I wanted to add that old time music (which is what we call it now but used to be just called dance music) led to Bluegrass, Country and Western, and Texas Swing. Bluegrass music, which incidentally is one of the few musical genres that was started by one person, namely Bill Monroe. He took old time music and jazzed it up a little, and made it into a more driving performance oriented style as opposed to dance music. You dont usually see musicians doing improvised solo breaks in old time music. For 60 years or so old time music took a backseat to Bluegrass but has recently become popular again in the last 20 years thanks to a fiddle and banjo players who kept the tradition.

Escamillo, I dont know enough about Breton music and dance but Im sure its related to other celtic music. The chieftains had a cd a few years ago which included some Breton music.

Im sure there are many other influences in North American music besides celtic, eg Spanish (guitar) African(banjo ) why does the banjo make me think of Downs Syndrome) Mexican, Gypsy etc. Cheers Petr