A freewheeling blend of continental European folk music and the songs, tunes, and dances of Anglo and Celtic immigrants, polkabilly has enthralled American musicians and dancers since the mid-19th century. From West Virginia coal camps and east Texas farms to the Canadian prairies and America's Upper Midwest, scores of groups have wed squeezeboxes with string bands, hoe downs with hambos, and sentimental Southern balladry with comic "up north" broken-English comedy, to create a new and uniquely American sound.
The Goose Island Ramblers played as a house band for a local tavern in Madison, Wisconsin from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s. The group epitomized the polkabilly sound with their wild mixture of Norwegian fiddle tunes, Irish jigs, Slovenian polkas, Swiss yodels, old time hillbilly songs, "Scandihoovian" and "Dutchman" dialect ditties, frost-bitten Hawaiian marches, and novelty numbers on the electric toilet plunger. In this original study, James P. Leary illustrates how the Ramblers' multiethnic music combined both local and popular traditions, and how their eclectic repertoire challenges prevailing definitions of American folk music. He thus offers the first comprehensive examination of the Upper Midwest's folk musical traditions within the larger context of American life and culture.
Impeccably researched, richly detailed and illustrated, and accompanied by a compact disc of interviews and performances, James P. Leary's Polkabilly: How the Goose Island Ramblers Redefined American Folk Music creates an unforgettable portrait of a polkabilly band and its world.

The turn of the 20th century was a time of great change in Britain. The empire saw its global influence waning and its traditional social structures challenged. There was a growing weariness of industrialism and a desire to rediscover tradition and the roots of English heritage. A new interest in English folk song and dance inspired the art world, which many believed was seeing a renaissance after a period of stagnation since the 18th century. This book focuses on the lives of seven English composers-Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, George Butterworth, Ernest Moeran, Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock), Gerald Finzi and Percy Grainger-whose work was influenced by folk songs and early music. Each chapter provides historical background and tells the fascinating story of a musical life.

37 Songs and 27 Tunes from Scotland in the Celtic Tradition. With guitar chords and explanatory notes this is a collection for anyone interested in the songs and music of Scotland, old and new.

In the 1970s John Baily conducted extensive ethnomusicological research in Afghanistan, principally in the city of Herat but also in Kabul. Then, with Taraki's coup in 1978, came conflict, war, and the dispersal of many musicians to locations far and wide. This new publication is the culmination of Baily's further research on Afghan music over the 35 years that followed. This took him to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, the USA, Australia and parts of Europe - London, Hamburg and Dublin. Arranged chronologically, the narrative traces the sequence of political events - from 1978, through the Soviet invasion, to the coming of the Taliban and, finally, the aftermath of the US-led invasion in 2001. He examines the effects of the ever-changing situation on the lives and works of Afghan musicians, following individual musicians in fascinating detail. At the heart of his analysis are privileged vignettes of ten musical personalities - some of friends, and some newly discovered. The result is a remarkable personal memoir by an eminent ethnomusicologist known for his deep commitment to Afghanistan, Afghan musicians and Afghan musical culture. John Baily is also an ethnographic filmmaker. Four of his films relating to his research are included on the downloadable resources that accompanies the text.

How do marginalized communities speak back to power when they are excluded from political processes and socially denigrated? In what ways do they use music to sound out their unique histories and empower themselves? How can we hear their voices behind stereotyped and exaggerated portrayals promoted by mainstream communities, record producers and government officials? Sounding Roman: Music and Performing Identity in Western Turkey explores these questions through a historically-grounded and ethnographic study of Turkish Roman ("Gypsies") from the Ottoman period up to the present. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork (1995 to the present), collected oral histories, historical documents of popular culture (recordings, images, song texts, theatrical scripts), legal and administrative documents, this book takes a hard look at historical processes by which Roman are stereotyped as and denigrated as "cingene"--a derogatory group name equivalent to the English term, "gypsy", and explores creative musical ways by which Roman have forged new musical forms as a means to create and assert new social identities. Sounding Roman presents detailed musical analysis of Turkish Roman musical genres and styles, set within social, historical and political contexts of musical performances. By moving from Byzantine and Ottoman social contexts, we witness the reciprocal construction of ethnic identity of both Roman and Turk through music in the 20th century. From neighborhood weddings held in the streets, informal music lessons, to recording studios and concert stages, the book traces the dynamic negotiation of social identity with new musical sounds. Through a detailed ethnography of Turkish Roman ("Gypsy") musical practices from the Ottoman period to the present, this work investigates the power of music to configure new social identities and pathways for political action, while testing the limits of cultural representation to effect meaningful social change.

Read an excerpt and listen to the songs featured in the book at http://folksonghistory.com/In 2015, Bob Dylan said, "I learned lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs. And I played them, and I met other people that played them, back when nobody was doing it. Sang nothing but these folk songs, and they gave me the code for everything that's fair game, that everything belongs to everyone." In Hear My Sad Story, Richard Polenberg describes the historical events that led to the writing of many famous American folk songs that served as touchstones for generations of American musicians, lyricists, and folklorists.Those events, which took place from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, often involved tragic occurrences: murders, sometimes resulting from love affairs gone wrong; desperate acts borne out of poverty and unbearable working conditions; and calamities such as railroad crashes, shipwrecks, and natural disasters. All of Polenberg's accounts of the songs in the book are grounded in historical fact and illuminate the social history of the times. Reading these tales of sorrow, misfortune, and regret puts us in touch with the dark but terribly familiar side of American history.On Christmas 1895 in St. Louis, an African American man named Lee Shelton, whose nickname was "Stack Lee," shot and killed William Lyons in a dispute over seventy-five cents and a hat. Shelton was sent to prison until 1911, committed another murder upon his release, and died in a prison hospital in 1912. Even during his lifetime, songs were being written about Shelton, and eventually 450 versions of his story would be recorded. As the song-you may know Shelton as Stagolee or Stagger Lee-was shared and adapted, the emotions of the time were preserved, but the fact that the songs described real people, real lives, often fell by the wayside. Polenberg returns us to the men and women who, in song, became legends. The lyrics serve as valuable historical sources, providing important information about what had happened, why, and what it all meant. More important, they reflect the character of American life and the pathos elicited by the musical memory of these common and troubled lives.

Focus: Irish Traditional Music, Second Edition introduces the instrumental and vocal musics of Ireland, its diaspora in North America, and its Celtic neighbors while exploring the essential values underlying these rich musical cultures and placing them in broader historical and social context. With both the undergraduate and graduate student in mind, the text weaves together past and present, bringing together important ideas about Irish music from a variety of sources and presenting them, in three parts, within interdisciplinary lenses of history, film, politics, poetry, and art: I. Irish Music in Place and Time provides an overview of the island's musical history and its relationship to current performance practice. II. Music Traditions Abroad and at Home contrasts the instrumental and vocal musics of the "Celtic Nations" (Scotland, Wales, Brittany, etc.) and the United States with those of Ireland. III. Focusing In: Vocal Music in Irish-Gaelic and English identifies the great songs of Ireland's two main languages and explores the globalization of Irish music. New to this edition are discussions of those contemporary issues reflective of Ireland's dramatic political and cultural shifts in the decade since first publication, issues concerning equity and inclusion, white nationalism, the Irish Traveller community, hip hop and punk, and more. Pedagogical features-such as discussion questions, a glossary, a timeline of key dates, and expanded references, as well as an online soundtrack-ensure that readers of Focus: Irish Traditional Music, Second Edition will be able to grasp Ireland's important social and cultural contexts and apply that understanding to traditional and contemporary vocal and instrumental music today.

Shaped by the processes of migration, diasporization and cosmopolitanization, musical performance conditions and contexts constantly change, while new musical forms emerge and evolve. The development of Turkish folk music is well-documented and provides rich material for study in the motherland and in the diaspora. This book explores, describes, interprets and links musical, contextual and functional aspects of Turkish folk music in contemporary Turkey and the Turkish diaspora in the Belgian city of Ghent. The Turkish presence in Ghent is particularly interesting in its size (approximately ten per cent of the population) and constitution (mostly originating in the West Anatolian town of Emirdag). Anchored in detailed ethnographic reality, this book expands our views on what Turkish folk music signifies in the early twenty-first century, and adds to the understanding and appreciation of this multifaceted, topical musical phenomenon. This book's multi-sited, transnational and comparative outlook is unique, with an added dimension generated by the inclusion of rural and small-town contexts that complement the urban perspective. It makes new contributions to scholarship in this area by including the transcription and analysis of performance styles, the evaluation of Turkish Radio and Television discourses and practices, and the exploration of understudied research contexts of Ghent and Emirdag.

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.

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.

