with barely 400 years maximum under our belt - there is almost not time enough for us to *HAVE* traditional music!!!! Especially if you are of the school that it needs to be of the "unknown author - orally transmitted" variety. ;)

Consider the fact that even in the 1800's much of the US was "frontier" -

I do a Dickons Festival set in 1842 - at that time the village we are set in had a population that was 90% immigrants! 90%!

Another thing is the amount of immigration:(for example) in my family Mid 1800's really only puts us back to my great-grandparents. Of My 8 great-granparents - one was a Norwegian immigrant, 4 Italian (and still in Italy for another generation), 1 American/Dutch; 1 German-American; 1 English/American.

point being - there hasn't been that much time to file off the serial numbers of folk songs and make them "american" rather then English, or Scots, or whatever.