The blind mendicant in Ukrainian folk tradition is a little-known social order, but an important one. The singers of Ukrainian epics, these minstrels were organized into professional guilds that set standards for training and performance. Repressed during the Stalin era, this is their story.

Beginning with the role of music in nineteenth century slave culture, Neal covers key black cultural movements (Harlem, jazz, blaxploitation films, Motown, hip-hop, etc.), the social forces and organizations that countered them, including the FBI and the Nixon administration, a myriad of artists (Marvin Gaye figures significantly), and the relation of black music to such forces as the black feminist movement, black liberation, and identity politics.

An extensive introduction provides basic information about Russian epics, their historical background, their poetics, the history of their collection, their performance context, and their main interpretations. In addition, their is a short introduction to each song, explaining its plot, allusions, and interpretations. A glossary of common terms and a selected bibliography of studies about the Russian epic in English and Russian are also included in the volume.

Mark Anthony Neal reads the story of black communities through the black tradition in popular music. His history challenges the view that hip-hop was the first black cultural movement to speak truth to power. Beginning with the role of music in 19th-century slave culture, Neal covers key black cultural movements (Harlem, jazz, blaxploitation films, Motown, hip-hop, etc.), the social forces and organizations that countered them, including the FBI and the Nixon administration, a myriad of artists (Marvin Gaye figures significantly), and the relation of black music to such forces as the black feminist movement, black liberation, and identity politics.

Fortunate is the man who has been able to realise his childhood dreams: this beautiful book is the result of Andrew Winton's long cherished dream - 'to pass on some of the pleasures I got from Burn's songs.' As a child, he had the North Lanarkshire moors as a playground, listening to the calls and singing of the birds, lying in beds of wild thyme and heathers beside cool, clear burns - while at school, he was taught to recite the poems of Robert Burns, finding that 'old Scottish airs came naturally to me.' Winton describes his emotions while playing the simple melodies on his violin. 'I had a great desire to pass on some of the pleasure I got from his songs. To do this, I would lay aside the cold hard print of the many books of his works and I would try to develop a hand of write to suit the subjects.' There is an uncanny resemblance about the way Burns went about composing his songs (revealed in a letter from Burns included in the book) and the manner in which Andrew Winton was inspired to present his book. Burns describes how he would 'look out for objects in Nature around me that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom'. One has only to observe the harmony between the words and the watercolours to appreciate how similar was the creative process working through Andrew Winton as he painted the illustrations and penned the words, veritably ...'the beauty of speech made visible by the art of the hand...' In addition to the words and music, there are notes on the lasses to whom the songs were written, and the pages are decorated with delicate watercolours of the countryside flowers and grasses which inspired Burns. Among the favourite songs included are Ae Fond Kiss, Afton Water, Green Grows the Rushes O, Johnny Anderson My Jo, The Red Red Rose, Mary Morrison and Auld Lang Syne. Not only is the music included but the book is designed to open out flat so that it may be played as Andrew Winton has done so many times. His careful research and dedicated craftsmanship have produced a book no true lover of Burns can resist.

Among the many intriguing characteristics of the Ukrainian folk tradition is the fact that Ukrainian epics were sung by a special type of minstrel -- the blind mendicant. These minstrels were organized into professional guilds that set standards for training and performance and provided the singers with protection and support throughout their careers.

The separateness of Ukrainian culture became politically salient, and epic singers became the target of repression during the Stalin era (in 1939 there was a massacre of Ukrainian minstrels). For this reason -- and due also to tire secrecy that always surrounded the guilds' rites of membership and their association with mendicancy -- Ukrainian ministrelsy has been little studied.

Natalie Kononenko's work is thus a revelation of a distinctive folk tradition and a little-known social order. It will be of interest to anyone with an interest in folklore, Ukrainian culture, or rural social history.

In the realm of Armenian sacred and folk music the name which towers above all others is that of Komitas Vardapet (1869-1935). He not only notated the music from oral tradition but also analyzed the music of the service, the chants, the psalmody and presented us with its theoretical basis as practised today. More significant still are his painstaking studies concerning neumes. Eight of Komitas's principle musicological studies have been selected from his collected works published in Erevan in 1941. Of these, four are on folk music and four published in German and one in French. These have been reproduced in this volume in the original. The papers on folk music describe Armenian folk/country music and dances together with the important plough song of Lori (in north eastern Armenia). The papers on sacred music discuss the liturgy and tunes sung in the Armenian church. The studies were first published between the years 1894 and 1914.

