Folk music

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Folk music
Béla Bartók recording Slovak peasant singers in 1908
Traditions	List of folk music traditions
Musicians	List of folk musicians
Instruments	Folk instruments

Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century but is often applied to music that is older than that. Some types of folk music are also called world music.

Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. One meaning often given is that of old songs, with no known composers; another is music that has been transmitted and evolved by a process of oral transmission or performed by custom over a long period of time.

Starting in the mid-20th century a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms.^[1] Smaller similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times, but the term folk music has typically not been applied to the new music created during those revivals. This type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, electric folk, and others. While contemporary folk music is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, in English it shares the same name, and it often shares the same performers and venues as traditional folk music. Even individual songs may be a blend of the two.

Traditional folk music

Traditional folk music
Stylistic origins	Traditional music
Cultural origins	Individual nations or regions
Typical instruments	See Folk instruments
Derivative forms	Popular music Contemporary music
(complete list)
Fusion genres
Electric folk Folk metal Folk rock Neofolk Anti-folk
Other topics
Roots revival

Definitions

A consistent definition of traditional folk music is elusive. The terms folk music, folk song, and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions. They are extensions of the term folk lore, which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe "the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes."^[2] The term is further derived from the German expression Volk, in the sense of "the people as a whole" as applied to popular and national music by Johann Gottfried Herder and the German Romantics over half a century earlier.^[3] Traditional folk music also includes most indigenous music.

However, despite the assembly of an enormous body of work over some two centuries, there is still no certain definition of what folk music (or folklore, or the folk) is.^[4] Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics^[2] but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of "old songs, with no known composers",^[5] another is that of music that has been submitted to an evolutionary "process of oral transmission.... the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character."^[6]

Such definitions depend upon "(cultural) processes rather than abstract musical types...", upon "continuity and oral transmission...seen as characterizing one side of a cultural dichotomy, the other side of which is found not only in the lower layers of feudal, capitalist and some oriental societies but also in 'primitive' societies and in parts of 'popular cultures'."^[7] One widely used definition is simply "Folk music is what the people sing".^[8]

For Scholes,^[2] as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók,^[9] there was a sense of the music of the country as distinct from that of the town. Folk music was already, "...seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear (or in some cases, to be preserved or somehow revived),"^[10] particularly in "a community uninfluenced by art music"^[6] and by commercial and printed song. Lloyd rejected this in favour of a simple distinction of economic class^[9] yet for him true folk music was, in Charles Seeger's words, "associated with a lower class"^[11] in culturally and socially stratified societies. In these terms folk music may be seen as part of a "schema comprising four musical types: 'primitive' or 'tribal'; 'elite' or 'art'; 'folk'; and 'popular'."^[12]

Music in this genre is also often called traditional music. Although the term is usually only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre. For example, the Grammy Award previously used "traditional music" for folk music that is not contemporary folk music.

Characteristics

From a historical perspective, traditional folk music had these characteristics:^[11]

It was transmitted through an oral tradition. Before the 20th century, ordinary farm workers and factory workers were usually illiterate. They acquired songs by memorizing them. Primarily, this was not mediated by books, recorded or transmitted media. Singers may extend their repertoire using broadsheets, song books or CDs, but these secondary enhancements are of the same character as the primary songs experienced in the flesh.

The music was often related to national culture. It was culturally particular; from a particular region or culture. In the context of an immigrant group, folk music acquires an extra dimension for social cohesion. It is particularly conspicuous in immigrant societies, where Greek Australians, Somali Americans, Punjabi Canadians and others strive to emphasize their differences from the mainstream. They learn songs and dances that originate in the countries their grandparents came from.

They commemorate historical and personal events. On certain days of the year, such as Easter, May Day and Christmas, particular songs celebrate the yearly cycle. Weddings, birthdays and funerals may also be noted with songs, dances and special costumes. Religious festivals often have a folk music component. Choral music at these events brings children and non-professional singers to participate in a public arena, giving an emotional bonding that is unrelated to the aesthetic qualities of the music.

The songs have been performed, by custom, over a long period of time, usually several generations.

As a side-effect, the following characteristics are sometimes present:

There is no copyright on the songs. Hundreds of folk songs from the 19th century have known authors but have continued in oral tradition to the point where they are considered traditional for purposes of music publishing. This has become much less frequent since the 1940s. Today, almost every folk song that is recorded is credited with an arranger.

Fusion of cultures: In the same way that people can have a mixed background, with parents originating in different continents, so too music can be a blend of influences. A particular rhythmic pattern, or a characteristic instrument, is enough to give a traditional feel to music, even when it has been composed recently. It is easy to recognize the presence of a bagpipe or a tabla in a piece of music. The young are usually much less offended by the dilution or adaptation of songs this way. Equally an electric guitar can be added to an old song. The relevant factors may include instrumentation, tunings, voicings, phrasing, subject matter, and even production methods.

Non-commercial.

Origins

Indians always distinguished between classical and folk music, though in the past even classical Indian music used to rely on the unwritten transmission of repertoire.

Throughout most of human prehistory and history, listening to recorded music was not possible. Music was made by common people during both their work and leisure. The work of economic production was often manual and communal. Manual labor often included singing by the workers, which served several practical purposes. It reduced the boredom of repetitive tasks, it kept the rhythm during synchronized pushes and pulls, and it set the pace of many activities such as planting, weeding, reaping, threshing, weaving, and milling. In leisure time, singing and playing musical instruments were common forms of entertainment and history-telling—even more common than today, when electrically enabled technologies and widespread literacy make other forms of entertainment and information-sharing competitive.^[13]

Opinions differed on the origins of folk music. Some said it was art music that was changed and probably debased by oral transmission—others said it reflects the character of the race that produced it.^[2] Traditionally, the cultural transmission of folk music is through learning by ear, although notation may also be used. The competition of individual and collective theories of composition set different demarcations and relations of folk music with the music of tribal societies on the one hand and of "art" and "court" music on the other. The traditional cultures that did not rely upon written music or had less social stratification could not be readily categorized. In the proliferation of popular music genres, some traditional folk music became also referred to "World music" or "Roots music".

The American conception of "folk composition" has often drawn on Afro-American music.

The English term "folklore", to describe traditional folk music and dance, entered the vocabulary of many continental European nations, each of which had its folk-song collectors and revivalists.^[2] The distinction between "authentic" folk and national and popular song in general has always been loose, particularly in America and Germany^[2] - for example popular songwriters such as Stephen Foster could be termed "folk" in America.^[2]^[14] The International Folk Music Council definition allows that the term can also apply to music that, "...has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten, living tradition of a community. But the term does not cover a song, dance, or tune that has been taken over ready-made and remains unchanged."^[15]

The post–World War II folk revival in America and in Britain started a new genre, contemporary folk music and brought an additional meaning to the term folk music. The popularity of "contemporary folk" recordings caused the appearance of the category "Folk" in the Grammy Awards of 1959: in 1970 the term was dropped in favor of "Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording (including Traditional Blues)", while 1987 brought a distinction between "Best Traditional Folk Recording" and "Best Contemporary Folk Recording". After that they had a "Traditional music" category that subsequently evolved into others. The term "folk", by the start of the 21st century, could cover singer song-writers, such as Donovan from Scotland and American Bob Dylan, who emerged in the 1960s and much more. This completed a process to where "folk music" no longer meant only traditional folk music.^[5]

Subject matter

Armenian traditional musicians

Apart from instrumental music that forms a part of traditional folk music, especially dance music traditions, much traditional folk music is vocal music, since the instrument that makes such music is usually handy. As such, most traditional folk music has meaningful lyrics.

Narrative verse looms large in the traditional folk music of many cultures. This encompasses such forms as traditional epic poetry, much of which was meant originally for oral performance, sometimes accompanied by instruments. Many epic poems of various cultures were pieced together from shorter pieces of traditional narrative verse, which explains their episodic structure and often their in medias res plot developments. Other forms of traditional narrative verse relate the outcomes of battles and other tragedies or natural disasters.

Sometimes, as in the triumphant Song of Deborah found in the Biblical Book of Judges, these songs celebrate victory. Laments for lost battles and wars, and the lives lost in them, are equally prominent in many traditions; these laments keep alive the cause for which the battle was fought. The narratives of traditional songs often also remember folk heroes such as John Henry to Robin Hood. Some traditional song narratives recall supernatural events or mysterious deaths.

Hymns and other forms of religious music are often of traditional and unknown origin. Western musical notation was originally created to preserve the lines of Gregorian chant, which before its invention was taught as an oral tradition in monastic communities. Traditional songs such as Green grow the rushes, O present religious lore in a mnemonic form. In the Western world, Christmas carols and other traditional songs preserve religious lore in song form.

