request. The song introduced King to important new rock audiences." Tara, the O'Haras, and the Irish Gone With the Wind by Geraldine Higgins "Into the debate about place, race, and the second-best-selling book of all time, we can also bring Irishness." Another "Lost Cause" The Irish in the South Remember the Confederacy by David Gleeson "As there had been only two prominent Irish generals, and only one, Cleburne, had had a very distinguished record, the story of the common soldier was the story of the Irish Confederate." Blacks and Irish on the Riverine Frontiers The Roots of American Popular Music by Christopher J. Smith "One of the realities of American life is that certain features of African American performance style will remain strange and alluring to those outside the culture. Not least among such features is the making of hard social commentary on recurring problems of life, often through cutting and breaking techniques-contentious interactions continually calling for a change of direction." Smoke 'n' Guns A Preface to a Poem about Marginal Souths, and then the Poem by Conor O'Callaghan "Addressing a jubilant crowd in Belfast shortly after the declaration of the original ceasefire in 1993, Gerry Adams reminded his audience that 'they haven't gone away, you know.' He meant that even as 'the cause' was dwindling, its upholders-'the boys'-were still among us. He might just as easily have been talking about the Klan."

Made in Ireland: Studies in Popular Music serves as a comprehensive and thorough introduction to the history, sociology and musicology of 20th- and 21st-century Irish popular music. The volume consists of essays by leading scholars in the field and covers the major figures, styles and social contexts of popular music in Ireland. Each essay provides adequate context so readers understand why the figure or genre under discussion is of lasting significance to Irish popular music. The book is organized into three thematic sections: Music Industries and Historiographies, Roots and Routes and Scenes and Networks. The volume also includes a coda by Gerry Smyth, one of the most published authors on Irish popular music.

Studies of the Irish presence in America have tended to look to the main corridors of emigration, and hence outside the American South. Yet the Irish constituted a significant minority in the region. Indeed, the Irish fascination expresses itself in southern context in powerful, but disparate, registers: music, literature, and often, a sense of shared heritage. Rethinking the Irish in the American South aims to create a readable, thorough introduction to the subject, establishing new ground for areas of inquiry. These essays offer a revisionist critique of the Irish in the South, calling into question widely held understandings of how Irish culture was transmitted. The discussion ranges from Appalachian ballads, to Gone with the Wind, to the Irish rock band U2, to Atlantic-spanning literary friendships. Rather than seeing the Irish presence as “natural” or something completed in the past, these essays posit a shifting, evolving, and unstable influence. Taken collectively, they offer a new framework for interpreting the Irish in the region. The implications extend to the interpretation of migration patterns, to the understanding of Irish diaspora, and the assimilation of immigrants and their ideas.

Exploring the careers of the original wave of artists and their contemporary equivalents, Leech tells the story of acid and psychedelic folk recording artists from the 1960s to the present day.