Within Israel there are a number of musical traditions and styles encompassing sacred and secular, old and new, folk and sophisticated forms. Contributions to this issue form a discussion of significant traditions established before 1948: the search for the establishment of a new and typically Israeli art and folk music; the attitude of the protagonist of the old, exile, traditional heritage of the Jewish people; and the struggle of the immigrants after the creation of the State of Israel to ensure the survival of their musical traditions as well as to cope with the new physical and cultural environment. The general scope of these contributions corresponds to major events marking the musical and cultural history of modern Israel from the 1920s to 1990s, including local Arab music. A CD of examples of Arab music, Yiddish song, Klezmer, and Judeo-Spanish song is included with Part 2.

'Leonard Cohen taught us that even in the midst of darkness there is light, in the midst of hatred there is love, with our dying breath we can still sing Hallelujah.' - The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 'Among the finest volumes on Cohen's life and lyrics ... An exploration which would have intrigued and engaged Leonard himself.' - John McKenna, writer and friend of Leonard Cohen Harry Freedman uncovers the spiritual traditions that lie behind Leonard Cohen's profound and unmistakable lyrics. The singer and poet Leonard Cohen was deeply learned in Judaism and Christianity, the spiritual traditions that underpinned his self-identity and the way he made sense of the world. In this book Harry Freedman, a leading author of cultural and religious history, explores the mystical and spiritual sources Cohen drew upon, discusses their original context and the stories and ideas behind them. Cohen's music is studded with allusions to Jewish and Christian tradition, to stories and ideas drawn from the Bible, Talmud and Kabbalah. From his 1967 classic 'Suzanne', through masterpieces like 'Hallelujah' and 'Who by Fire', to his final challenge to the divinity, 'You Want It Darker' he drew on spirituality for inspiration and as a tool to create understanding, clarity and beauty. Born into a prominent and scholarly Jewish family in Montreal, Canada, Cohen originally aspired to become a poet, before turning to song writing and eventually recording his own compositions. Later, he became immersed in Zen Buddhism, moving in 1990 to a Zen monastery on Mount Baldy, California where he remained for some years. He died, with immaculate timing, on the day before Donald Trump was elected in 2016, leaving behind him a legacy that will be felt for generations to come. Leonard Cohen: The Mystical Roots of Genius looks deeply into the imagination of one of the greatest singers and lyricists of our time, providing a window on the landscape of his soul. Departing from traditional biographical approaches, Freedman explores song by song how Cohen reworked myths and prayers, legends and allegories with an index of songs at the end of the book for readers to search by their favourites. By the end the reader will be left with a powerful understanding of Cohen's story, together with a far broader insight into the mystical origins of his inimitable work.

*The Sunday Times Bestseller* *Featuring an exclusive new chapter* On 23 September, 2005, at the Joiners Arms in Southampton, Frank Turner played his last gig with his hardcore band, Million Dead. On the laminates that listed the tour dates, the entry for 24 September simply read: 'Get a job.' Deflated, jaded and hungover, Frank returned to his hometown of Winchester without a plan for the future. All he knew was that he wanted to keep playing music. Cut to 13 April 2012, over a thousand shows later (show 1,216 to be precise), and he was headlining a sold-out gig at Wembley Arena with his band The Sleeping Souls. Told through his tour reminiscences, this is the blisteringly honest story of Frank's career from drug-fuelled house parties and the grimy club scene to filling out arenas, fans roaring every word back at him. But more than that, it is an intimate account of what it's like to spend your life constantly on the road, sleeping on floors, invariably jetlagged, all for the love of playing live music.

This title was first published in 2003. This work considers the post-war folk revival in Britain from a popular music studies perspective. Michael Brocken provides a historical narrative of the folk revival from the 1940s up until the 1990s, beginning with the emergence of the revival from within and around the left-wing movements of the 1940s and 1950s. Key figures and organizations such as the Workers' Music Association, the BBC, the English Folk Dance and Song Society, A.L. Lloyd and Ewan MacColl are examined closely. By looking at the work of British Communist Party splinter groups it is possible to see the refraction of folk music as a political tool. Brocken openly challenges folk historicity and internal narrative by discussing the convergence of folk and pop during the 1950s and 1960s. The significant development of the folk/rock hybrid is considered alongside "class", "Americana", radio and the strength of pop culture. Brocken shows how the dichotomy of artistic (natural) versus industry (mass-produced) music since the 1970s has led to a fragmentation and constriction of the folk revival. The study concludes with a look at the upsurge of the folk music industry, the growth of festivals and the implications of the Internet for the British folk revival. Brocken suggests the way forward should involve an acknowledgement that folk music is not superior to but is, in fact, a form of popular music.