Work songs frequently feature call and response structures and are designed to enable the laborers who sing them to coordinate their efforts in accordance with the rhythms of the songs. They are frequently, but not invariably, composed. In the American armed forces, a lively tradition of jody calls ("Duckworth chants") are sung while soldiers are on the march. Professional sailors made use of a large body of sea shanties. Love poetry, often of a tragic or regretful nature, prominently figures in many folk traditions. Nursery rhymes and nonsense verse also are frequent subjects of traditional songs.

Folk song transformations and variations

Regional forms

The Steinegger brothers, traditional pipers of Grundlsee, Styria, 1880

While the loss of traditional folk music in the face of the rise of popular music is a worldwide phenomenon, it is not one occurring at a uniform rate throughout the world. While even many tribal cultures are losing traditional folk music and folk cultures, the process is most advanced "where industrialization and commercialisation of culture are most advanced".^[17] Yet in nations or regions where traditional folk music is a badge of cultural or national identity, the loss of traditional music can be slowed; this is held to be true, for instance in the case of Bangladesh, Hungary, India, Ireland, Scotland, Latvia, Turkey, Portugal, Brittany, and Galicia, Greece and Crete all of which retain their traditional music to some degree, in some such areas the decline of traditional music and loss of traditions has been reversed.

This is most obvious where tourist agencies brand some regions with the word "Celtic". Guide books and posters from Ireland, Scotland in Gaelic, English, Doric and Scots, Cornwall, Brittany and Nova Scotia refer to live music performances. Local government often sponsors and promotes performances during tourist seasons, and revives lost traditions.

Early folk music, fieldwork and scholarship

Much of what is known about pre-recording-era folk music comes to us from scholarly fieldwork and writings. Most documented activity regarding folk music from the era prior to electronic recording, distribution and broadcast of folk music consists of the work of scholars, collectors and proponents.

19th-century Europe

Starting in the 19th century, interested people – academics and amateur scholars – started to take note of what was being lost, and there grew various efforts aimed at preserving the music of the people. One prominent such effort was the collection by Francis James Child in the late 19th century of the texts of over three hundred ballads in the English and Scots traditions (called the Child Ballads) most of which predated the 16th century.^[8]

Contemporaneously with Child came the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, and later and more significantly Cecil Sharp who worked in the early 20th century to preserve a great body of English rural traditional song, music and dance, under the aegis of what became and remains the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). Sharp also worked in America, recording the traditional songs of the Appalachian Mountains in 1916–1918 in collaboration with Maud Karpeles and Olive Dame Campbell and is considered the first major scholar covering American folk music.^[18]

Campbell and Sharp are represented under other names by actors in the modern movie Songcatcher. Throughout the 1960s and early to mid-1970s, American scholar Bertrand Harris Bronson published an exhaustive, four-volume collection of the then-known variations of both the texts and tunes associated with what came to be known as the Child Canon. He also advanced some significant theories concerning the workings of oral-aural tradition.

Similar activity was also under way in other countries. One of the most extensive was perhaps the work done in Riga by Krisjanis Barons who between the years between 1894 and 1915 published six volumes including the texts of 217 996 Latvian folk songs; the Latvju dainas. In Norway the work of collectors such as Ludvig Mathias Lindeman was extensively used by Edvard Grieg in his Lyric Pieces for piano and in other works, which became immensely popular.

Around this time, composers of classical music developed a strong interest in traditional song collecting, and a number of outstanding composers carried out their own field work on traditional song. These included Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams in England and Béla Bartók in Hungary. These composers, like many of their predecessors, both made arrangements of folk songs and incorporated traditional material into original classical compositions. The Latviju dainas are extensively used in the classical choral works of Andrejs Jurāns, Jānis Cimze, and Emilis Melngailis.

North America

Locations in Southern and Central Appalachia visited by the British folklorist Cecil Sharp in 1916 (blue), 1917 (green), and 1918 (red). Sharp sought "old world" English and Scottish ballads passed down to the region's inhabitants from their British ancestors. He collected hundreds of such ballads, the most productive areas being the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky.

Earliest American scholars were with The American Folklore Society (AFS), which emerged in the late 1800s. Their studies expanded to include Native American music, but still treated folk music as a historical item preserved in isolated societies as well ^[19] since it is a very popular type of music. In North America, during the 1930s and 1940s, the Library of Congress worked through the offices of traditional music collectors Robert Winslow Gordon, Alan Lomax and others to capture as much North American field material as possible. Lomax was the first prominent scholar to study distinctly American folk music such as that of cowboys and southern blacks. His first major published work was in 1911, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads.^[20] and was arguably the most prominent US folk music scholar of his time, notably during the beginnings of the folk music revival in the 1930s and early 1940s.

People who studied traditional song sometimes hoped that their work would restore traditional music to the people. For instance, Cecil Sharp campaigned, with some success, to have English traditional songs (in his own heavily edited and expurgated versions) to be taught to school children.

One strong theme amongst folk scholars in the early decades of the 20th century was regionalism. This tended to recognize the diversity of folk music (and related cultures) based on regions of the US rather than based on just its roots. Later, a dynamic of class and circumstances was added to this.^[21]

The most prominent regionalists were literary figures with a particular interest in folklore. Carl Sandburg often traveled the U.S. as a writer and a poet. He also collected songs in his travels and, in 1927, published them in a book American Songbag. "In his collections of folk songs, Sandburg added a class dynamic to popular understandings of American folk music. This was the final element of the foundation upon which the early folk music revivalists constructed their own view of Americanism. Sandburg's working class Americans joined with the ethnically racially and regionally diverse citizens that other scholars, public intellectuals, and folklorists celebrated their own definitions of the American folk, definitions that the folk revivalists used in constructing their own understanding of American folk music, and an overarching American identity".^[22]

Prior to the 1930s, larger scale themes and linkages between were mostly drawn by folk music scholars and collectors. The 1930s saw the beginnings of larger scale themes, commonalities, themes and linkages in folk music developing in the populace and practitioners as well, often related to the great depression.^[23] Regionalism and cultural pluralism grew as influences and themes. During this time folk music began to become enmeshed with political and social activism themes and movements.^[23] Two related developments were the U.S. Communist Party's interest in folk music as a way to reach and influence Americans,^[24] and politically active prominent folk musicians and scholars seeing communism as a possible better system, through the lens of the Great Depression.^[25] Woody Guthrie is a great example of a songwriter and artist with such an outlook.

Much of the folk music growth in the 1930s was in the area of live performance, particularly in folk festivals that began during the 1930s.^[26] President Franklin Roosevelt was a fan of folk music, hosted folk concerts at the White House and often patronized folk festivals.^[27] One prominent festival was Sarah Gertrude Knott's National Folk Festival. It moved to Washington D.C. in 1937 under the sponsorship of the Washington Post. It remained there, held at Constitution Hall through 1942.^[28] Folk festivals were activist, seen as forces for social good, integrating wartime perspectives into the process. The folk music movement, festivals, and the wartime effort were seen as forces for democracy, cultural pluralism, and the removal of culture and race-based barriers.^[29]

The American folk music revivalists of the 1930s approached folk music in different ways.^[30] "Traditionalists like Sarah Gertrude Knott and John Lomax viewed folk music as cultural traditions from a bygone era. Functionalist folklorists like Botkin and Alan Lomax recognized that, though rooted in the past, folk music remained culturally relevant for the communities that maintained the traditions. Left-wing revivalists like Charles Seeger and Lawrence Gellert interpreted folk music as a grass-roots cultural form that came from the people and was written for the people such that it could be used in 'people's' struggles for social and political rights. Despite the revivalists' various political views and different opinions regarding the nature of authentic folk music, they all shared an understanding of Americanism that grounded the nation's identity in cultural pluralism and political democracy"^[30] By the end of the 1930s they along with the musicians and others had turned American folk music into a social movement.^[30]

Sometimes folk musicians became scholars and advocates themselves. For example, Jean Ritchie (born in 1922) was the youngest child of a large family from Viper, Kentucky that had preserved many of the old Appalachian traditional songs. Ritchie, living in a time when the Appalachians had opened up to outside influence, was university educated and ultimately moved to New York City, where she made a number of classic recordings of the family repertoire and published an important compilation of these songs. (See also Hedy West)

In January 2012, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, with the Association for Cultural Equity, announced that they would release Lomax's vast archive of 1946 and later recording in digital form. Lomax spent the last 20 years of his life working on an interactive multimedia educational computer project he called the Global Jukebox, which included 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes, and 5,000 photographs.^[31] As of March 2012 this has been accomplished. Approximately 17,400 of Lomax's recordings from 1946 and later have been made available free online.^[32]^[33]

This is material from Alan Lomax’s independent archive, begun in 1946, which has been digitized and offered by the Association for Cultural Equity. This is "distinct from the thousands of earlier recordings on acetate and aluminum discs he made from 1933 to 1942 under the auspices of the Library of Congress. This earlier collection—which includes the famous Jelly Roll Morton, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Muddy Waters sessions, as well as Lomax’s prodigious collections made in Haiti and Eastern Kentucky (1937) — is the provenance of the American Folklife Center" ^[32] at the library of Congress

National and regional forms

Africa

Main article: Music of Africa

The African lamellophone, thumb piano or mbira

Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a different history from Sub-Saharan African music traditions.^[34]

The music and dance forms of the African diaspora, including African American music and many Caribbean genres like soca, calypso and Zouk; and Latin American music genres like the samba, rumba, salsa; and other clave (rhythm)-based genres, were founded to varying degrees on the music of African slaves, which has in turn influenced African popular music.

