This document provides an overview of the history and development of folk music in America. It discusses how folk music originated from British ballads and songs brought over by immigrants. These songs were passed down orally through generations living in isolation in the Appalachian Mountains. Scholars like Francis Child began collecting and documenting these ballads in the late 1800s. In the early 1900s, collectors like Cecil Sharp traveled to Appalachia seeking "authentic" folk music still using old British tunes. Their field collections helped popularize folk music again but were also subject to cultural biases. The document examines debates around what constituted "authentic" versus commercialized folk music in America.
2. Is This Folk Music?
• What do you hear?
• What qualities (if any) do you hear that make you
think this is folk music?
• What qualities (if any) do you hear that make you
think this is NOT folk music?
• Does anyone in your group disagree? If so, what
about?
• Does this matter?
6. Folk Music (Part 1)
• The Folk Music Trilogy
• Part 1: Prior to 1920
• Part 2: 1920 to 1960
• Part 3: 1960 to present
7. Terms To Know
• Vernacular: spoken language of the common
person; distinct from formal written language
• Strophic: repeated tune that is used with every
verse of a song
• Ballad: a story song usually associated with oral
tradition; almost always strophic.
• Broadside: a printed and published ballad; usually
not associated with oral tradition; often considered
to be lower in artistic merit.
8. “American” Folk Music
• Imported material; establishing a national identity
• Europe vs America – economic support
• Europe: Church, courts/aristocracy, state
• America: No national church, no courts/aristocracy, developing
political structure
• If it wasn’t in or for the church, how did Americans
hear music?
• Where was this music coming from?
• Was there such a thing as American folk music?
9. Ballads in Oral Tradition
• British songs in American lives
• Benjamin Franklin (London, 1765)
• Peter, his brother, writes him a letter asking Benjamin to have a London
composer set some verses of text to music.
• Benjamin responds: “If you had given this text to some country girl in the
heart of Massachusetts, who has never heard any other than psalm
tunes or ‘Chevy Chase,’ the ‘Children in the Wood,’ the ‘Spanish Lady,’
and such old, simple ditties, but has naturally a good ear, she might
more probably have made a pleasing popular tune for you than any of
our masters here.”
• Names ballads (narrative, strophic); originated in Britain around or
prior to 1600; still circulating in North America 165 years later!
• These ballads in the oral tradition existed outside of
commercial influence.
10. Broadside Ballads
• By the early 1700s in America; earlier in Europe
• Ballads were written, bought, and sold
• Printing
• No music notation
• Text would be matched with a familiar tune
• Reputation of being cheap commercial goods
• Rev. Cotton Mather (1713): “I am informed, that the Minds and
Manners of many People about the Countrey are much corrupted
by foolish songs and Ballads, which the Hawkers and Pedlars carry
into all parts of the Countrey.”
• Inspiration: colonial settlement, Indian wars, dissatisfaction
with English rule, crime, love, and religion
• Cartoonish, exaggeration, vulgar
12. Francis James Child
• 1825 – 1896
• Harvard
• Professor of Rhetoric
• Shakespeare scholar
• Folklorist
• Obsessed with collecting ballads
•
•
•
•
Not broadsides!
Focused on collecting from the British Isles
Stayed in MA while collecting; “armchair research”
Ballads were in written form, no tunes included
13. Child Ballads
• This term does not imply child-like or children
• English and Scottish Ballads (1857 – 1858)
• Eight Volumes
• The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-1898)
• Ten Volumes
• Note the word “The” added to the title
• “It was not my wish to begin to print The English and Scottish
Ballads until this unrestricted title should be justified by my having
at command every valuable copy and every known ballad.”
• 305 different titles
• Prints every known variant of each title (approx. 1300 total)
• Annotates history, subject matter, and “alterations they had
suffered.”
14. English and Scottish Popular Ballads
and
The English and Scottish Popular Ballads
15. Appalachia
• Interest in mountain culture
and folklore
• Late 1800s
• Folklore societies
• American Folklore Society
(1888)
• NC, KY (1912); VA (1913); WV
(1915)
• The search for “old-time”
British tunes
• Geographic isolation
• Nationwide effort to repopularize folk tunes
16. Folk Songs for Popular Use
• Josephine McGill
• “Folk Songs of the Kentucky
Mountains” (1917)
• Loraine Wyman (1885–1937)
• Howard Brockway (1870 –
1951)
• “Twenty Kentucky Mountain
Songs” (1920)
• Used for entertainment in
the home; not “scholarly”
• Appealing to middle class
women
17. Cecil Sharp
• (1859 – 1924)
• Englishman
• Started folk music revival in
England in early 20th century
• Collector of English ballads
in Appalachia
• Why?
• Pick and choose
• Worked in the field; not an
“armchair researcher”
• Cultural/Musical bias
• Modern society
• Disappointment
18. Authentic?
• Was this documentation a true reflection of music in
American culture?
• Is this significant? Important? Relevant?
• What does this say about the general feelings of
Americans?
19. Listening Assignment
• Groups of 3 or 4
• Compare/Contrast two recordings of Barbara Allen
• Jean Ritchie
• Moses Platt
• Are these the same song?