With its appeal predicated upon what civilized society rejects, there has always been something hidden in plain sight when it comes to the outlaw figure as cultural myth. Damian A. Carpenter traverses the unsettled outlaw territory that is simultaneously a part of and apart from settled American society by examining outlaw myth, performance, and perception over time. Since the late nineteenth century, the outlaw voice has been most prominent in folk performance, the result being a cultural persona invested in an outlaw tradition that conflates the historic, folkloric, and social in a cultural act. Focusing on the works and guises of Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, and Bob Dylan, Carpenter goes beyond the outlaw figure's heroic associations and expands on its historical (Jesse James, Billy the Kid), folk (John Henry, Stagolee), and social (tramps, hoboes) forms. He argues that all three performers represent a culturally disruptive force, whether it be the bad outlaw that Lead Belly represented to an urban bourgeoisie audience, the good outlaw that Guthrie shaped to reflect the social concerns of marginalized people, or the honest outlaw that Dylan offered audiences who responded to him as a promoter of clear-sighted self-evaluation. As Carpenter shows, the outlaw and the law as located in society are interdependent in terms of definition. His study provides an in-depth look at the outlaw figure's self-reflexive commentary and critique of both performer and society that reflects the times in which they played their outlaw roles.

This fabulous book contains the complete lyrics for 100 old favourites from the huge reserve of Irish party songs. It includes many traditional favourites and popular classics. The shape and style of the book means that it is perfect as a gog-bag reference, but the collection will appeal to anyone who enjoys joining in at a sing-song and karaoke sessions, or even a quiet croon in the bathroom.

This is a selection of the best-loved carols and hymns for Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and Easter: 74 of the most popular titles from Carols for Choirs 1, 2 and 3, plus 26 titles new to the series. There are carols suitable for both sacred and secular occasions, and both accompanied and unaccompanied material. The Order of Service for a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is included.

During the 1990s, Asian pop artists began entering the mainstream of the British music industry for the first time. Bands such as Black Star Liner, Cornershop, Fun Da Mental and Voodoo Queens, led those within and without the industry to start asking questions such as what did it mean to be Asian? How did the bands' Asian background affect their music? What did their music say about Asians in Britain? In this book, Rehan Hyder draws on in-depth interviews with musicians from these bands and with critics and record producers, to examine the pressures associated with making music as a young Asian in today's multi-ethnic Britain. As the book reveals, these musicians wish to convey an authentic sense of creativity in their music, while at the same time wanting to assert a positive ethnic identity. Hyder explores these two impulses against the backdrop of a music industry and a society at large that hold a range of confining stereotypes about what it means to be Asian. The experiences of these bands add considerably to the wider debate about the nature of identity in the contemporary world.

A history of conjunto music and musicians.

The Little Book of Country Music Wisdom offers the wise, unvarnished words of country stars past and present on a variety of topics like love, family, fun, work, health, heartache and even death to offer the full, big-picture view of country wisdom. Country music wisdom can be uplifting, funny, or hopeful, and sometimes it's deadly serious, but above all it's honest. This collection includes Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Carrie Underwood, Eric Church, Luke Bryan, and more.

Dolly Parton's success as a performer and pop culture phenomenon has overshadowed her achievements as a songwriter. But she sees herself as a songwriter first, and with good reason. Parton's compositions like "I Will Always Love You" and "Jolene" have become American standards with an impact far beyond country music. Lydia R. Hamessley's expert analysis and Parton's characteristically straightforward input inform this comprehensive look at the process, influences, and themes that have shaped the superstar's songwriting artistry. Hamessley reveals how Parton's loving, hardscrabble childhood in the Smoky Mountains provided the musical language, rhythms, and memories of old-time music that resonate in so many of her songs. Hamessley further provides an understanding of how Parton combines her cultural and musical heritage with an artisan's sense of craft and design to compose eloquent, painfully honest, and gripping songs about women's lives, poverty, heartbreak, inspiration, and love. Filled with insights on hit songs and less familiar gems, Unlikely Angel covers the full arc of Dolly Parton's career and offers an unprecedented look at the creative force behind the image.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203359283

American folk musicians Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal, once musical partners, have had careers which are at once conservative and innovative, imbuing the best of folk traditions with their own powerful style. In The Unbroken Circle, Fred Metting challenges the musical labels that often bind artists as he explores the inspirational sources behind these two men. Cooder was influenced by ragtime-blues, bottleneck gospel blues, Norteno music, as well as epic folk ballads. Mahal surrounded himself with Afro-Caribbean music, Chicago blues and Hawaiian music. Both of these artists created a collage from these sources, resisting categories and always driving for the emotional center of the musical experience. Metting traces the parallels between the two, in their careers and their musical backgrounds. He demonstrates how American music transcends classification, finding definition in its very fluidity. The result of a study such as this is not only a respect for the earlier musical sources, but also a desire to continue the tradition of adaptation and change. The Unbroken Circle is a book well-suited for music students, American folklorists, and fans of the musicians profiled.

