This revised and updated book is a guide for the listener, collector, singer, player and devotee of folk music. It covers music from string band to bluegrass, Canadian, Creole, Zydeco, jug bands, ragtime and the many kinds of blues. The book evaluates, reviews and recommends on such subjects as where to buy records and instruments and places where folk music flourishes.

In American music, the notion of "roots" has been a powerful refrain, but just what constitutes our true musical traditions has often been a matter of debate. As Benjamin Filene reveals, a number of competing visions of America's musical past have vied fo

Folk Music: The Basics gives a brief introduction to British and American folk music. Drawing upon the most recent and relevant scholarship, it will focus on comparing and contrasting the historical nature of the three aspects of understanding folk music: traditional, local performers; professional collectors; and the advent of professional performers in the twentieth century during the so-called "folk revival." The two sides of the folk tradition will be examined--both as popular and commercial expressions. Folk Music: The Basics serves as an excellent introduction to the players, the music, and the styles that make folk music an enduring and well-loved musical style. Throughout, sidebars offer studies of key folk performers, record labels, and related issues to place the general discussion in context.

From Washington Square Park and Café Society to WNYC Radio and Folkways Records, New York City's cultural, artistic, and commercial assets helped to shape a distinctively urban breeding ground for the famous folk music revival of the 1950s and '60s. Folk City, by Stephen Petrus and Ronald Cohen, explores New York's central role in fueling the nationwide craze for folk music in postwar America.

"Who were 'the folk'? This question has haunted generations of radicals and reactionaries alike. The Folk traces the musical culture of these elusive figures in Britain and the US during a crucial period from 1870 to 1930, and beyond to the contemporary alt-right. It follows an insistent set of disputes surrounding the practice of collecting, ideas of racial belonging, the poetics of nostalgia, and the pre-history of European fascism. It is the biography of a people who exist only as a symptom of the modern imagination and the archaeology of a landscape directing the flow of global politics today"--

From Ani DiFranco to Bob Dylan to Woodie Guthrie, American folk music comprises a truly diverse and rich tradition—one that's almost impossible to define in broad terms. This book explains why folk music is still highly relevant in the digital age. From indigenous music to Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen singing "This Land Is Your Land" side-by-side at the pre-inaugural concert for our first African American president, folk music has been at the center of America's history. Thomas Jefferson wooed his bride-to-be with fiddle playing. Stephen Foster captured the mood of our country in transition. The Carter Family adapted music from across the pond to Appalachia. Paul Robeson carried folk music of many lands to the world stage. Woody Guthrie's dust bowl ballads spoke to the common man, while Sixties protest music put folk on the map, following the Kingston Trio's hit, "Tom Dooley." Folk music has evolved with America's changing landscape, celebrating its multi-cultural traditions. From Irish step dancers to rap, parlor songs to Dixieland, blues to classical, Discovering Folk Music presents the genre as surprisingly diverse, every bit the product of our national melting pot. Demonstrating continuing relevance of folk music in our everyday lives, the book spotlights an amazing array of personalities, with special emphasis on the folk revival era when Dylan, Baez, Odetta, and Peter, Paul and Mary sang out. These and others influenced such contemporary performers as Shawn Colvin and Ani DiFranco. Those on today's "fringes of folk" scene continue to look to these deep roots while embracing alternative sounds. Included are interviews with such legendary artists as Janis Ian, Tom Paxton, and Jean Ritchie. Nora Guthrie, Woody's daughter, also weighs in. Discovering Folk Music is a ground-breaking look at 21st-century folk music in our rapidly changing digital world, family friendly while ripe for rediscovery by the Woodstock generation.

In the 1960s and 1970s, a number of British musicians rediscovered traditional folk ballads, fusing the old melodies with rock, jazz, and blues styles to create a new genre dubbed "electric folk" or "British folk rock." This revival featured groups such as Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, and Pentangle and individual performers like Shirley & Dolly Collins, and Richard Thompson. While making music in multiple styles, they had one thing in common: they were all based on traditional English song and dance material. These new arrangements of an old repertoire created a unique musical voice within the popular mainstream. After reasonable commercial success, peaking with Steeleye Span's Top 10 album All Around My Hat, Electric Folk disappeared from mainstream notice in the late 1970s, yet performers continue to create today. In Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music, Britta Sweers provides an illuminating history and fascinating analysis of the unique features of the electric folk scene, exploring its musical styles and cultural implications. Drawing on rare historical sources, contemporary music journalism, and first-hand interviews with several of electric folk's most prominent artists, Sweers argues that electric folk is both a result of the American folk revival of the early 1960s and a reaction against the dominance of American pop music abroad. Young British "folk-rockers," such as Richard Thompson and Maddy Prior, turned to traditional musical material as a means of asserting their British cultural identity. Yet, unlike many American and British folk revivalists, they were not as interested in the "purity" of folk ballads as in the music's potential for lively interaction with modern styles, instruments, and media. The book also delves into the impact of the British folk rock movement on mainstream pop, American rock music, and neighboring European countries. Ultimately, Sweers creates a richly detailed portrait of the electric folk scene--as cultural phenomenon, commercial entity, and performance style.

New edition of the text first published in 1965 (revised by Valerie Woodring Goertzeu). Presents the general characteristics of traditional music and its cultural context along with some of the methods used to study folk music. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR