Beginning with the arrival of the first Africans in the English colonies, Eileen Southern weaves a fascinating narrative of intense musical activity. As singers, players, and composers, black American musicians are fully chronicled in this landmark book. Now in the third edition, the author has brought the entire text up to date and has added a wealth of new material covering the latest developments in gospel, blues, jazz, classical, crossover, Broadway, and rap as they relate to African American music.

"It remains one of the most penetrating and illuminating books on the island's elusive, alluring culture." -- National Geographic A House in Bali tells the fascinating story of renowned writer and composer Colin McPhee's obsession with Balinese gamelan music, and of his journey to Bali to experience it first-hand. In 1929, the young Canadian-born musician chanced upon rare gramophone recordings which were to change his life forever. From that moment, he lived for the day when he could set foot on the island where this music originated. He realized his dream and spent almost a decade there in the 1930s. Music and dance are second nature to the Balinese, and McPhee's writings and compositions proved seminal in popularizing gamelan music in the West. In this lovingly-told memoir, McPhee unfolds a beguiling picture of a society like no other in the world--staggeringly poor in material terms, but rich beyond belief in spiritual values and joy. The young composer writes about his growing understanding of this astonishing culture where art is a preoccupation--and of all the arts, music reigns supreme. This is a book about passion, obsession and discovery, and of the journey of a supremely talented modern composer and writer. Much has been written about Bali, but this classic stands alone!

Tempo: A Scarecrow Press Music Series of Rock, Pop, and Culture offers titles that explore rock and popular music through the lens of social and cultural history, revealing the dynamic relationship between musicians, music, and their milieu. Like other major art forms, rock and pop music comment on their cultural, political, and even economic situation, reflecting the technological advances, psychological concerns, religious feelings, and artistic trends of their times. Whether you are a professional musician or regular listener, diehard fan or music student, titles in the Tempo series are the ideal introduction to major pop and rock artists and the music they produced and their cultural and musical impact on society. With each year, new books appear on Bob Dylan, attesting to his continuing importance as a major figure in American music and culture. Bob Dylan: American Troubadour is the first book on Dylan to look at his entire career, from his first album to his most recent, Tempest, released 50 years later in 2012.In a brief compass, Brown provides insightful critical commentary on Dylan's entire corpus, placing full scope of Dylan's career in the context of its times in order to assess the relationship of Dylan's music to contemporary American culture. Each chapter addresses a particular phase of Dylan's career, taking its cue from events in Dylan's life and from the collective experiences that shaped the times. As the artist who famously proclaimed the times, they are a-changin', Dylan was never static as an artist, his music altering as the times changed. In Bob Dylan: American Troubadour, Donald Brown follows the shifting versions of Dylan, from his songs of conscientious social involvement to more personal exploratory songs; from his influential rock albums of the mid-'60s to his adaptations of Country music; from his three very different tours in the 1970s to his born again period as a proselytizer for Christ, to his frustrations as a recording and performing artist in the 1980s; from his retrospective importance in the Nineties to the refreshingly vital albums he has been producing in the 21st century.Bob Dylan: American Troubadour will engage not only Dylan fans and students of his work but those interested American popular music, history, and culture. Anyone who has been touched, challenged or surprised by a Dylan song, who would like to know more about this long and fascinating career, who wants to discover Dylan within his context will find in Bob Dylan: American Troubadour a concise and informed critical overview of Dylan's music and his place in the American musical landscape.

The islands of Chiloe, in southern Chile, have developed a distinct culture over several centuries, blending indigenous traditions and Spanish settler heritage to create a vibrant pattern of folklore, music, dance, and related creative practices. This cultural heritage has become an important aspect of the islands' identity and is key to their successful marketing as a tourist destination. However, these elements exist in tension with new developments, most particularly the introduction of salmon aquaculture, which has disrupted traditional livelihood patterns and polluted the region's marine environment. This volume analyzes the development of the islands' distinct culture with a particular focus on music and dance. Key topics include the relation of tradition and modernity, the impact of tourism on cultural practice, and the relationship between social activism and music culture. The authors complement this focus with a discussion of their own creative engagements with the region through the production of the music album Viaje a Chiloe (2018) and through the work of the audiovisual ensemble The Moviolas (in 2015-2018).

Acclaimed cultural critic Greil Marcus tells the story of Bob Dylan through the lens of seven penetrating songs "The most interesting writer on Dylan over the years has been the cultural critic Greil Marcus. . . . No one alive knows the music that fueled Dylan's imagination better. . . . Folk Music . . . [is an] ingenious book of close listening."-David Remnick, New Yorker "Marcus delivers yet another essential work of music journalism."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Further elevates Marcus to what he has always been: a supreme artist-critic."-Hilton Als Across seven decades, Bob Dylan has been the first singer of American song. As a writer and performer, he has rewritten the national songbook in a way that comes from his own vision and yet can feel as if it belongs to anyone who might listen. In Folk Music, Greil Marcus tells Dylan's story through seven of his most transformative songs. Marcus's point of departure is Dylan's ability to "see myself in others." Like Dylan's songs, this book is a work of implicit patriotism and creative skepticism. It illuminates Dylan's continuing presence and relevance through his empathy-his imaginative identification with other people. This is not only a deeply felt telling of the life and times of Bob Dylan but a rich history of American folk songs and the new life they were given as Dylan sat down to write his own.

