In smoky rooms above pubs, bare rooms with battered stools and beer-stained tables, where the stage was little more than a scrap of carpet and sound systems were unheard of, an acoustic revolution took place in Britain in the 1950s and '60s. This was the folk revival, where a generation of musicians, among much drink and raucous cheer, would rediscover the native songs of their own tradition, as well as the folk and blues coming from across the Atlantic by artists such as Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and Big Bill Broonzy. Singing from the Floor is the story of this remarkable movement, faithfully captured in the voices of those who formed it by JP Bean. We hear from luminaries such as Shirley Collins, Martin Carthy, Peggy Seeger and Ralph McTell, alongside figures such as Billy Connolly, Jasper Carrott and Mike Harding, who all started their careers on the folk circuit. The book charts the revival's improvised beginnings and its ties to the CND movement, through the heyday of the '60s and '70s, when every university, town and many villages across the country boasted a folk club, to the fallow years of the '80s and '90s. The book finishes on a high note, with the recent resurgence of interest in folk, through such artists as the Lakemans, Sam Lee and Eliza Carthy. It is a joyous, boisterous and hugely entertaining book, and an essential document of our recent history stretching into the past.

The remarkable story of how modern Irish music was shaped and spread through the brash efforts of a Chicago police chief. Irish music as we know it today was invented not only in the cobbled lanes of Dublin or the green fields of County Kerry but in the burgeoning American metropolis of early-twentieth-century Chicago. The boundaries of the genre combine a long vernacular tradition with one man's curatorial quirks. That man was Francis O'Neill: a larger-than-life Chicago police chief, and an Irish immigrant with an intense interest in his home country's music. Michael O'Malley's The Beat Cop tells the story of this hardly unknown yet little-investigated figure, from his birth in Ireland in 1865 to a rough-and-tumble early life in the United States. By 1901, O'Neill had worked his way up to become Chicago's chief of police, where he developed new methods of tracking people and recording their identities. At the same, he also obsessively tracked and recorded the music he heard from local Irish immigrants, favoring specific rural forms and enforcing a strict view of what he felt was and wasn't authentic. His police work and his musical work were flip sides of the same coin: as a music collector, O'Neill tracked down fugitive tunes, established their backstories, and formally organized them by type. O'Malley delves deep into how O'Neill harnessed his policing skills and connections to publish classic songbooks still widely used today, becoming the foremost shaper of how Americans see, and hear, the music of Ireland.

*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.

Started by the National Life and Accident Insurance Company in 1925, WSM became one of the most influential and exceptional radio stations in the history of broadcasting and country music. WSM gave Nashville the moniker "Music City USA" as well as a rich tradition of music, news, and broad-based entertainment. With the rise of country music broadcasting and recording between the 1920s and '50s, WSM, Nashville, and country music became inseparable, stemming from WSM's launch of the Grand Ole Opry, popular daily shows like Noontime Neighbors, and early morning artist-driven shows such as Hank Williams on Mother's Best Flour. Sparked by public outcry following a proposal to pull country music and the Opry from WSM-AM in 2002, Craig Havighurst scoured new and existing sources to document the station's profound effect on the character and self-image of Nashville. Introducing the reader to colorful artists and businessmen from the station's history, including Owen Bradley, Minnie Pearl, Jim Denny, Edwin Craig, and Dinah Shore, the volume invites the reader to reflect on the status of Nashville, radio, and country music in American culture.

A series of little books of short carefully graded folk tunes beginning with the simplest passages and progressing to more difficult leaps, rhythms, chromatics, and modulations. The later books introduce two-part sight singing.