Asia

See also: Indian folk music, Iranian folk music, and Filipino folk music

Paban Das Baul, baul singer at Nine Lives concert, 2009.

Many Asian civilizations distinguish between art/court/classical styles and "folk" music, though cultures that do not depend greatly upon notation and have much anonymous art music must distinguish the two in different ways from those suggested by western scholars. For example the late Alam Lohar is a good example of a classical South Asian folk singer of great repute.^{[citation needed]}

Folk music of China

Further information: Music of China#Folk music, Shijing, and Yuefu

Archaeological discoveries date Chinese folk music back 7000 years; it is largely based on the pentatonic scale.

Han traditional weddings and funerals usually include a form of oboe called a suona and apercussive ensembles called a chuigushou. Ensembles consisting of mouth organs (sheng), shawms (suona), flutes (dizi) and percussion instruments (especially yunluo gongs) are popular in northern villages; their music is descended from the imperial temple music of Beijing, Xi'an, Wutai shan and Tianjin. Xi'an drum music, consisting of wind and percussive instruments, is popular around Xi'an, and has received some commercial popularity outside of China. Another important instrument is the sheng, pipes, an ancient instrument that is ancestor of all Western free reed instruments, such as the accordion. Parades led by Western-type brass bands are common, often competing in volume with a shawm/chuigushou band.

In southern Fujian and Taiwan, Nanyin or Nanguan is a genre of traditional ballads. They are sung by a woman accompanied by a xiao and a pipa, as well as other traditional instruments. The music is generally sorrowful and typically deals with a love-stricken women. Further south, in Shantou, Hakka and Chaozhou, erxian and zheng ensembles are popular.Sizhu ensembles use flutes and bowed or plucked string instruments to make harmonious and melodious music that has become popular in the West among some listeners. These are popular in Nanjing and Hangzhou, as well as elsewhere along the southern Yangtze area. Sizhu has been secularized in cities but remains spiritual in rural areas.Jiangnan Sizhu (silk and bamboo music from Jiangnan) is a style of instrumental music, often played by amateur musicians in tea houses in Shanghai; it has become widely known outside of its place of origin. Guangdong Music or Cantonese Music is instrumental music from Guangzhou and surrounding areas. It is based on Yueju (Cantonese Opera) music, together with new compositions from the 1920s onwards. Many pieces have influences from jazz and Western music, using syncopation and triple time. This music tells stories, myths and legends. One of the most popular folk songs of China is Mo Li Hua ("Beautiful Jasmine").

Traditional folk music of Sri Lanka

Main article: Music of Sri Lanka

The genre of Sri Lankan music is known as Oriental music. The art, music and dances of Sri Lanka were derived from the elements of nature, and have been enjoyed and developed in the Buddhist environment.^[35] The music is of several types and uses only a few types of instruments. The folk songs and poems were used in social gatherings to work together. The Indian influenced classical music has grown to be unique.^[36]^[37]^[38]^[39] The traditional drama, music and songs are typically Sri Lankan. The temple paintings and carvings used birds, elephants, wild animals, flowers and trees, and the Traditional 18 Dances display the dancing of birds and animals. For example:

Mayura Wannama – The dance of the Peacock
Hanuma Wannama – The dance of the Monkey
Gajaga Wannama – The dance of the elephant

Musical types include:

Local drama music includes Kolam, Nadagam and Noorthy types. Kolam music is based on low country tunes and it is not a developed form of music. It is limited to approximately 3-4 notes and is used by the ordinary people for pleasure and entertainment.
Nadagam music is a more developed form of drama influenced from South Indian street drama which was introduced by some south Indian Artists. Phillippu Singho from Negombo in 1824 Performed “Harishchandra Nadagama” in Hnguranketha which was originally written in Telingu language. Later “Maname”, “Sanda kinduru” and few others were introduced. Don Bastian of Dehiwala introduced Noorthy firstly by looking at Indian dramas and then John De Silva developed it as did Ramayanaya in 1886.
Sinhala light music is currently the most popular type of music in Sri Lanka and enriched with the influence of folk music, kolam music, nadagam music, noorthy music, film music, classical music, western music and others. Some artists visited India to learn music and later started introducing light music. Ananda Samarakone was the pioneer of this and also composed the national anthem.

Maestro Premasiri Khemadasa playing folk composition and Dinesh Subasinghe performing Sri Lankan Ravanahatha

The classical Sinhalese Orchestra consists of five categories of instruments, but among the percussion instruments, the drum is essential for dance.^[40] The vibrant beat of the rhythm of the drums form the basic of the dance. The dancers feet bounce off the floor and they leap and swirl in patterns that reflect the complex rhythms of the drum beat. This drum beat may seem simple on the first hearing but it takes a long time to master the intricate rhythms and variations, which the drummer sometimes can bring to a crescendo of intensity. There are six common types of drums falling within 3 styles (one faced. two faced, and flat faced):

The typical Sinhala Dance is identified as the Kandyan dance and the Gatabera drum is indispensable to this dance.
Yak-bera is the demon drum or the, drum used in low country dance in which the dancers wear masks and perform devil dancing, which has become a highly developed form of art.
The Dawula is a barrel shaped drum, and it was used as a companion drum in the past, to keep strict time with the beat.
The Thammattama is flat, two faced drum. The drummer strikes the drum on the two surfaces on top with sticks, unlike the others where you drum on the sides. This is a companion drum to the afore mentioned Dawula.
A small double headed hand drum, used to accompany songs. It is mostly heard in the poetry dances (vannam).
The Rabana is a flat faced circular drum and comes in several sizes. The large Rabana has to be placed on the floor like a circular short-legged table and several people (especially the womenfolk) can sit around it and beat on it with both hands. This is used in festivals such as the Sinhalese New Year and ceremonies such as weddings. The resounding beat of the Rabana symbolizes the joyous moods of the occasion. The small Rabana is a form of mobile drum beat since the player carries it wherever he goes.

Other instruments include:

The "Thalampata" - 2 small cymbals joined together by a string.
The wind section, is dominated by an instrument akin to the clarinet. This is not normally used for the dances. This is important to note because the Sinhalese dance is not set to music as the western world knows it; rhythm is king.
The flutes of metal such as silver & brass produce shrill music to accompany Kandyan Dances, while the plaintive strains of music of the reed flute may pierce the air in devil-dancing. The conch-shell (Hakgediya) is another form of a natural instrument, and the player blows it to announce the opening of ceremonies of grandeur.
The Ravanahatha (ravanhatta, rawanhattha, ravanastron or ravana hasta veena) is a bowed fiddle popular in Western India. It is believed to have originated among the Hela civilisation of Sri Lanka in the time of King Ravana. The bowl is made of cut coconut shell, the mouth of which is covered with goat hide. A dandi, made of bamboo, is attached to this shell. The principal strings are two: one of steel and the other of a set of horsehair. The long bow has jingle bells^[41]^[42]

Australia

Folk song traditions were taken to Australia by early settlers from England, Scotland and Ireland and gained particular foothold in the rural outback. The rhyming songs, poems and tales written in the form of bush ballads often relate to the itinerant and rebellious spirit of Australia in The Bush, and the authors and performers are often referred to as bush bards.^[43] The 19th century was the golden age of bush ballads. Several collectors have catalogued the songs including John Meredith whose recording in the 1950s became the basis of the collection in the National Library of Australia.^[43]

The songs tell personal stories of life in the wide open country of Australia. Typical subjects include mining, raising and droving cattle, sheep shearing, wanderings, war stories, the 1891 Australian shearers' strike, class conflicts between the landless working class and the squatters (landowners), and outlaws such as Ned Kelly, as well as love interests and more modern fare such as trucking.^[44] The most famous bush ballad is Waltzing Matilda, which has been called "the unofficial national anthem of Australia."^[45]

Indigenous Australian music includes the music of Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, who are collectively called Indigenous Australians; it incorporates a variety of distinctive traditional music styles practiced by Indigenous Australian peoples, as well as a range of contemporary musical styles of and fusion with European traditions as interpreted and performed by indigenous Australian artists. Music has formed an integral part of the social, cultural and ceremonial observances of these peoples, down through the millennia of their individual and collective histories to the present day. The traditional forms include many aspects of performance and musical instrumentation unique to particular regions or Indigenous Australian groups. Equal elements of musical tradition are common through much of the Australian continent, and even beyond. The culture of the Torres Strait Islanders is related to that of adjacent parts of New Guinea and so their music is also related. Music is a vital part of Indigenous Australians' cultural maintenance.^[46]

Europe

Scottish traditional musicians in Edinburgh

Celtic traditional music

Central and Eastern Europe

During the Communist era national folk dancing in the Eastern Block was actively promoted by the state. Dance troupes from Russia and Poland toured non-communist Europe from about 1937 to 1990. The Red Army Choir recorded many albums. Eastern Europe is also the origin of the Jewish Klezmer tradition.

