Guest

With regard to play-party songs which were performed or may still be performed in the USA, I think part of the reason for a lack of response to your query is that many people who are regular commenters on this site are from the UK, Canada, Australia, or elsewhere. Furthermore, although I'm from the United States, I had to read up on Wikipedia to find out which states were in those regions that you mentioned. It appears that the United States Census divides that nation into four regions, not the five that you listed.

Those regions are:

Region 1 - Northeast
Region 2 -Midwest
Region 3 -South
Region 4 -West

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_of_the_United_States.

That said, there are Wikipedia pages for those five regions that you mentioned.

Also, when it comes to the number of play-party songs that have been collected, I think your students may find that many of those songs are adapted versions of songs from the United Kingdom. Also, I think that your students will find that all regions of the USA aren't equal when it comes to the number of play-party songs that have been collected. I believe that the South (the region that you listed as the "Southeast"* has far more examples of play-party songs than any other region. To a large extent, that is due to the preservation and adaptation of those songs by African Americans in that region - for instance the Gullah traditions exemplified by Bessie Jones.

*"The Southeastern United States, colloquially referred to as the Southeast, is the eastern portion of the Southern United States. It is one of the most populous regions in the United States of America. There is no official Census Bureau definition of the southeastern United States. However, the Association of American Geographers defines the southeastern United States as Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_United_States.

However, in my next comment to this thread, I'll re-post an excerpt from an online site that provides examples of play-party songs from the Northeast (although that page mostly documents experiences of play-party songs in Kansas (Midwestern USA).