Lawrence Gellert has long been a mysterious figure in American folk and blues studies, gaining prominence in the left-wing folk revival of the 1930s for his fieldwork in the U.S. South. A "lean, straggly-haired New Yorker," as Time magazine called him, Gellert was an independent music collector, without formal training, credentials, or affiliation. At a time of institutionalized suppression, he worked to introduce white audiences to a tradition of black musical protest that had been denied and overlooked by prior white collectors. By the folk and blues revival of the 1960s, however, when his work would again seem apt in the context of the civil rights movement, Gellert and his collection of Negro Songs of Protest were a conspicuous absence. A few leading figures in the revival defamed Gellert as a fraud, dismissing his archive of black vernacular protest as a fabrication -- an example of left-wing propaganda and white interference. A Sound History is the story of an individual life, an excavation of African American musical resistance and dominant white historiography, and a cultural history of radical possibility and reversal in the defining middle decades of the U.S. twentieth century.

Originally published in 1968. The author, a well-known contemporary and friend of folklorist Katharine M. Briggs, collected a tremendous store of folk music material over many years and eventually decided to put some of it on permanent record. This book comprises a cross-section of rescued melodies dating back to medieval days and up to the Victorian early ballads. It describes individual folk singers in Somerset in great detail as personal accounts and documents their lyrics and their tunes, which are all together at the end of the volume.

Originally published in 1973. Folk-life and folk-culture, usually the preserve of the scholar, have been brought vividly and entertainingly to life in these recollections and stories of one man's life in the Irish countryside. This book tells the life story of John Maguire, who died in 1975, including over 50 of the songs he sang, with full musical transcriptions. He was a fine singer, firmly within the Irish tradition, and his songs are the record of a people, their history and traditions, their joys and sufferings, their comedies and tragedies. John Maguire's fascinating story, skilfully and unobtrusively collated by Robin Morton, is full of material that will interest singers and students of folksongs. His songs and music will be of value to all those interested in traditional music and song.

An in-depth study of the Bulgarian harmonic system is long overdue. More than two decades since the Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares choir was awarded a Grammy (1990), there is no scholarly study of the captivating sounds of Bulgarian vertical sonorities. Kalin Kirilov traces the gradual formation of a unique harmonic system that developed in three styles of Bulgarian music: village music from the 1930s to the 1990s, wedding music from the 1970s to 2000, and choral arrangements (obrabotki) - creations of the socialist period (1944-1989), popularized by Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares. Kirilov classifies the different approaches to harmony and situates them in their historical and cultural contexts, establishing new systems for analysis. In the process, he introduces a new system for the categorization of scales. Kirilov argues that the ready-made concepts that are frequently forced onto Bulgarian music - 'westernization', 'socialist' or 'Middle Eastern influence', are not only outdated but also too vague to be of use in understanding the sophisticated modal and harmonic systems found in Bulgarian music. As an insider who has performed, composed and arranged this music for 30 years, Kirilov is uniquely qualified to interpret it for an international audience.

A traveling salesman with little formal education, Max Hunter gravitated to song catching and ballad hunting while on business trips in the Ozarks. Hunter recorded nearly 1600 traditional songs by more than 200 singers from the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s, all the while focused on preserving the music in its unaltered form. Sarah Jane Nelson chronicles Hunter's song collecting adventures alongside portraits of the singers and mentors he met along the way. The guitar-strumming Hunter picked up the recording habit to expand his repertoire but almost immediately embraced the role of song preservationist. Being a local allowed Hunter to merge his native Ozark earthiness with sharp observational skills to connect--often more than once--with his singers. Hunter's own ability to be present added to that sense of connection. Despite his painstaking approach, ballad collecting was also a source of pleasure for Hunter. Ultimately, his dedication to capturing Ozarks song culture in its natural state brought Hunter into contact with people like Vance Randolph, Mary Parler, and non-academic folklorists who shared his values.