Genealogy of folk music in America?

Subject: Genealogy of folk music in America?
From: Barry T
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 02:10 PM

I scoured the archives but couldn't find threads that dealt specifically with this, so here goes...

For the past week I've been corresponding with a chap in a lively analysis of the roots of folk music in North America. Because I happen to have a traditional / folk music website he posed two questions to me (gulp):

1. When and how did folk music start in North America?
2. What instruments were used in those earliest times?

I realized very quickly that I was hypothesizing based on my recall of school daze social studies. "Halt!" I said. Time to call in the 'Catters to help!

I found a great source on Canadian folk music history here. And on the American folk history I took a scientific wild-assed guess at the following:

- Native American songs and dances
- Puritan Church music brought by the pre-colonial settlers of the eastern seaboard.
- 16th century broadside ballads brought from Britain by the sailors, soldiers and settler passengers
- Some musical influence from the pre-colonial Spanish settlements of Florida
- French musical influence in what is now Canada and also down the Mississippi River system to Louisiana
- The Acadian influence in the American south after the 1755 expulsion from Canada
- Songs of hardship and hope among the slaves
- Country dance tunes and ballads brought by the Scots-Irish settlers and taken into and beyond the Appalachians.

How am I doin' folks? Anything obvious that I've missed? And what about the instruments played in those earliest times?

Subject: RE: Genealogy of folk music in America?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 02:23 PM

Good stuff Barry. Certainly basic fifes and drums would be among the original instruments, but it would appear that the fiddle (in the shape we know it) predated the plucked instruments as far as European settlers in America go. Are there paintings of black slaves playing bowed instruments of non-European derivation? I believe the earliest painting/drawing of a banjo is circa late 1700s.(before J.W. Sweeney, anyway)

Rick

Subject: RE: Genealogy of folk music in America?
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 02:50 PM

Portugese and of course our famous Norsemen probably left a trace somewhere along the coast. Some Dutch influence in parts. What about music from Finland and countries like Russian and Poland, I would imagine a lot of immigrants brought over instruments from these countries. I was thinking about the influence of religion on music, and The Huron Carol came to mind too. Interesting subject Barry T. Are you thinking about producing a book or paper on the subject? Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: Genealogy of folk music in America?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 02:59 PM

During the nineteen fifties, and spurred on by Jean Ritchie's oral history of her family, a lot of research was done on the origins of (what we call) the Appalachian dulcimer. The fact that it came from Germanic, and Northern European culture was a surprise to many. It certainly pre-dated the guitar in North America.

Rick

Subject: RE: Genealogy of folk music in America?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 03:32 PM

I think Barry's list covers the primary sources of what we call "North American folk music" very well. I note that all of his sources were present before the establishment of the United States. I'm wondering if the 19th-century immigrants from the European Continent and other places had much of an influence. The Irish certainly had an effect, but the influence of Germans and Italians and Slavs and Scandinavians and Jews is not so obvious. I suppose the influence of the British Isles was prevalent because English is the dominant language here. Still, I would think the other ethnic groups would have had a more significant influence than I've been able to find. German hymns certainly had a strong effect on American religious and folk music, but what other influences were there?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Genealogy of folk music in America?
From: Barry T
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 04:29 PM

Dave (the ancient mariner) asked... Interesting subject Barry T. Are you thinking about producing a book or paper on the subject?

No, but it might be a good topic for some wordsmith! In surfing I found a couple of CDROMS, one for $9 and another for $75, that are focused on the topic. I'm sure there must already be books written on it, and term papers written by music students.

When I went cybersearching I found that most of the available information focuses on the colonial and post-colonial period. There is some great material for those eras and for the music genres that developed from that time, but there's not much on the topic of music in the really early explorer / settler societies.

Subject: RE: Genealogy of folk music in America?
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 04:32 PM

I would modify Barry's headings in a few details. Country dance tunes, for example, were brought not only in the 18th century by the Northumbrian/Lowland Scots/Ulstermen settlers of the backcountry, but also by the Wessexmen who settled the tidewater in the 17th century.

Also, some of the music the Puritans brought was simply the music of the English metrical psalter, and would not have been unique to the Puritans. The Cavaliers who settled Virginia would have had the same Old Version and New Version psalters that the New England Puritans had. Also, though New England was Congregationalist-dominated, there were other groups, including the Jewish community in Rhode Island.

I'd be cautious of assuming Spanish influence by way of Spanish Florida. Musical books printed in Spain might just as easily be a channel for any Spanish influence that might be detected.

For a tranmission vector for African influences I would look to the revivalist awakening of the 1830s.

Some of the "Swedes" who settled the Delaware valley were actually Finns, or so I have heard. I don't know if that is musically significant.

T.