American folk music
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
see also Americana or Americana music American folk music, also known as Americana, is a broad category of music including Bluegrass, country music, gospel, old time music, jug bands, Appalachian folk, blues, and Cajun. The music is considered "American" because it is either native to the United States or there varied enough from its origins that it struck musicologists as something distinctly new; it is considered "roots music" because it served as the basis of music later developed in the United States, including rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and jazz.
Roots musical forms reached their most expressive and varied forms in the first two to three decades of the 20th century. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were extremely important in disseminating these musical styles to the rest of the country, as Delta blues masters, itinerant honky tonk singers and Latino and Cajun musicians spread to cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. The growth of the recording industry in the same approximate period was also important; increased possible profits from music placed pressure on artists, songwriters and label executives to replicate previous hit songs. This meant that fads like Hawaiian slack-key guitar never died out completely as rhythms or instruments or vocal stylings were incorporated into disparate genres. By the 1950s, all the forms of roots music had led to pop-oriented forms. Folk musicians like the Kingston Trio, pop-Tejano and Cuban-American fusions like boogaloo, chachacha and mambo, blues-derived rock and roll and rockabilly, pop-gospel, doo wop and R&B (later secularized further as soul music) and the Nashville sound in country music all modernized and expanded the musical palette of the country.
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[edit] Artists and Musicians
Notable roots musicians include Ralph Stanley, Woody Guthrie, Son House, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leadbelly, Hazel Dickens, Mahalia Jackson, Washington Phillips, Fiddlin' John Carson (1868 - 1949), and Jean Ritchie. More recent musicians who occasionally or consistently play roots music include Keb' Mo', Ralph Stanley, Pete Seeger, and Ricky Skaggs.
[edit] Film and TV
Additionally, the soundtrack to the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? is exclusively roots music, performed by Alison Krauss, The Fairfield Four, Emmylou Harris, Norman Blake and others. The 2003 film A Mighty Wind is a tribute to (and parody of) the folk-pop musicians of the early 1960s.
American roots music was the subject of a documentary series on PBS in 2001.
[edit] External links
- Americana Music Association
- Americana Roots - Americana Music
- Nut hill Productions - Producers of documentary television series, Word of Mouth:The Journey of American Folk Music, scheduled completion Winter, 2007
- HickoryWind.org - Americana, Bluegrass, & Alt Country News, Reviews, & Personality
[edit] See Also
[edit] News & Resources
| Folk music |
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| American folk - Anti-folk - Celtic music - Counterfolk - Filk music - Folk metal - Folk punk Folk rock - Folktronica - Neofolk - Pop folk - Iranian folk - Psych folk - Roots revival - Urban Folk |
| Festivals - Folk dance - Folk clubs - Instruments - Protest song Record labels - Singer-songwriter - Lists of traditions - World music |
| American roots music |
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| African American music | Appalachian/old-time | Blues (Ragtime) | Cajun music | Country (Honky tonk and Bluegrass) | Folk music revival (1950s/'60s) | Jazz (Dixieland) | Native American | Spirituals and Gospel | Swamp pop | Tejano | Zydeco |
