From: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org (believers-digest) To: believers-digest@smoe.org Subject: believers-digest V2 #156 Reply-To: believers@smoe.org Sender: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk believers-digest Thursday, October 1 1998 Volume 02 : Number 156 In Today's believer's digest: ----------------- Re: American folk music [Carolyn Andre ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 01 Oct 1998 00:19:29 -0500 From: Carolyn Andre Subject: Re: American folk music Last week, Rob asked "what's a folksinger?" Coincidentally, on one of the other lists I participate in (folkdj - people who dj, primarily community & public stations, and primarily bluegrass/oldtime music and the infamous folk/roots/celtic/contemporary singer-songwriter) a European participant commented on how Americans seem to apply 'folk' differently than they do over on the continent. One of the djs posted the following attempt at a categorization/description that I thought touched on a lot of the different genres and interrelationships. This is posted with her permission (and I'm sure she'd be glad to delve into the subject further if anyone contacted her). btw - to Judith's descriptions - in college years, I was a big fan of the Joan Baez/Bob Dylan/Pete Seeger/etc. trend of music. And have always referred to it as 'political folk', even at that tender late-teen age perceiving a difference between Baez' early "Childe Ballads" and Dylan's "With God On Our Side", or between Jean Ritchie's mountain dulcimer tunes and the Judy Collins or Joni Mitchell material of the day. I find the current categorizations of 'contemporary singer/songwriter' and 'urban folk' apt 'modernizations' of that thought. btw also: info about the Folk Alliance is found at http://folkalliance.org/ interesting organization that's worth pursuing if only for the broadening of one's musical knowlege - and the opportunity to learn of and *support* even more great music. - ----------------- >Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 13:42:06 -0500 >From: judith >Subject: Re: American folk music >To: FOLKDJ-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU > >hi > >I don't think I am sure either. The daytime shows I do are along the lines >of the most expanded definition of folk that you would see at The North >American Folk and Dance Alliance, similar to that of England's Folk ROots >MAgazine. But I call it folk and roots from around the world, because >Americans so often think of folk as singer-songwriters. The latter is a >technically a genre of folk called Contemporary Folk or Urban Folk. It's >closer to the more acoustic pop music or country music than other folk >types, hence is suspect with many folk enthusiasts ;-) But for many >AMericans it seems to be the standard definition of folk. There's also >traditional music, which is the older music either from the oral tradition >or in public domain, from rural or urban European Americans, mostly >deriving from The British Isles, and including string bands and Appalachian >music, but from other parts of the country as well, like contra dance tunes >or Great Lakes and sea shanties. There's "folk" which seems to be a mixture >of these two....maybe original lyrics with tunes derived from traditional >tunes. There's bluegrass...you know that definition? ROOTS is I think >generally music from non-Anglo/Celtic groups, primarily ethnic music like >black work songs, blues, cajun, conjunto, but also polka like we have here >with the Czechs and Germans and Finnish, Italian, whatever. A lot of it is >dance music. Then there's Celtic, which seems to not only include Celtic, >but also British and French-Canadian and anything with a hammer dulcimer. >One could almost put French and Scandanavian music in there if you wanted. >I have at times, because it sounds that way. The rest is either >international or world...international is "source" music or at least it's >acoustic and "world" has a lot of pop or techno mixed in. And Latin, I >think that's a genre in itself. > >I am no expert, but these are the definitions as I understand them. It >would be good to get them from someone else as well. > >Many of the offers of CDs are from singer-songwriters on the list, but that >does not mean there is not a huge amount of other folk music is not >available. Singer-songwriters are just more generous. > >ANything with an accordion is usually roots or Celtic unless it has very >thoughtful lyrics. Some country or western is traditional, and some, like >swing or alternative country can be roots. > >judith > - ------------------------- Regards, Carolyn Andre - ------------------- Chicago, IL / USA | Support Independent Music! Use the Internet candre@enteract.com | Carolyn's House of Music: http://house-of-music.com HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at songs.com ------------------------------ End of believers-digest V2 #156 ******************************* --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- This has been a posting from the Susan Werner believers-digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers-digest" in the body of the message