Across Europe, from the dawn of print until the early twentieth century, the news of crime and criminals' public executions was printed in song form on cheap broadsides and pamphlets to be sold in streets and marketplaces by ballad-singers. Singing the News of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe 1500-1900 looks at how and why song was employed across Europe for centuries as a vehicle for broadcasting news about crime and executions, exploring how this performative medium could frame and mediate the message of punishment and repentance. Examining ballads in English, French, Dutch, German, and Italian across four centuries, author Una McIlvenna offers the first multilingual and longue duree study of the complex and fascinating phenomenon of popular songs about brutal public death. Ballads were frequently written in the first-person voice, and often purported to be the last words, confession or 'dying speech' of the condemned criminal, yet were ironically on sale the day of the execution itself. Musical notation was generally not required as ballads were set to well-known tunes. Execution ballads were therefore a medium accessible to all, regardless of literacy, social class, age, gender or location. A genre that retained extraordinary continuities in form and content across time, space, and language, the execution ballad grew in popularity in the nineteenth century, and only began to fade as executions themselves were removed from the public eye. With an accompanying database of recordings, Singing the News of Death brings these centuries-old songs of death back to life.

Contemporary klezmer music is a rapidly expanding revival of repertories and styles used by old-time professional musical entertainers in Jewish Eastern Europe. Fiddler on the Move, a volume in the American Musicspheres series edited by Mark Slobin, is an attempt to position klezmer within American music studies, cultural studies, and ethnomusicology. Rather than present a chronology or a comprehensive survey, the author suggests how a variety of methods of research and angles of vision can help make sense of the higly diverse activities found under the klezmer umbrella. This book is accompanied by a CD of recorded examples.

You may be the next Hank Williams, Mozart, and Bob Dylan all rolled up into one. But if you don't get the right people to hear the songs you've written, then the best you can hope for is to be an undiscovered genius.

"If You've Got a Dream, I've Got a Plan" is written by one of Country Music's most successful songwriters. In this informative guide, aspiring songwriters will learn: What is a demo? And do I need a demo?What is a single song contract?How do royalty rates work?What is ASCAP? BMI?How much money can I make if my song hits number one on the charts?How do I get the right people to hear my songs?"If You've Got a Dream, I've Got a Plan" will not guarantee that you will become a successful songwriter. But it does arm aspiring songwriters with the information they need to enter a highly competitive world, one that is potentially rewarding both financially and artistically sense. It tells what to do, and maybe more importantly, what not to do.

Kelley Lovelace is an award-winning songwriter who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the co-author with Brad Paisley of the book and the song "He Didn't Have to Be." He is also the songwriter of the hits "Wrapped Around," "Two People Fell in Love," "The Impossible," and "I Just Wanna Be Mad."

In A History of Folk Music Festivals in the United States: Feasts of Musical Celebration, Ronald D. Cohen presents a comprehensive narration of folk music festivals in America, providing details on events both large and small from the 19th century to the present. Cohen discusses events like the Newport, Philadelphia, University of Chicago, and National Folk Festivals, describing and analyzing long-running as well as short-lived festivals throughout the country and covering a dizzying array of musical styles, including blues, Cajun, Irish, klezmer, women's, bluegrass, gospel, country, singer-songwriters, and world. Cohen draws on a wide range of primary and secondary sources to create a detailed description of these exciting "feasts of musical celebration," capturing the nature and variety of the festivals and fully expressing this vital part of the development of folk music. Studying these events brings a truly national perspective to our understanding of folk music and provides important insights into their social, cultural, musical, and even political contexts. This account of folk music festivals in America is vital to folklorists, ethnomusicologists, U.S. historians, and readers with an interest in folk music and its history.

Victorian Songhunters is a pioneering history of the rediscovery of vernacular song-street songs that have entered oral tradition and have been passed from generation to generation-in England during the late Georgian and Victorian eras. In the nineteenth century there were four main types of vernacular song: ballads, folk lyrics, occupational songs, and national songs. The discovery, collecting, editing, and publishing of all four varieties are examined in the book, and over seventy-five selected examples are given for illustrative purposes. Key concepts, such as traditional balladry, broadside balladry, folksong, and national song, are analyzed, as well as the complicated relationship between print and oral tradition and the different methodological approaches to ballad and song editing. Organized chronologically, Victorian Songhunters sketches the history of English song collecting from its beginnings in the mid-seventeenth century; focuses on the work of important individual collectors and editors, such as William Chappell, Francis J. Child, and John Broadwood; examines the growth of regional collecting in various counties throughout England; and demonstrates the considerable efforts of two important Victorian institutions, the Percy Society and its successor, the Ballad Society. The appendixes contain discussions on interpreting songs, an assessment of relevant secondary sources, and a bibliography and alphabetical song list. Author E. David Gregory provides a solid foundation for the scholarly study of balladry and folksong, and makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Victorian intellectual and cultural life.

