Review: Folk Song Modern Japan

Subject: Review: Folk Song Modern Japan
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 May 09 - 05:26 PM

David W. Hughes, Dec. 2007, Traditional Folk Song in Modern Japan: Sources, Sentiment and Society, CD included. University of Hawai'i Press, US$95.00.
For sale in U. S., Canada and Mexico only. (Available from Amazon and other dealers).

Japanese saying: "Folk song is the heart's home town."
This book examines traditional folk songs (min'yô) from the countryside, where they are still important, but they are also taught as art music and arranged for broadcast. They are quoted in Westernized popular song, interact with enka popular songs and Western-derived fôku songu.
This book explores the whole range, from tradition to modern. Rural-urban tensions, "preservation societies," the effects of contests, and the folk song in song bars, etc.
The author, David Hughes, is from the University of London; he has researched folk songs in Japan for nine years, and has acted as a judge in contests.

This is an announcement rather than a review, but I haven't received my copy yet.

Univ Hawai'i Press