Scandinavian art songs are a unique expression of the cultures of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Although these three countries are distinct from one another, their languages and cultures share many similarities. Common themes found in art and literature include a love of nature, especially of the sea, feelings of longing and melancholy, the contrast between light and dark, the extremes of the northern climate, and lively folk traditions. These shared sensibilities are reflected and expressed in a tangible way through music. Scandinavian art song has faced several challenges over the years in North America (even in the American Midwest, where descendants of Scandinavian immigrants are concentrated). But matters have changed recently with the recent expansion of diction curricula to cover languages other than English, French, German, and Italian. The primary obstacle remains practical resources for the study of art songs and lyric diction of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. This guide remedies this problem. Scandinavian Song is a practical guide to the art songs of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Unlike other sources that give at best a cursory overview of lyric diction in the Scandinavian languages, this guide provides practical information, enabling teachers and students to render transcriptions of Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish texts into the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)-an absolute necessity for any study of repertoire. An extensive survey of available music, sample IPA transcriptions and translations, as well as a website link with native speakers reciting selected song texts, make this book an invaluable resource for students and professors in North American college, university, and conservatory voice programs.

Richly ethnographic and a compelling read, After the Dance, the Drums Are Heavy is a study of carnival, politics, and the musical engagement of ordinary citizens and celebrity musicians in contemporary Haiti. The book explores how the self-declared president of konpa Sweet Micky (Michel Martelly) rose to the nation's highest office while methodically crafting a political product inherently entangled with his musical product. It offers deep historical perspective on the characteristics of carnivalesque verbal play-and the performative skillset of the artist (Sweet Micky) who dominated carnival for more than a decade-including vulgarities and polemics. Yet there has been profound resistance to this brand of politics led by many other high-profile artists, including Matyas and Joj, Brothers Posse, Boukman Eksperyans, and RAM. These groups have each released popular carnival songs that have contributed to the public's discussions on what civic participation and citizenship in Haiti can and should be. Drawing on more than a decade and a half of ethnographic research, Rebecca Dirksen presents an in-depth consideration of politically and socially engaged music and what these expressions mean for the Haitian population in the face of challenging political and economic circumstances. After the Dance, the Drums Are Heavy centers the voices of Haitian musicians and regular citizens by extensively sharing interviews and detailed analyses of musical performance in the context of contemporary events well beyond the musical realm.

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.

A black cow leads the members of a South Indian hill tribe, the Kotas, to the Nilgiri Hills and, with its hoof, indicates where to found each village. This footprint acts as a moral center of gravity, an important place for music-making, dancing, and other rituals. Places such as this, and moments in time, serve as physical and moral "anchors" for the Kota community. In this book, Richard K. Wolf explores how the Kotas "anchor" their musical and other activities around places and significant moments in time and, in the process, constitute themselves as individuals and as a group. This volume also includes a CD of Richard Wolf's Kota field recordings.

Following the Drums: African American Fife and Drum Music in Tennessee is an epic history of a little-known African American instrumental music form. John M. Shaw follows the music from its roots in West Africa and early American militia drumming to its prominence in African American communities during the time of Reconstruction, both as a rallying tool for political militancy and a community music for funerals, picnics, parades, and dances. Carefully documenting the music's early uses for commercial advertising and sports promotion, Shaw follows the strands of the music through the nadir of African American history during post-Reconstruction up to the form's rediscovery by musicologists and music researchers during the blues and folk revival of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although these researchers documented the music, and there were a handful of public performances of the music at festivals, the story has a sad conclusion. Fife and drum music ultimately died out in Tennessee during the early 1980s. Newspaper articles from the period and interviews with music researchers and participants reawaken this lost expression, and specific band leaders receive the spotlight they so long deserved. Following the Drums is a journey through African American history and Tennessee history, with a fascinating form of music powering the story.

Folk Voiceworks is an outstanding collection of folk songs in the Voiceworks model, including songs from centuries past alongside pieces by celebrated folk musicians. You'll find pieces in a range of genres and styles, including shanties, protest songs, songs about the land, lullabies, love songs, and much more - scored flexibly for unison and part-singing. With excellent practical rehearsal notes, simple accompanying instrumental parts, and a CD with performances of all the songs, this is a fabulous and accessible resource for all choirs.