The polka is a central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia. Polka is still a popular genre of folk music in many European countries and is performed by folk artists in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Slovakia. Local varieties of this dance are also found in the Nordic countries, United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Latin America (especially Mexico), and in the United States.

German Volkslieder perpetuated by Liederhandschriften manuscripts like Carmina Burana date back to medieval Minnesang and Meistersinger traditions. Those folk songs revived in the late 18th century period of German Romanticism, first promoted by Johann Gottfried Herder and other advocates of the Enlightenment, later compiled by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano (Des Knaben Wunderhorn) as well as by Ludwig Uhland.

The Volksmusik and folk dances genre, especially in the Alpine regions of Bavaria, Austria, Switzerland (Kuhreihen) and South Tyrol, up to today has clinged on rustic communities against the backdrop of industrialisation—Low German shanties or the Wienerlied (Schrammelmusik) being notable exceptions. Slovene folk music in Upper Carniola and Styria also originated from the Alpine traditions. Traditional Volksmusik is not to be confused with commercial Volkstümliche Musik variations, strongly related to German Schlager music.^{[citation needed]}

The Hungarian group Muzsikás played numerous American tours and participated in the Hollywood movie The English Patient while the singer Márta Sebestyén worked with the band Deep Forest. The Hungarian táncház movement, started in the 1970s, involves strong cooperation between musicology experts and enthusiastic amateurs.^{[citation needed]} However, traditional Hungarian folk music and folk culture barely survived in some rural areas of Hungary, and it has also begun to disappear among the ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania. The táncház movement revived broader folk traditions of music, dance, and costume together and created a new kind of music club. The movement spread to ethnic Hungarian communities elsewhere in the world.

Balkan music

Tanec, Republic of Macedonia

The Balkan folk music was influenced by the mingling of Balkan ethnic groups in the period of Ottoman Empire. It comprises the music of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Romania, Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Turkey, some of the historical states of Yugoslavia or the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and geographical regions such as Thrace. Some music is characterised by complex rhythm.

An important part of the whole Balkan folk music is the music of the local Romani ethnic minority. A female choir from Bulgarian State Radio recorded Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares.

Nordic folk music

Nordic folk music includes a number of traditions in Northern European, especially Scandinavian, countries. The Nordic countries are generally taken to include Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark. Sometimes it is taken to include Greenland and historically the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The many regions of the Nordic countries share certain traditions, many of which have diverged significantly. It is possible to group together the Baltic states (or, sometimes, only Estonia) and parts of northwest Russia as sharing cultural similarities, contrasted with Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Atlantic islands of, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Greenland's Inuit culture has its own musical traditions, influenced by Scandinavian culture. Finland shares many cultural similarities with both the Baltic nations and the Scandinavian nations. The Saami of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia have their own unique culture, with ties to the neighboring cultures.

Swedish folk music is a genre of music based largely on folkloric collection work that began in the early 19th century in Sweden.^[48] The primary instrument of Swedish folk music is the fiddle. Another common instrument, unique to Swedish traditions, is the nyckelharpa. Most Swedish instrumental folk music is dance music; the signature music and dance form within Swedish folk music is the polska. Vocal and instrumental traditions in Sweden have tended to share tunes historically, though they have been performed separately.^[49] Beginning with the folk music revival of the 1970s, vocalists and instrumentalists have also begun to perform together in folk music ensembles.

Latin and South America

See also: Andean music, Cueca, and Nueva canción

Andean music comes from the general area inhabited by Quechuas, Aymaras and other peoples that roughly in the area of the Inca Empire prior to European contact. It includes folklore music of parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. Andean music is popular to different degrees across Latin America, having its core public in rural areas and among indigenous populations. The Nueva Canción movement of the 1970s revived the genre across Latin America and bought it to places where it was unknown or forgotten.

Nueva canción (Spanish for 'new song') is a movement and genre within Latin American and Iberian music of folk music, folk-inspired music and socially committed music. It some respects its development and role is similar to the second folk music revival. This includes evolution of this new genre from traditional folk music, essentially contemporary folk music except that that English genre term is not commonly applied to it. Nueva cancion is recognized as having played a powerful role in the social upheavals in Portugal, Spain and Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s.

Nueva cancion first surfaced during the 1960s as "The Chilean New Song" in Chile. The musical style emerged shortly afterwards in Spain and other areas of Latin America where it came to be known under similar names. Nueva canción renewed traditional Latin American folk music, and was soon associated with revolutionary movements, the Latin American New Left, Liberation Theology, hippie and human rights movements due to political lyrics. It would gain great popularity throughout Latin America, and is regarded as a precursor to Rock en español.

Cueca is a family of musical styles and associated dances from Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Argentina.

Trova and Son are styles of traditional Cuban music originating in the province of Oriente that includes influences from Spanish song and dance such as Bolero and contradanza as well as Afro-Cuban rhythm and percussion elements.

Moda de viola is the name designed to Brazilian folk music. Is often performed with a 6-string nylon acoustic guitar, but the most traditional instrument is the viola caipira. The songs basically detailed the hardness of life of those who work in the country. The themes are usually associated with the land, animals, folklore, impossible love and separation. Although there are some upbeat songs, most of them are nostalgic and melancholic.

North America

United States

Canada

French-Canadian lumberjacks playing the fiddle, with sticks for percussion, in a lumber camp in 1943.

Main article: music of Canadian cultures

See also: Music of Canada and French-Canadian music

Canada's traditional folk music is particularly diverse,.^[53] Even prior to liberalizing its immigration laws in the 1960s, Canada was ethnically diverse with dozens of different Indigenous and European groups present. In terms of music, academics do not speak of a Canadian tradition, but rather ethnic traditions (Acadian music, Irish-Canadian music, Blackfoot music, Innu music, Inuit music, Métis fiddle, etc.) and later in Eastern Canada regional traditions (Newfoundland music, Cape Breton fiddling, Quebecois music, etc.)

"Traditional folk music of European origin has been present in Canada since the arrival of the first French and British settlers in the 16th and 17th centuries."^[53] "They fished the coastal waters and farmed the shores of what became Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and the St Lawrence River valley of Quebec."^[53]

The fur trade and its voyageurs brought this farther north and west into Canada; later lumbering operations and lumberjacks continued this process.^[53]

"Agrarian settlement in eastern and southern Ontario and western Quebec in the early 19th century established a favorable milieu for the survival of many Anglo-Canadian folksongs and broadside ballads from Great Britain and the US. Despite massive industrialization, folk music traditions have persisted in many areas until today. In the north of Ontario, a large Franco-Ontarian population kept folk music of French origin alive.^[53]

Populous Acadian communities in the Atlantic provinces contributed their song variants to the huge corpus of folk music of French origin centred in the province of Quebec. A rich source of Anglo-Canadian folk music can be found in the Atlantic region, especially Newfoundland. Completing this mosaic of musical folklore is the Gaelic music of Scottish settlements, particularly in Cape Breton, and the hundreds of Irish songs whose presence in eastern Canada dates from the Irish famine of the 1840s, which forced the large migrations of Irish to North America."^[53]

"Knowledge of the history of Canada, wrote Isabelle Mills in 1974, "is essential in understanding the mosaic of Canadian folk song. Part of this mosaic is supplied by the folk songs of Canada brought by European and Anglo-Saxon settlers to the new land." ^[11] She describes how the French colony at Québec brought French immigrants, followed before long by waves of immigrants from Great Britain, Germany, and other European countries, all bringing music from their homelands, some of which survives into the present day. Ethnographer and folklorist Marius Barbeau estimated that well over ten thousand French folk songs and their variants had been collected in Canada. Many of the older ones had by then died out in France.

Music as professionalized paid entertainment grew relatively slowly in Canada, especially remote rural areas, through the 19th and early 20th centuries. While in urban music clubs dance hall/vaudville became popular, followed by jazz, rural Canada remained mostly a land of traditional music. Yet when American radio networks began broadcasting into Canada in the 1920s and 1930s, the audience for Canadian traditional music progressively declined in favour of American Nashville-style country music and urban styles like jazz. The Americanization of Canadian music led the Canadian Radio League to lobby for a national public broadcaster in the 1930s, eventually leading to the creation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corportaion (CBC) in 1936. The CBC promoted Canadian music, including traditional music, on its radio and later television services, but the mid-century craze for all things "modern" led to the decline of folk music relative to rock and pop. Canada was however influenced by the folk music revival of the 1960s.