When we talk about roots music, what do we mean and what is at stake? Ethnomusicologist Mark F. DeWitt delves into these questions in an introductory bibliographic essay and selects twenty-one articles published between 1974 and 2010 that have advanced our knowledge and insight about this topic. The collection focuses on the nexus between popular musics in North America and Europe and the traditional musics that have been their foundation, on both the real and imagined connections between the present and past: Olly Wilson and Gerhard Kubik on African American music, Aaron Fox on country music, Eric Lott on blackface minstrelsy, Barry Shank on the elusive Bob Dylan. Works by Sara Cohen, Beverley Diamond, Peter Manuel, Svanibor Pettan and others range on subjects from the accordion, balladry and blues to Bulgarian folk orchestras, flamenco, gospel, Irish sessions, Native American women musicians, the Roma, Tex-Mex music and zydeco.

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.

"We Shall Overcome" is an American folk song that has influenced American and world history like few others. At different points in time it has served as a labor movement song, a civil rights song, a hymn, and a protest song and has long held strong individual and collective meaning for the African-American community, in particular, and the American and world communities more generally. We Shall Overcome: Essays on a Great American Song, edited and compiled by Victor V. Bobetsky, comprises essays that explore the origins, history, and impact of this great American folk song. Inspired by a symposium of guest speakers and student choirs from the New York City Public Schools, chapters cover such critical matters as the song's ancestry, Pete Seeger's contribution to its popularization, the role played by the SNCC Freedom Singers in its adoption, the gospel origins and influences of the song, its adaptation by choral arrangers, its use as a teaching tool in the classroom, and its legacy among other freedom songs. We Shall Overcome: Essays on a Great American Song constitutes an invaluable resource for the music and music education community as well as for members of the general public interested in music, education, history and the civil rights movement. The book provides readers with a wide and unique spectrum of information about the song relevant to researchers and teachers.

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.

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.

This new study of British popular music shows how it engages with class in mythical ways that allow audiences to perform class-based identities. Case studies on folk rock, punk and indie rock show how this performance works and explore the implications for listeners and audiences.

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.

(Waltons Irish Music Books). For over 20 years, Waltons classic ballad books have consistently outsold all others. When they first appeared in 1981, Dan Cohen of Dublin's Evening Herald newspaper wrote: "There are so many fine points to these books that they almost bear indexing." Each volume in this beautifully produced four-volume series is packed with 50 old favorites and modern classics, including songs made famous throughout the world by Mary Black, Christy Moore, The Dubliners, The Clancy Brothers, Paddy Reilly and a host of others. Each book includes charming, hand-tinted period photographs, depicting scenes of Ireland's bygone days. Includes: The Rare Ould Times * Raglan Road * Spancil Hill * Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair * My Cavan Girl * A Bunch of Thyme * The Mountains of Mourne * Easy and Slow * The Irish Rover * Four Green Fields * The Banks of My Own Lovely Lee * Lanigan's Ball * The Rose of Tralee * Teddy O'Neill * I Know My Love * Carrigdhoun * Come Back Paddy Reilly * Easy and Slow * The Sally Gardens * The Rose of Mooncoin * Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore * The Last Rose of Summer * The West's Awake * Boolavogue * Alice Benbolt * and many more.

"Foreword by Charles Wolfe Jean Ritchie, the youngest of fourteen children born and raised in Viper, Kentucky, is considered one of the greatest balladeers in this century. Her performances have influenced the resurgence of interest in folk music and given audiences a glimpse into the heart of Appalachia. Jean Ritchie's Swapping Song Book brings together twenty-one songs from the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky. Many are old songs, brought over by settlers from Scotland, Ireland, and England. Child ballads, gospel music, play party tunes, and frolic songs have been handed down by family members, with each generation adding or embellishing verses and melodies. This new edition retains the original text, written by Ritchie, and includes her husband George Pickow's beautiful photographs to help illustrate the stories of such songs as ""Jubilee,"" ""The Old Soap Gourd,"" and ""Ground Hog."" A new foreword by Charles Wolfe shows how Ritchie's collection of songs is ""part of the rich folk poetry"" that makes up Appalachian culture. Other books by Jean Ritchie include Folksongs of the Southern Appalachians and Singing Family of the Cumberlands.

Gaelic Scotland is one of the world's great treasure-houses of song. In this anthology, Anne Lorne Gillies has gathered together music and lyrics from all over the Gaelic-speaking Highlands and Islands - an extraordinary tradition that stretches in an unbroken line from the bardic effusions of ancient times to the Celtic fusions of today's vibrant young Gaelic musicians and poets. They paint vivid pictures of life among ordinary Gaelic-speaking people, their hopes, fears and preoccupations, births, deaths and marriages, and personal reactions to the great changes that blew their lives about. Everything about this book is designed to make the songs accessible to musicians and general readers alike. Anne Lorne Gillies provides a unique and informative introduction to Gaelic tradition, simple yet highly sensitive musical transcriptions, and English translations. She portrays the social and historical background of the songs, offers her own commentary on technical aspects of the music and its performance, and adds carefully researched biographical notes and a full discography in order to bring to life not only the people who composed the songs but also some of the singers and musicians who have continued the tradition into the twenty-first century. Songs of Gaelic Scotland was winner of the 2006 Ruth Michaelis-Jena Ratcliff Prize in Folklore and Folklife.

Longlisted for the Penderyn Music Book Prize England was once dubbed 'the land without music', but in the early twentieth century collectors and enthusiasts such as Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Percy Grainger discovered a vital heritage of folk song, vibrant and alive among working men and women. Yet after more than a century of collecting, publishing and performing songs, there are still many things we don't know about England's traditional music. Where did the songs come from? Who sang them, and where, when and why? Why did some songs thrive, and did the collectors' passions and prejudices determine what was preserved, and what was lost? In answer to these questions, acclaimed folklorist Steve Roud has drawn on an unprecedented range of sources to present an intricate social history of folk song through the ages, from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century. It is an absorbing and impeccably researched account that gives a sonorous voice to England's past.

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.

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.

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.