This edited volume examines manele (sing. manea), an urban Romanian song-dance ethnopop genre that combines local traditional and popular music with Balkan and Middle Eastern elements. The genre is performed primarily by male Romani musicians at weddings and clubs and appeals especially to Romanian and Romani youth. It became immensely popular after the collapse of communism, representing for many the newly liberated social conditions of the post-1989 world. But manele have also engendered much controversy among the educated and professional elite, who view the genre as vulgar and even "alien" to the Romanian national character. The essays collected here examine the "manea phenomenon" as a vibrant form of cultural expression that engages in several levels of social meaning, all informed by historical conditions, politics, aesthetics, tradition, ethnicity, gender, class, and geography.

Winner of the Carr P. Collins Award and a Miss Ima Hogg Historical Achievement Award, Last Cavalier is the never-before-told story of the remarkable life and career of John A. Lomax, pioneering American folklorist, canny businessman, influential educator, and patriarch of an extended family of artists, performers, and scholars.

The seminal work of Ruth Rubin, a pioneering collector, singer, folklorist, writer, and crusader for the vanishing legacy of the Yiddish world, Voices of a People remains the only general introduction to Yiddish folksong.

A priceless collection of song texts in Yiddish and English, as well as a selection of tunes Rubin transcribed, this volume brings the Jews' ancient, itinerant culture alive through children's songs, dancing songs, and songs about love and courtship, poverty and work, crime and corruption, immigration and the dream of a homeland. Rubin's notes and annotations weave each text into the larger story of the Jewish experience.

Noted scholar Mark Slobin provides a new foreword that includes a biographical sketch of Rubin and an assessment of her contributions over a lifetime of collecting, absorbing, and disseminating Yiddish folksong.

Israel G. "Izzy" Young was the proprietor of the Folklore Center in Greenwich Village from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. The literal center of the New York folk music scene, the Center not only sold records, books, and guitar strings but served as a concert hall, meeting spot, and information kiosk for all folk scene events. Among Young's first customers was Harry Belafonte; among his regular visitors were Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger. Shortly after his arrival in New York City in 1961, an unknown Bob Dyan banged away at songs on Young's typewriter. Young would also stage Dylan's first concert, as well as shows by Joni Mitchell, the Fugs, Emmylou Harris, and Tim Buckley, Doc Watson, Son House, and Mississippi John Hurt. The Conscience of the Folk Revival: The Writings of Israel "Izzy" Young collects Young's writing, from his regular column "Frets and Frails" for Sing Out! Magazine (1959-1969) to his commentaries on such contentious issues as copyright and commercialism. Also including his personal recollections of seminal figures, from Bob Dylan and Alan Lomax to Harry Smith and Woody Guthrie, this collection removes the rose tinting of past memoirs by offering Young's detailed, day-by-day accounts. A key collection of primary sources on the American countercultural scene in New York City, this work will interest not only folk music fans, but students and scholars of American social and cultural history.

This study of Bob Dylan's art employs a performance studies lens, exploring the distinctive ways he brings words and music to life on recordings, onstage, and onscreen. Chapters focus on the relationship of Dylan's recorded performances to the historical bardic role, to the American popular song tradition, and to rock music culture. His uses of both stage and studio to shape his performances are explored, as are his forays into cinema. Special consideration is given to his vocal performances and to his use of particular personae as a performer. The full scope of Dylan's body of work to date is situated in terms of the influences that have shaped his performances and the ways these performances have shaped contemporary popular music.

Canadian siblings Margo, Michael and Peter Timmins and Michael's childhood friend, Alan Anton, first started making music together over thirty years ago. Sixteen studio albums and five live albums later, Cowboy Junkies are still touring the world. Based on interviews with the group themselves, Music is the Drug is the official biography of one of the best-loved folk-rock bands around.