Folk music revivals

"Folk music revival" refers to either a period of renewed interest in traditional folk music, or to an event or period which transforms it; the latter usually includes a social activism component. A prominent example of the former is the British folk revival of approximately 1890–1920. The most prominent and influential example of the latter (to the extent that it is usually called "the folk music revival") is the folk revival of the mid 20th century, centered in the English-speaking world which gave birth to contemporary folk music. See the "Contemporary folk music" section for a description of this revival.

One earlier revival influenced western classical music. Such composers as Percy Grainger, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Béla Bartók, made field recordings or transcriptions of folk singers and musicians.

In Spain, Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909) produced piano works reflect his Spanish heritage, including the Suite Iberia (1906–1909). Enrique Granados (1867–1918) composed zarzuela, Spanish light opera, and Danzas Españolas - Spanish Dances. Manuel de Falla (1876–1946) became interested in the cante jondo of Andalusian flamenco, the influence of which can be strongly felt in many of his works, which include Nights in the Gardens of Spain and Siete canciones populares españolas ("Seven Spanish Folksongs", for voice and piano). Composers such as Fernando Sor and Francisco Tarrega established the guitar as Spain's national instrument. Modern Spanish folk artists abound (Mil i Maria, Russian Red, et al.) modernizing while respecting the traditions of their forebears.

Flamenco grew in popularity through the 20th century, as did northern styles such as the Celtic music of Galicia. French classical composers, from Bizet to Ravel, also drew upon Spanish themes, and distinctive Spanish genres became universally recognized.

Folk music revivals or roots revivals also encompass a range of phenomena around the world where there is a renewed interest in traditional music. This is often by the young, often in the traditional music of their own country, and often included new incorporation of social awareness, causes, and evolutions of new music in the same style. Nueva canción, a similar evolution of a new form of socially committed music occurred in several Spanish speaking countries.

First British folk revival

The "first" British folk revival was a roots revival which occurred approximately 1890–1920 and was marked by heightened interest in traditional music and its preservation. It arose from earlier developments, perhaps combined with changes in the nature of British identity, led to a much more intensive and academic attempt to record what was seen as a vanishing tradition, and is now usually referred to as the first English or British folk revival.

Contemporary folk music

Starting in the mid-20th century a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. The most common name for this new form of music is also "folk music", but is often called "contemporary folk music" or "folk revival music" to make the distinction.^[1] This type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, electric folk, and others. While contemporary folk music is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, it often shares the same English name, performers and venues as traditional folk music; even individual songs may be a blend of the two.

Definitions of "contemporary folk music" are generally vague and variable. Here it is taken to mean all music that is called folk that is not traditional music, a set of genres that began with and then evolved from the folk revival of the mid-20th century. According to Hugh Blumenfeld, for the American folk scene, in general it is:

"Anglo-American, embracing acoustic and/or tradition-based music from the U.K. and the United States.

Mainly European in its musical origins and linguistically predominantly English-based.

The few exceptions to this model are derived mainly from prevailing political/historical conditions in the Anglo-American world and the demographics of folk fans: Celtic music, blues, some Central and South American music, Native American music, and Klezmer."^[54] This is the common use of the term "contemporary folk music", but is not the only case of evolution of new forms from traditional ones. Nueva canción, a similar evolution of a new form of socially committed music, occurred in several Spanish-speaking countries, for example.

Contemporary country music descends ultimately from a rural American folk tradition but has evolved differently. Bluegrass music is a professional development of American old time music, intermixed with blues and jazz.

Folk revival of the mid-20th century in the English-speaking countries

Woody Guthrie

Pete Seeger

See also: American folk music revival, Folk music#Fieldwork and scholarship, and British folk revival

While the Romantic nationalism of the folk revival had its greatest influence on art-music, the "second folk revival" of the later 20th century brought a new genre of popular music with artists marketed through concerts, recordings and broadcasting. This is the genre that remains as "contemporary folk music" even when traditional music is considered to be a separate genre. One of the earliest figures in this revival was Woody Guthrie,^[55] who sang traditional songs in the 1930s and 1940s as well as composing his own. Among Guthrie's friends and followers as a collector, performer, and composer was Pete Seeger.

In the 1930s, Jimmie Rodgers, in the 1940s Burl Ives, in the early 1950s Seeger's group The Weavers and Harry Belafonte, and in the late 1950s The Kingston Trio as well as other professional, commercial groups became popular. In 1963–1964, the ABC television network aired the Hootenanny television series devoted to this brand of folk music and also published the associated magazine ABC-TV Hootenanny. Starting in 1950, the Sing Out!, Broadside, and The Little Sandy Review magazines helped spread both traditional and composed songs, as did folk-revival-oriented record companies.

In the United Kingdom, the folk revival fostered young artists like The Watersons, Martin Carthy and Roy Bailey and a generation of singer-songwriters such as Bert Jansch, Ralph McTell, Donovan and Roy Harper; all seven achieved initial prominence in the 1960s. Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Tom Paxton visited Britain for some time in the early 1960s, the first two especially making later use of the traditional English material they heard.

In 1950, prominent American folklorist and collector of traditional songs Alan Lomax came to Britain and met A. L. 'Bert' Lloyd and Ewan MacColl, a meeting credited as inaugurating the second British folk revival. In London, the colleagues opened The Ballads and Blues Club, eventually renamed the Singers' Club, possibly the first folk club in the UK; it closed in 1991. As the 1950s progressed into the 1960s, the folk revival movement gathered momentum in both Britain and America.

In much of rural Canada, traditional and country-folk music were the predominant styles of music until the 1950s, ahead even of the globally popular jazz and swing. Traditional folk took this predominance into early Canadian television with many country-themed shows on its early airwaves. All Around the Circle (1964–1975) showcased the traditional Irish- and English-derived music of Newfoundland, for example. But by far the most important of these was Don Messer's Jubilee (1957–1973), which helped to bridge the gap between rural country-folk and the folk revival that was emerging from urban coffee shops and folk clubs. The show helped to launch the careers of country-folk singers Stompin' Tom Connors and Catherine McKinnon.

The folk revival spawned Canada's first true wave of internationally successful artists such as Ian & Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, and Buffy Sainte-Marie. At the same time, Quebec folk singer-songwriters like Gilles Vigneault and groups such as La Bottine Souriante were doing the same in the French-speaking world. English-speaking Canadian folk artists tended to move the United States to pursue larger audiences until the introduction of so-called "Canadian content" rules for radio and television in the 1970s. At the same time, Canadian folk music became more formalized and commercialized with the rise of specialized folk festivals (beginning with the Miramichi Folksong Festival in 1958), increased radio airplay on rock, pop, and easy listening radio stations, the introduction of the Juno Award for Folk Artist of the Year in 1971, and even an academic journal the Canadian Folk Music Journal in 1973.

The mid- and late 1960s saw fusion forms of folk (such as folk rock) achieve prominence never before seen by folk music, but the early 1960s were perhaps the zenith of non-fusion folk music prominence in the music scene.

According to some, during the Depression, folk music reflected social realities of poverty and disempowerment of common people through vernacularized lyrics expressing the harsh realities of hard times and poverty. Often newly composed songs in traditional style by writers like Guthrie also featured a humorous and satirical tone. Most of the audience for folk music in those years were part of the working class, and many of these songs expressed resistance to the social order and an anger towards the government.^[56]

Major performers who emerged from the 1940s to the early 1960s

Some major folk music performers who emerged during the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s were:

Burl Ives

Woody Guthrie (1912 –1967) was an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is "This Land Is Your Land". Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress.^[57] In the 1930s Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California while learning, rewriting, and performing traditional folk and blues songs along the way. Many the songs he composed were about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Balladeer".^[58] Throughout his life, Guthrie was associated with United States communist groups, though he was never formally joined the Party.^[59] Guthrie fathered American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. During his later years Guthrie served as a figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan. Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger, Joe Strummer and Tom Paxton have acknowledged their debt to Guthrie as an influence.

The Almanac Singers Almanac members Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie began playing together informally in 1940; the Almanac Singers were formed in December 1940.^[59] They invented a driving, energetic performing style, based on what they felt was the best of American country string band music, black and white. They evolved towards controversial topical music. Two of the regular members of the group, Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, later became founding members of The Weavers.

