In 1899, a fundraising program for Berea College featured a group of students from the mountains of eastern Kentucky singing traditional songs from their homes. The audience was entranced. That small en-counter at the end of the last century lies near the beginning of an unparalleled national—and international—fascination with the indigenous music of a single state. Kentucky has long figured prominently in our national sense of traditional music. Over the years, a diverse group of people—reformers, enthusiasts, the musically literate and the musically illiterate, radicals, liberals, a British gentleman and his woman companion, amateurs, local residents, and academics—have been sufficiently captivated by that music to have devoted considerable energy to harvesting it from its fertile ground, studying its various manifestations, and considering its many performers. Kentucky Folkmusic: An Annotated Bibliography is a guide to the literature of this remarkable music. More than seven hundred entries, each with an evaluative annotation, comprise the largest bibliographic resource for the folkmusic of any state or region in North America. Divided into eight sections, the bibliography covers collections and anthologies; fieldworkers and scholars; singers, musicians, and other performers; text-centered studies; studies of history, context, and style; festivals; dance; and discographies, check-lists, and other reference tools. A subject index, an author index, and an index of periodicals provide access to the materials. From early hymnals and songsters to Kentucky performers of traditional music, the bibliography is a comprehensive guide to music which has for many years been one of the major emblems of American traditional music.

" Thicker'n fiddlers in hell. Independent as a hog on ice. If a bride makes her own clothes, it's bad luck. It'll snow in May if it thunders in February. How's a hen on a fence like a penny? What's the reddest side of an apple? Learn what folklore and folk culture are and enjoy a generous helping of sayings, rhymes, songs, tall tales, superstitions and riddles from Kentucky.

Drawing on archives and oral histories, a detailed account of graduate folklore programs in American and Canadian academic institutions. To ensure continuity and foster innovation within the discipline of folklore, we must know what came before. Folklore in the United States and Canada is an essential guide to the history and development of graduate folklore programs throughout the United States and Canada. As the first history of folklore studies since the mid-1980s, this book offers a long overdue look into the development of the earliest programs and the novel directions of more recent programs. The volume is encyclopedic in its coverage and is organized chronologically based on the approximate founding date of each program. Drawing extensively on archival sources, oral histories, and personal experience, the contributors explore the key individuals and central events in folklore programs at US and Canadian academic institutions and demonstrate how these programs have been shaped within broader cultural and historical contexts. Revealing the origins of graduate folklore programs, as well as their accomplishments, challenges, and connections, Folklore in the United States and Canada is an essential read for all folklorists and those who are studying to become folklorists.

Contains over 500 articles Ranging over foodways and folksongs, quiltmaking and computer lore, Pecos Bill, Butch Cassidy, and Elvis sightings, more than 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, and crafts; sports and holidays; tall tales and legendary figures; genres and forms; scholarly approaches and theories; regions and ethnic groups; performers and collectors; writers and scholars; religious beliefs and practices. The alphabetically arranged entries vary from concise definitions to detailed surveys, each accompanied by a brief, up-to-date bibliography. Special features *More than 2000 contributors *Over 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, crafts, and more *Alphabetically arranged *Entries accompanied by up-to-date bibliographies *Edited by America's best-known folklore authority

“Fifty years after its first publication, Country Music USA still stands as the most authoritative history of this uniquely American art form. Here are the stories of the people who made country music into such an integral part of our nation’s culture. We feel lucky to have had Bill Malone as an indispensable guide in making our PBS documentary; you should, too.” —Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, Country Music: An American Family Story From reviews of previous editions: “Considered the definitive history of American country music.” —Los Angeles Times “If anyone knows more about the subject than [Malone] does, God help them.” —Larry McMurtry, from In a Narrow Grave “With Country Music USA, Bill Malone wrote the Bible for country music history and scholarship. This groundbreaking work, now updated, is the definitive chronicle of the sweeping drama of the country music experience.” —Chet Flippo, former editorial director, CMT: Country Music Television and CMT.com “Country Music USA is the definitive history of country music and of the artists who shaped its fascinating worlds.” —William Ferris, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and coeditor of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture Since its first publication in 1968, Bill C. Malone’s Country Music USA has won universal acclaim as the definitive history of American country music. Starting with the music’s folk roots in the rural South, it traces country music from the early days of radio into the twenty-first century. In this fiftieth-anniversary edition, Malone, the featured historian in Ken Burns’s 2019 documentary on country music, has revised every chapter to offer new information and fresh insights. Coauthor Tracey Laird tracks developments in country music in the new millennium, exploring the relationship between the current music scene and the traditions from which it emerged.

Meet Aunt Molly Jackson (1880-1960), one of American folklore's most fascinating characters. A coal miner's daughter, she grew up in eastern Kentucky, married a miner, and became a midwife, labor activist, and songwriter. Fusing hard experience with rich Appalachian musical tradition, her songs became weapons of struggle. In 1931, at age fifty, she was "discovered" and brought north, sponsored and befriended by an illustrious circle of left-wing intellectuals and musicians, including Theodore Dreiser, Alan Lomax, and Charles Seeger and his son Pete. Along with Sarah Ogan Gunning, Jim Garland (two of Aunt Molly's half-siblings), Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, and other folk musicians, she served as a cultural broker, linking the rural working poor to big-city left-wing activism. Shelly Romalis draws upon interviews and archival materials to construct this portrait of an Appalachian woman who remained radical, raucous, proud, poetic, offensive, self-involved, and in spirit the "real" pistol packin' mama of the song. "Mr. Coal operator call me anything you please, blue, green, or red, I aim to see to it that these Kentucky coalminers will not dig your coal while their little children are crying and dying for milk and bread." -- Aunt Molly Jackson

Herbal and Magical Medicine draws on perspectives from folklore, anthropology, psychology, medicine, and botany to describe the traditional medical beliefs and practices among Native, Anglo- and African Americans in eastern North Carolina and Virginia. In documenting the vitality of such seemingly unusual healing traditions as talking the fire out of burns, wart-curing, blood-stopping, herbal healing, and rootwork, the contributors to this volume demonstrate how the region’s folk medical systems operate in tandem with scientific biomedicine. The authors provide illuminating commentary on the major forms of naturopathic and magico-religious medicine practiced in the United States. Other essays explain the persistence of these traditions in our modern technological society and address the bases of folk medical concepts of illness and treatment and the efficacy of particular pratices. The collection suggests a model for collaborative research on traditional medicine that can be replicated in other parts of the country. An extensive bibliography reveals the scope and variety of research in the field. Contributors. Karen Baldwin, Richard Blaustein, Linda Camino, Edward M. Croom Jr., David Hufford, James W. Kirland, Peter Lichstein, Holly F. Mathews, Robert Sammons, C. W. Sullivan III

Words and music for 16 songs from The Ritchie Family of Kentucky. How to tune and play and recollections of the dulcimer's local history. Illustrations and drawings.