The English folk revival cannot be understood when divorced from the history of post-war England, yet the existing scholarship fails to fully engage with its role in the social and political fabric of the nation. Postwar Politics, Society and the Folk Revival in England is the first study to interweave the story of a gentrifying folk revival with the socio-political tensions inherent in England's postwar transition from austerity to affluence. Julia Mitchell skillfully situates the English folk revival in the context of the rise of the new left, the decline of heavy industry, the rise of local, regional and national identities, the 'Americanisation' of English culture and the development of mass culture. In doing so, she demonstrates that the success of the English folk revival derived from its sense of authenticity and its engagement with topical social and political issues, such as the conflicted legacy of the Welfare State, the fight for nuclear disarmament and the fallout of nationalization. In addition, she shrewdly compares the US and British revival to identify the links but also what was distinctive about the movement in Britain. Drawing on primary sources from folk archives, the BBC, the music press and interviews with participants, this is a theoretically engaged and sophisticated analysis of how postwar culture shaped the folk revival in England.

for SATBarBarB unaccompanied Chilcott's arrangement of the popular American folksong Shenandoah is atmospheric and expressive, with the traditional melody moving seamlessly between voice parts and resting on a cushion of rich harmonies. Shenandoah has been recorded by The King's Singers on the album GOLD (Signum, SIGCD500).

Transforming Tradition offers the first serious look at folksong revivals, vibrant meldings of popular and folk culture that captured public awareness in the 1950s and 1960s. Best remembered for such songs as "Tom Dooley" and for performers like the Kingston Trio and Joan Baez, the revival of that era gave rise to hootenannies, coffeehouses, and blues and bluegrass festivals, sowing a legacy of popular interest that lives today. Many of the contributors to this volume were themselves performers in folksong revivals; today they are scholars in folklore, ethnomusicology, and American and Canadian cultural history. As both insiders and analysts they bring unique perspectives and new insights to the study of revivals. In his introduction, Neil Rosenberg explores central issues such as the history of folksong revivals, stereotypes of "folksingers", connections between scholarship and popularization, meanings of the word "revival", questions of authenticity and the invention of culture, and issues surrounding reflexive scholarship. The individual studies are divided into three sections. The first covers the "Great Boom" revival of the late '50s and early '60s, and the next approaches the revival as a self-contained social culture with its own "new aesthetic" and in-group values. The last looks at revival activities in systems of musical culture including the blues, old-time fiddling, Northumbrian piping, and bluegrass, with particular emphasis on perceptions of insider and outsider roles. The contributors display keen awareness of how their own perceptions have been shaped by their early, more subjective involvement. For example, Archie Green explores his service as faculty guru to the CampusFolksong Club at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign during the 1960s. Kenneth S. Goldstein considers how intellectual issues of the "great boom" shaped his work for recording companies. Sheldon Posen uses autobiography as ethnography to explain what happened to him when he moved from revival to academe. And Toru Mitsui explains how and why American country old-time, and bluegrass music became popular in Japan.

Toelken's lively exploration of folksongs and their meanings looks closely at a number of folksong and ballad texts. He discusses riddle songs and other ambiguous folksongs, as well as the various "ballad commonplaces", treating them not as a fund of mindless cliches but as a reservoir of suggestive reference. The author ranges through metaphors such as weaving, plowing, plucking flowers, and walking in the dew, showing in each case how it contributes to meaning in vernacular song. Included are comparisons to German folksongs, medieval poetry, Italian folk lyrics, and a wide range of Euro-American vernacular expression. If morning dew and roses are metaphorical signifiers, he prompts us to ask, what might they say to the folk communities that sustain and share them? Toelken draws on both his published work and his extensive unpublished research on English-language and German-Austrian folksong. The German references he offers show that the nuances are not coincidental or unique to English ballad development but reflect a widespread northern European pattern of metaphoric expression.