Burl Ives - as a youth, Ives dropped out of college to travel around as an itinerant singer during the early 1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his banjo and guitar. In 1930, he had a brief, local radio career on WBOW radio in Terre Haute, Indiana, and in the 1940s he had his own radio show, titled The Wayfaring Stranger, titled after one of the popular ballads he sang. The show was very popular, and in 1946 Ives was cast as a singing cowboy in the film Smoky. Ives went on to play parts in other popular film as well. His first book, The Wayfaring Stranger, was published in 1948.^[60]

Pete Seeger had met and been influenced by many important folk musicians (and singer-songwriters with folk roots), especially Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly. Seeger had labor movement involvements, and he met Guthrie at a "Grapes of Wrath" migrant workers’ concert on March 3, 1940, and the two thereafter began a musical collaboration (which included the Almanac Singers) and then formed The Weavers. As a songwriter, Seeger authored or co-authored "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)", (composed with Lee Hays of The Weavers), and "Turn, Turn, Turn!", all three of which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are still sung throughout the world. In 1948, Seeger wrote the first version of his now-classic How to Play the Five-String Banjo, an instructional book that many banjo players credit with starting them off on the instrument. He has recorded, sung, and performed for more than seventy years and has become the most powerful force in the American folk revival after Guthrie.^[61]

The Weavers were formed in 1947 by Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays, and Fred Hellerman. After they debuted at the Village Vanguard in New York in 1948, they were then discovered by arranger Gordon Jenkins and signed with Decca Records, releasing a series of successful but heavily orchestrated single songs. The group's political associations in the era of the Red Scare forced them to break up in 1952; they re-formed in 1955 with a series of successful concerts and album recordings on Vanguard Records. A fifth member, Erik Darling, sometimes sat in with the group when Seeger was unavailable and ultimately replaced Seeger in The Weavers when the latter resigned from the quartet in a dispute about its commercialism in general and its specific agreement to record a cigarette commercial.^[62]

Harry Belafonte, another influential performer, started his career as a club singer in New York to pay for his acting classes. In 1952, he signed a contract with RCA Victor and released his first record album, Mark Twain and Other Folk Favorites. His breakthrough album Calypso (1956) was the first LP to sell over a million copies. The album spent 31 weeks at number one, 58 weeks in the top ten, and 99 weeks on the US charts. It introduced American audiences to Calypso music and Belafonte was dubbed the "King of Calypso." Belafonte went on to record in many genres, including blues, American folk, gospel, and more. In 1959, he starred in Tonight With Belafonte a nationally televised special that introduced Odetta in her debut to a prime time audience. She sang Water Boy and performed a duet with Belafonte of There's a Hole in My Bucket that hit the national charts in 1961.^[63]

Odetta performing in 2006

Odetta - In 1953 singers Odetta and Larry Mohr recorded an LP that was released in 1954 as Odetta and Larry, an album that was partially recorded live at San Francisco's Tin Angel bar. Odetta enjoyed a long and respected career with a repertoire of traditional songs and blues until her death in 2009.^[63]

The Kingston Trio was formed in 1957 in the Palo Alto, California area by Bob Shane, Nick Reynolds, and Dave Guard, who were just out of college. They were greatly influenced by the Weavers, the calypso sounds of Belafonte, and other semi-pop folk artists such as the Gateway Singers and The Tarriers. The unprecedented popularity and album sales of this group from 1957 to 1963 (including fourteen top ten and five number one LPs on the Billboard charts^[64]) was a significant factor in creating a commercial and mainstream audience for folk-styled music where little had existed prior to their emergence.^[65] The Kingston Trio's success was followed by other highly successful pop-folk acts, such as The Limeliters.

The Limeliters

The Limeliters are an American folk music group, formed in July 1959 by Lou Gottlieb (bass), Alex Hassilev (baritone), and Glenn Yarbrough (tenor). The group was active from 1959 until 1965, when they disbanded. After a hiatus of sixteen years Yarbrough, Hassilev, and Gottlieb reunited and began performing as The Limeliters again.

Joan Baez’s career began in 1958 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where at 17 she gave her first coffee-house concert. She was invited to perform at the premiere Newport Folk Festival in 1959 by pop folk star Bob Gibson, after which Baez was sometimes called "the barefoot Madonna", gaining renown for her clear voice and three-octave range. She recorded her first album for a Vanguard Records the following year – a collection of laments and traditional folk ballads from the British Isles, accompanying the songs with guitar. Her second LP release went gold, as did her next (live) albums. One record featured her rendition of a song by the then-unknown Bob Dylan. In the early 1960s, Baez moved into the forefront of the American folk-music revival. Increasingly, her personal convictions – peace, social justice, anti-poverty – were reflected in the topical songs that made up a growing portion of her repertoire, to the point that Baez became a symbol for these particular concerns.

The Chad Mitchell Trio began in 1959 and emerged in the early 1960s. The group performed a mix of creatively arranged traditional songs and contemporary numbers that frequently included satiric and political overtones.

The Highwaymen were an early 1960s "collegiate folk" group that originated at Wesleyan University and had a Billboard number-one hit in 1961 with "Michael", a version of the African-American spiritual Michael, Row the Boat Ashore, and another Top 20 hit in 1962 with "Cottonfields". "Michael" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold record.^[66]^[67]

The New Christy Minstrels are a folk music group founded by Randy Sparks in 1961.^[68] They recorded over 20 albums and had several hits, including "Green, Green", "Saturday Night", "Today", "Denver", and "This Land is Your Land". Their 1962 debut album, Presenting The New Christy Minstrels won a Grammy Award and sat in the Billboard charts for two years.^[69]

The Rooftop Singers were an American progressive folk singing trio in the early 1960s, best known for the hit record "Walk Right In".

The Serendipity Singers was a nine-member group that started at the University of Colorado and became known nationally in 1964 for a heavily pop-inflected approach to folk music.

Bob Dylan often performed and sometimes toured with Joan Baez, starting when she was a singer of mostly traditional songs. As Baez adopted some of Dylan's songs into her repertoire and even introduced Dylan to her avid audiences, a large following on the folk circuit, it helped the young songwriter to gain initial recognition. By the time Dylan recorded his first LP (1962) he had developed a style reminiscent of Woody Guthrie. He began to write songs that captured the "progressive" mood on the college campuses and in the coffee houses. Though by 1964 there were many new guitar-playing singer/songwriters, it is arguable that Dylan eventually became the most popular of these younger folk-music-revival performers.

Peter, Paul and Mary debuted in the early 1960s and were an American trio who ultimately became one of the biggest musical acts of the 1960s. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers. They were one of the main folk music torchbearers of social commentary music in the 1960s. As the decade passed, their music incorporated more elements of pop and rock.

Judy Collins debuted in the early 1960s. At first, she sang traditional folk songs or songs written by others – in particular the protest songwriters of the time, such as Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, and Bob Dylan. She also recorded her own versions of important songs from the period, such as Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man", Pete Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn" and Eric Andersen's "Thirsty Boots".

The Seekers, an Australian folk and pop music group, were formed in 1962. They moved to the UK in 1963 and blended traditional music, contemporary folk music and pop, an illustration of the rapid evolution and diversification of the genre. The Seekers enjoyed great popularity in the English-speaking world with hit songs like "I Know I'll Never Find Another You", "A World Of Our Own," and "Georgy Girl".

Canada's duo of Ian Tyson and Sylvia Fricker, performing as Ian & Sylvia, released their first album in 1963. The duo featured a creative mix of traditional American and Canadian folk songs in both English and French as well as contemporary singer-songwriter compositions by Dylan and Paxton, and numbers that they themselves composed like "Four Strong Winds" and "Someday Soon" by Tyson and "You Were On My Mind" by Fricker.

The mid-1960s through the early 1970s

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan during the civil rights "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom", August 28, 1963.

The large musical, political, lifestyle, and counterculture changes most associated with "the 60s" occurred during the second half of the decade and the first year or two of the 1970s. Folk music underwent a related rapid evolution, expansion and diversification at that same time. Major changes occurred through the evolution of established performers such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, The Seekers and Peter Paul and Mary, and also through the creation of new fusion genres with rock and pop. Much of this evolution began in the early 1960s and emerged into prominence in the mid and late 1960's. One performance "crucible" for this evolution was Greenwich Village New York. Dylan's use of electric instruments helped inaugurate the genres of folk rock and country rock, particularly by his album John Wesley Harding.^[70]

These changes represented a further departure from traditional folk music. The Byrds with hits such as Seeger's "Turn! Turn! Turn!" were emblematic of a new term folk rock. Barry McGuire left The New Christy Minstrels and recorded Eve of Destruction in 1965. Other performers such as Simon & Garfunkel and The Mamas & the Papas created new, hard-to-classify music that was folk-inflected and often included in discussions of folk rock.^[70]

During this period, the term "protest music" was often used to characterize folk music with topical political themes. Folk singers and songwriters such as Phil Ochs, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Arlo Guthrie and Tom Paxton followed in Woody Guthrie's footsteps, writing "protest music" and topical songs and expressing support for various causes including the American Civil Rights Movement and anti-war causes associated with the Vietnam War. A number of performers who had begun their careers singing largely traditional material, as typified by Baez and Collins, began to write their own material.

