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.

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.

Queen Ida. Danny Poullard. Documentary filmmaker Les Blank. Chris Strachwitz and Arhoolie Records. These are names that are familiar to many fans of Cajun music and zydeco, and they have one other thing in common--longtime residence in the San Francisco Bay Area. They are all part of a vibrant scene of dancing and live Louisiana-French music that has evolved over several decades.

"Cajun and Zydeco Dance Music in Northern California" traces how this region of California has been able to develop and sustain dances several times a week with more than a dozen bands. Description of this active regional scene opens into a discussion of several historical trends that have affected life and music in Louisiana and the nation. The book portrays the diversity of people who have come together to adopt Cajun and Creole dance music as a way to cope with a globalized, media-saturated world.

Ethnomusicologist Mark F. DeWitt innovatively weaves together interviews with musicians and dancers (some from Louisiana, some not), analysis of popular media, participant observation as a musician and dancer, and historical perspectives from wartime black migration patterns, the civil rights movement, American folk and blues revivals, California counterculture, and the rise of cultural tourism in "Cajun Country." In so doing, he reveals the multifaceted appeal of celebrating life on the dance floor, Louisiana-French style.