The definitive biography of guitar icon and Grammy Award-winning artist Bill Frisell. FEATURING EXCLUSIVE LISTENING SESSIONS WITH: Paul Simon; Justin Vernon of Bon Iver; Gus Van Sant; Rhiannon Giddens; The Bad Plus; Gavin Bryars; Van Dyke Parks; Sam Amidon; Hal Willner; Jim Woodring; Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill 'A beautiful and long overdue portrait of one of America's true living cultural treasures.' JOHN ZORN 'The perfect companion-piece to the music of its subject.' MOJO 'Outlines the subject's life in a series of scrupulous strokes and intimate interviews that are rare in such undertakings . . . a cool, casual victory.' IRISH TIMES Over a period of forty-five years, Bill Frisell has established himself as one of the most innovative and influential musicians at work today. Growing up playing clarinet in orchestras and marching bands, Frisell has progressed through a remarkable range of musical personas - from devotee of jazz master Jim Hall to 'house guitarist' of estimable German label ECM, from edgy New York downtown experimentalist to plaintive country and bluegrass picker. He has been a pioneering bandleader and collaborator, a prolific composer and arranger and a celebrated Grammy Award winner. A quietly revolutionary guitar hero who has synthesised many disparate musical elements into one compellingly singular sound, Frisell connects to a diverse range of artists and admirers, including Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, Gus Van Sant, Marianne Faithfull and Justin Vernon, many of whom feature in this book. Through unprecedented access to the guitarist and interviews with his close family, friends and associates, Philip Watson tells Frisell's story for the first time. 'Stuffed with musical encounters, so many that every couple of pages there's an unheard Frisell recording for the reader to chase down.' NEW YORKER 'Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer is the definitive biography.' BILL MILKOWSKI, DOWNBEAT 'Superb . . . the book races along like Sonny Rollins in full sail. Like subject, like writer: this is super-articulate, adventurous prose.' PERSPECTIVE '[Watson's] writing balances unbridled passion and dispassionate research nearly as deftly as Mr. Frisell's playing does sound and silence . . . compelling.' WALL STREET JOURNAL

From cradle to great, the comprehensive real story of Bill Monroe The Father of Bluegrass Music, Bill Monroe was a major star of the Grand Ole Opry for over fifty years; a member of the Country Music, Songwriters, and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame; and a legendary figure in American music. This authoritative biography sets out to examine his life in careful detail--to move beyond hearsay and sensationalism to explain how and why he accomplished so much. Former Blue Grass Boy and longtime music journalist Tom Ewing draws on hundreds of interviews, his personal relationship with Monroe, and an immense personal archive of materials to separate the truth from longstanding myth. Ewing tells the story of the Monroe family's musical household and Bill's early career in the Monroe Brothers duo. He brings to life Monroe's 1940s heyday with the Classic Bluegrass Band, the renewed fervor for his music sparked by the folk revival of the 1960s, and his declining fortunes in the years that followed. Throughout, Ewing deftly captures Monroe's relationships and the personalities of an ever-shifting roster of band members while shedding light on his business dealings and his pioneering work with Bean Blossom and other music festivals. Filled with a wealth of previously unknown details, Bill Monroe offers even the most devoted fan a deeper understanding of Monroe's towering achievements and timeless music.

Artists have often provided the earliest demonstrations of conscience and ethical examination in response to political events. The political shifts that took place in the 1960s were addressed by a revival of folk music as an expression of protest, hope and the courage to imagine a better world. This work explores the relationship between the cultural and political ideologies of the 1960s and the growing folk music movement, with a focus on musicians Phil Ochs; Joan Baez; Peter, Paul and Mary; Carolyn Hester and Bob Dylan.

Max Baca is one of the foremost artists of Tex-Mex music, the infectious dance music sweeping through the Texas-Mexico borderlands since the 1940s. His Grammy-winning group, Los Texmaniacs, and his extensive work with the accordionist Flaco Jimmenez established the Albuquerque-born and San Antonio-based bajo sexto player/bandleader as a spokesperson for a too-often-maligned culture. The list of artists who have contributed to Los Texmaniacs' albums include Alejandro Escovedo, Joe Ely, Rick Trevino, Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel, David Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, and Lyle Lovett. Max Baca was born to play music. By his eighth birthday, he was already playing in his father's band. Polkas, redovas, corridos, boleros, chotises, huapangos, and waltzes were in his blood. Baca's music grew out of the harsh life of the borderland, and the duality of borderland music--its keening beauty--remains a recurring theme in everything he does.