The Canadian performers Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Cockburn and Joni Mitchell represented such fusions and enjoyed great popularity in the U.S.; all four were eventually invested with the Order of Canada. Many of the acid rock bands of San Francisco began by playing acoustic folk and blues. The Smothers Brothers television shows featured many folk performers, including the formerly blacklisted Pete Seeger.^[71]

Bonnie Koloc is a Chicago-based American folk music singer-songwriter who made her recording debut in 1971, three years after several popular recordings by Melanie, who had released her first album in 1968 with a folk/pop blend.

The late 1960s saw the advent of electric folk groups. This is a form of folk rock, with a focus on indigenous (European, and, emblematically, English) songs. A key electric folk moment was the release of Fairport Convention's album Liege and Lief. Guitarist Richard Thompson declared that the music of the band demanded a corresponding "English Electric" style, while bassist Ashley Hutchings formed Steeleye Span to pursue a more traditional repertoire performed in the electric folk style. Exponents of electric folk music such as Fairport Convention, Pentangle, Alan Stivell and Mr. Fox saw electrification of traditional musical forms as a means to reach a far wider audience.

Mid-1970s through present day

Starting in the 1970s folk music was fueled by new singer-songwriters such as Steve Goodman, John Prine, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, John Denver, and many more. In the British Isles, The Pogues in the early 1980s and Ireland's The Corrs in the 1990s brought traditional tunes back into the album charts. The Corrs were active from 1990 to 2006 and performed Celtic and pop music, and created a blend of the two. Carrie Newcomer emerged with Stone Soup in 1984 and has been performing individually since 1991.

Malicorne, a French electric folk group emerged in 1973, starting with traditional music and then later blended it with pop. Canadian Stan Rogers wrote and performed folk music with strong historical and nautical themes, emerging in 1976. Si Kahn emerged in 1974 at the more political and topical end of the folk music spectrum.

In the 1980s, the Washington Squares played "throwback" folk music. Suzanne Vega proformed folk an folk-oriented pop music. The The Knitters propagated cowpunk or folk punk, which eventually evolved into alt country. More recently the same spirit has been embraced and expanded on by artists such as Dave Alvin, Miranda Stone and Steve Earle.

In the second half of the 1990s, once more, folk music made an impact on the mainstream music via a younger generation of artists such as Eliza Carthy, Kate Rusby and Spiers and Boden. Canada's biggest selling folk group of the 1990s and 2000s was the Celtic, rock-tinged Great Big Sea from Newfoundland, who have had 4 albums certified platinum in Canada as of 2013, and one, Up from 1995, that went 4 times platinum.

Hard rock and heavy metal bands such as Korpiklaani, Skyclad, Waylander, Ensiferum and Finntroll meld elements from a wide variety of traditions, including in many cases instruments such as fiddles, tin whistles, accordions and bagpipes. Folk metal often favours pagan-inspired themes.

Viking metal is defined in its folk stance, incorporating folk interludes into albums (e.g., Bergtatt and Kveldssanger, the first two albums by once-folk metal, now-experimental band Ulver). Mumford & Sons a folk rock and indie folk band was formed in 2007 and achieved prominence in 2010.

Specialty sub-genres

Filk music can be considered folk music stylistically and culturally (though the 'community' it arose from, science fiction fandom, is an unusual and thoroughly modern one).^[72] Neofolk began in the 1980s, fusing traditional European folk music with post-industrial music, historical topics, philosophical commentary, traditional songs and paganism. The genre is largely European.

Anti folk began in New York City in the 1980s. Folk punk, known in its early days as rogue folk, is a fusion of folk music and punk rock. It was pioneered by the London-based Irish band The Pogues in the 1980s. Industrial folk music is a characterization of folk music normally referred to under other genres, and covers music of or about industrial environments and topics, including related protest music.

Other sub-genres include Indie folk, Techno-folk, Freak folk and Americana and fusion genres such as folk metal, progressive folk, psychedelic folk, and neofolk.

Notable venues

The National Folk Festival (USA) is an itinerant folk festival in the United States. Since 1934, it has been run by the National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) and has been presented in 26 communities around the nation. After leaving some of these communities, the National Folk Festival has spun off several locally run folk festivals in its wake including the Lowell Folk Festival, the Richmond Folk Festival, the American Folk Festival and, most recently, the Montana Folk Festival.

The National Folk Festival (UK) in England has been running for over thirty five years – starting off as a festival organized in Keele University.

The National Folk Festival is Australia’s premier folk festival event and is attended by over 50,000 people.

The four-day Philadelphia Folk Festival began in 1962. It is sponsored by the non-profit Philadelphia Folksong Society. The event hosts contemporary and traditional artists in genres including World/Fusion, Celtic, Singer/Songwriter, Folk Rock, Country, Klezmer, and Dance. It is held annually on the third weekend in August. The event now hosts approximately 12,000 visitors, presenting bands on 6 stages.

The Newport Folk Festival is an annual folk festival held near Newport, Rhode Island. It ran most year from 1959 to 1970, and 1985 to the present, with an attendance of approximately 10,000 persons.

It is sometimes claimed that the earliest folk festival was the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, 1928, in Asheville, North Carolina, founded by Bascom Lamar Lunsford. Sidmouth Festival began in 1954, and Cambridge Folk Festival began in 1965. The Cambridge Folk Festival in Cambridge, England is noted for having a very wide definition of who can be invited as folk musicians. The "club tents" allow attendees to discover large numbers of unknown artists, who, for ten or 15 minutes each, present their work to the festival audience.

Stan Rogers is a lasting fixture of the Canadian folk festival Summerfolk, held annually in Owen Sound, Ontario, where the main stage and amphitheater are dedicated as the "Stan Rogers Memorial Canopy". The festival is firmly fixed in tradition, with Rogers' song "The Mary Ellen Carter" being sung by all involved, including the audience and a medley of acts at the festival.

The Canmore Folk Music Festival is Alberta's longest running folk music festival. The Feast of the Hunters' Moon in Indiana draws approximately 60,000 visitors per year.

Folk music is popular among some audiences today, with folk music clubs meeting to share traditional-style songs, and there are major folk music festivals in many countries, e.g. the Woodford Folk Festival, National Folk Festival and Port Fairy Folk Festival are amongst Australia's largest major annual events, attracting top international folk performers as well as many local artists.

Urkult Näsåker, Ångermanland held August each year^[73] is purportedly Sweden's largest world-music festival.