Perhaps the most widely recognized figure in folk music and one of the most controversial figures in American political activism, Pete Seeger now belongs among the icons of 20th-century American culture. The road to his current status as activist and respected voice of folk music was long and often rough, starting from the moment he dropped out of Harvard in the late 1930s and picked up a banjo. Editors Cohen and Capaldi trace Seeger's long and storied career, focusing on his work as not only a singer, but as an educator, songwriter, organizer, publisher, and journalist. The son of musicians, Seeger began his musical career before World War II and became well-known in the 1950s as a member of the commercially popular Weavers, only to be blacklisted by much of the mainstream media in the 1960s because of his progressive politics, and to return to the music scene in subsequent decades as a tireless educator and activist. The Pete Seeger Reader gathers writings from numerous sources, mixing Seeger's own work with that of the many people who have, over the years, written about him. Many of the pieces have never before been republished, and cover his entire career. A figure of amazing productivity, influence, and longevity, Seeger is author of a life that has been both cast in heroic terms and vilified. The selections in this book draw from a full range of these perspectives and will inform as they entertain, bringing into focus the life and contributions of one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century.

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.

From the Tibetan Buddhist and Native American influences in the music of Pauline Oliveros to the arresting blend of Jamaican dancehall, rap, and bhangra of Apache Indian, this groundbreaking work examines the rise of 'world music' and 'world beat.' Musicologist Timothy Taylor draws on a wide variety of sources, from popular culture, interviews, liner notes, the Internet and the music itself, charting a path through the issues surrounding contemporary world music. Included in this volume are detailed discussions of such musicians as the Kronos Quartet, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Youssou N'Dour, Peter Gabriel, Johnny Clegg, Angelique Kidjo, Sheila Chandra, Apache Indian, Zap Mama and a host of others.
Exloring the dynamics behind such collaborations as Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Taylor addresses the effects that these collaborations have on the music itself with particular emphasis on musical authenticity and the expectations around it. In addition to looking at the ways western pop/rock appropriates music from other cultures, he also demonstrates how cross-cultural collaborations bring music and musicians from other cultures to a much wider audience. Global Pop offers a fascinating and timely survey of popular music and its impact on contemporary culture along with our ways of looking at and living in the world.

Without a doubt one of the most important, influential and acclaimed artists since the 1960s, Leonard Cohen is admired by fans, musicians and composers the world over. His death in 2016 at the age of 82 was front-page news globally. The deeply personal nature of his work, and its profound insight into humans and human nature see him revered as a lyrical genius, and for good reason. His ongoing themes of depression, love, religion and relationships struck a chord with fans all over the world and his albums (as well as his books of poetry) sold accordingly. The Little Guide to Leonard Cohen features quotes from the man himself, as well as contributions from many great artists and commentators. Cohen had many celebrity fans, including Bob Dylan, Kurt Cobain, Judy Collins and more. This book contains many insightful, witty and meaningful quotes by and about Leonard Cohen, as well as fascinating facts, song lists and more. SAMPLE QUOTE: 'My reputation as a ladies' man was a joke. It caused me to laugh bitterly through the 10,000 nights I spent alone.' - Leonard Cohen SAMPLE FACT: 'Hallelujah' has been recorded by more than 200 artists, in many languages. Many of the cover versions have outsold Cohen's original.

Flamenco is renowned for its passion and flamboyance. Yet because it generates such visceral responses, it is often overlooked as a site for subtler discourses.This absorbing book articulates powerful and convincing arguments on such key subjects as ethnicity, irony, authenticity, the body and resistance. Franco's 'politics of original sin' had left its mark on every aspect of Spanish life between 1936 and 1975, and flamenco music was no exception. Although widely portrayed as an apolitical, even frivolous form of entertainment, flamenco is shown here to have played a role in both the strategies of Franco's supporters and of those who opposed him. The author explores how the meaning of flamenco shifts according to the social, cultural and historical contexts within which it appears. In so doing, he demonstrates that flamenco is an ideal subject for analyzing the construction and appropriation of popular culture, given the way in which it was developed for middle-class audiences, converted into grand spectacle, and conscripted to serve political ends.

Flamenco is renowned for its passion and flamboyance. Yet because it generates such visceral responses, it is often overlooked as a site for subtler discourses.
This absorbing book articulates powerful and convincing arguments on such key subjects as ethnicity, irony, authenticity, the body and resistance. Franco's 'politics of original sin' had left its mark on every aspect of Spanish life between 1936 and 1975, and flamenco music was no exception. Although widely portrayed as an apolitical, even frivolous form of entertainment, flamenco is shown here to have played a role in both the strategies of Franco's supporters and of those who opposed him. The author explores how the meaning of flamenco shifts according to the social, cultural and historical contexts within which it appears. In so doing, he demonstrates that flamenco is an ideal subject for analyzing the construction and appropriation of popular culture, given the way in which it was developed for middle-class audiences, converted into grand spectacle, and conscripted to serve political ends.