Notes and references

↑ 1.0 1.1 Ruehl, Kim. "Folk Music". About.com definition. Retrieved August 18, 2011.
↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Percy Scholes, The Oxford Companion to Music, OUP 1977, article "Folk Song".
↑ A.L.Lloyd, Folk Song in England, Panther Arts, 1969, p. 13.
↑ Richard Middleton, Studying Popular Music, Philadelphia: Open University Press (1990/2002). ISBN 0-335-15275-9, p. 127.
↑ 5.0 5.1 Ronald D. Cohen Folk music: the basics (CRC Press, 2006), pp. 1–2.
↑ 6.0 6.1 International Folk Music Council definition (1954/5), given in Lloyd (1969) and Scholes (1977).
↑ Charles Seeger (1980), citing the approach of Redfield (1947) and Dundes (1965), quoted in Middleton (1990) p.127.
↑ 8.0 8.1 Donaldson, 2011 page 13
↑ 9.0 9.1 A. L. Lloyd, Folk Song in England, Panther Arts, 1969, pp. 14–5.
↑ Middleton, Richard 1990, p. 127. Studying Popular Music. Milton Keynes; Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0-335-15276-7 (cloth), ISBN 0-335-15275-9 (pbk)
↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Mills, Isabelle (1974). http://cjtm.icaap.org/content/2/v2art5.html The Heart of the Folk Song, Canadian Journal for Traditional Music Vol. 2
↑ Charles Seeger (1980) quoted in Middleton (1990) p. 127.
↑ "To Hear Your Banjo Play, Alan Lomax's 1947 Documentary narrated by Pete Seeger". Youtube.com. 2007-06-14. Retrieved 2012-12-29.
↑ A.L.Lloyd, Folk Song in England, Panther Arts, 1969
↑ Quoted by both Scholes (1977) and Lloyd (1969).
↑ "Ballads Catalogue: Harding B 20(69)". Bodley24.bodley.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2012-12-29.
↑ Alison Vardy, et al., About Traditional Music Page, Celtic Harp Sheet Music site. Accessed 16 February 2007.
↑ Donaldson, 2011 p 20
↑ Donaldson, 2011, p 22-23
↑ Donaldson, 2011, p 24-26
↑ Donaldson, 2011, p 32-37
↑ Donaldson, 2011
↑ 23.0 23.1 Donaldson, 2011, p 39-55
↑ Donaldson, 2011, p 72-74
↑ Donaldson, 2011, p 67-70
↑ Donaldson, 2011, p 44-52
↑ Donaldson, 2011, p 42-43
↑ Donaldson, 2011, p 103-104
↑ Donaldson, 2011, p 105-107
↑ 30.0 30.1 30.2 Donaldson, 2011, p 87
↑ "The Premiere of the Global Jukebox". Radio interview with Don Fleming by John Hockenberry on PRI's The Takeaway.
↑ 32.0 32.1 "Association for Cultural Equity's main overview and search page for Lomax's 1946-on recordings". Research.culturalequity.org. Retrieved 2012-12-29.
↑ "Alan Lomax's Massive Archive Goes Online : The Record". NPR. 2012-03-28. Retrieved 2012-12-29.
↑ GCSE Music – Edexcel Areas of Study, Coordination Group Publications, UK, 2006, page 34, quoting examination board syllabus.
↑ "The Percussive Force". Serendib.btoptions.lk. Retrieved 2012-11-08.
↑ http://www.naadro.com/#home
↑ "Sri Lanka News". Sundayobserver.lk. 2009-11-29. Retrieved 2012-11-08.
↑ "Montage - Cultural paradigm | Sundayobserver.lk - Sri Lanka". Sundayobserver.lk. 2009-11-15. Retrieved 2012-11-08.
↑ "Features | Online edition of Daily News - Lakehouse Newspapers". Dailynews.lk. 2010-09-11. Retrieved 2012-11-08.
↑ "Sri Lankan Music Instrument & sounds". Info.lk. Retrieved 2012-11-08.
↑ "|| Daily News Online Edition - Sri lanka :: Print Page". Dailynews.lk. 2011-02-09. Retrieved 2012-11-08.
↑ "Artscope | Online edition of Daily News - Lakehouse Newspapers". Dailynews.lk. 2008-02-13. Retrieved 2012-11-08.
↑ 43.0 43.1 Kerry O'Brien December 10, 2003 7:30 Report, abc.net.au
↑ G. Smith, Singing Australian: A History of Folk and Country Music (Pluto Press Australia, 2005), p. 2.
↑ Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me?", The National Library of Australia, retrieved 14 March 2008.
↑ Wilurarra Creative (2010). Music
↑ 47.0 47.1 Sawyers, June Skinner (2000). Celtic Music: A Complete Guide. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81007-7.
↑ Kaminsky, David (2005) pages 33–41. "Hidden Traditions: Conceptualizing Swedish Folk Music in the Twenty-First Century." Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University.
↑ Jersild,Margareta (1976) pages 53–66. "Om förhållandet mellan vokalt och instrumentalt i svensk folkmusik. Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning 58(2): 53-66. (Swedish)
↑ 50.0 50.1 Ted Olson, "Music – Introduction". Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 1109–1120.
↑ Heatley, Michael (2007). The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. London, United Kingdom: Star Fire. ISBN 978-1-84451-996-5.
↑ 52.0 52.1 52.2 52.3 52.4 52.5 52.6 52.7 52.8 52.9 52.10 52.11 52.12 52.13 "Folk Music". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved 2012-12-29.
↑ 53.0 53.1 53.2 53.3 53.4 53.5 Kenneth Peacock, Carmelle Bégin (2010-01-19). "Folk music". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2012-12-29.
↑ "www.balladtree.com/folk101/001a_def.htm Definitions of folk music by Hugh Blumenfeld". Balladtree.com. Retrieved 2012-12-29.
↑ Traditional songs – Folk song lyrics of the world
↑ Ellis, Iain. "Resistance And Relief: The Wit And Woes Of Early Twentieth Century Folk And Country Music." Humor: International Journal Of Humor Research 23.2 (2010): 161–178. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 14 September 2012
↑ Library of Congress. Related Material - Woody Guthrie Sound Recordings at the American Folklife Center. Retrieved on November 27, 2007.
↑ "''Crossroads: Woody Guthrie''". University of Virginia. Retrieved 2012-12-29.
↑ 59.0 59.1 Spivey, Christine A. This Land is Your land, This Land is My Land: Folk Music, Communism, and the Red Scare as a Part of the American Landscape. at the Wayback Machine (archived June 25, 2008) The Student Historical Journal 1996–1997, Loyola University New Orleans, 1996.
↑ Cultural Equality - Alan Lomax profile Burl Ives (1909–1995) by Ellen Harold and Peter Stone
↑ Peter Dreier, "Pete Seeger Deserves One More Honor -- the Nobel Peace Prize"The Huffington Post 5/4/09.
↑ David King Dunaway, How Can I Keep From Singing?
↑ 63.0 63.1 Clarke, SP, "Odetta- American Folk Music Pioneer"
↑ Rubeck, Shaw, Blake et al., The Kingston Trio On Record (Naperville IL: KK Inc, 1986), p. 11 ISBN 978-0-9614594-0-6
↑ Eder, Bruce. "Biography of The Kingston Trio". AllMusic Guide. Retrieved July 17, 2009.
↑ Murrells, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Discs (2nd ed.). London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. p. 136. ISBN 0-214-20512-6.
↑ "The Highwaymen". Wesfiles.wesleyan.edu. Retrieved 2012-12-30.
↑ Bogdanov, Vladimir; Woodstra, Chris; Erlewine, Stephen Thomas, All music guide: The Definitive Guide to Popular Music, Hal Leonard Corporation, 2001. Cf. p.793
↑ Eder, Bruce. "The New Christy Minstrels". Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-07-13.
↑ 70.0 70.1 Unterberger, Richie. (2002). Turn! Turn! Turn!: The '60s Folk-Rock Revolution. Backbeat Books. p. 178. ISBN 0-87930-703-X.
↑ Bianculli, David (2009). Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. New York: Touchstone (Simon & Schuster). pp. 130–134, 193–196. ISBN 978-1-4391-0116-2.
↑ "Definition of filk by FilkOntario". Filkontario.ca. Retrieved 2012-12-29.
↑ http://www.urkult.se/ Festival website

References

These are the references with multiple abbreviated cites with varying page numbers

Donaldson, Rachel Clare, 2011 Music for the People: the Folk Music Revival And American Identity, 1930–1970, Ph.D. Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, May 2011, Nashville, Tennessee

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Traditional music.

Folk Alliance International Prominent folk music organization
Foxbeard Folk Music Sharing Folk Music
The Crooked Road: Heritage music trail-A 243-mile historical music oriented trail.
Folk Alley A Non-Profit Listener Supported Folk Music Resource, Streaming online since 2004
Traditional songs - Folk song lyrics of the world
Ben Gray Lumpkin Digital Folk Music Collection Howard B. Waltz Music Library, University of Colorado Boulder

Free scores of Folk music in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
Free scores (songs) at www.traditional-songs.com
Folk Radio UK - Playing folk music of the British Isles and beyond + the latest Folk Music News and Reviews
The short film "To Hear Your Banjo Play (1947)" is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
Welsh Ballads Website
The Traditional Music in England project, World and Traditional Music section at the British Library Sound Archive

v t e Folk music

Subgenres	Ballads Carols Children's songs Drinking song Hornpipe Jigs Morris dance Protest song Sea shanties War songs

Fusions	Anti-folk Celtic music Celtic rock Country folk Electric folk Freak folk Filk music Folk jazz Folk metal Folk punk Folk rock Folktronica Indie folk Industrial folk song Manila Sound Medieval folk rock Neofolk Psych folk Progressive folk Skiffle

Related articles	Festivals Folk clubs Folk dance Instruments Lists of traditions Pub session Record labels Roots revival Singer-songwriter Traditional music World music

Regional scenes	Alps American Andean Armenian Assyrian/Syriac Balkan Cuban English Filipino French Greek Hungarian Icelandic Indian Iranian Irish Italian Jamaican Macedonian Mexican Pakistani Portuguese Scottish Swedish Turkish Ukrainian Russian

v t e Banjo

Technique	Roll Clawhammer Drone G run Keith style Scruggs style

Genres	African-American Minstrel show Bluegrass Country Folk Traditional Irish Old-time

People	Four-String Banjo Hall of Fame Members Earl Scruggs Pete Seeger

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.

Folk music

Traditional folk music

Definitions

Characteristics

Origins

Subject matter

Folk song transformations and variations

Regional forms

Early folk music, fieldwork and scholarship

19th-century Europe

North America

National and regional forms

Africa

Asia

Folk music of China

Traditional folk music of Sri Lanka

Australia

Europe

Celtic traditional music

Central and Eastern Europe

Balkan music

Nordic folk music

Latin and South America

North America

United States

Canada

Folk music revivals

First British folk revival

Contemporary folk music

Folk revival of the mid-20th century in the English-speaking countries

Major performers who emerged from the 1940s to the early 1960s

The mid-1960s through the early 1970s

Mid-1970s through present day

Specialty sub-genres

Notable venues

See also

Notes and references

References

Further reading

Traditional folk music

Contemporary folk music

Covering both traditional music and contemporary folk music

External links