A freewheeling blend of continental European folk music and the songs, tunes, and dances of Anglo and Celtic immigrants, polkabilly has enthralled American musicians and dancers since the mid-19th century. From West Virginia coal camps and east Texas farms to the Canadian prairies and America's Upper Midwest, scores of groups have wed squeezeboxes with string bands, hoe downs with hambos, and sentimental Southern balladry with comic "up north" broken-English comedy, to create a new and uniquely American sound. The Goose Island Ramblers played as a house band for a local tavern in Madison, Wisconsin from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s. The group epitomized the polkabilly sound with their wild mixture of Norwegian fiddle tunes, Irish jigs, Slovenian polkas, Swiss yodels, old time hillbilly songs, "Scandihoovian" and "Dutchman" dialect ditties, frost-bitten Hawaiian marches, and novelty numbers on the electric toilet plunger. In this original study, James P. Leary illustrates how the Ramblers' multiethnic music combined both local and popular traditions, and how their eclectic repertoire challenges prevailing definitions of American folk music. He thus offers the first comprehensive examination of the Upper Midwest's folk musical traditions within the larger context of American life and culture. Impeccably researched, richly detailed and illustrated, and accompanied by a compact disc of interviews and performances, James P. Leary's Polkabilly: How the Goose Island Ramblers Redefined American Folk Music creates an unforgettable portrait of a polkabilly band and its world.

Archie Green--shipwright, folklorist, teacher, and lobbyist--was a legendary figure in the field of American folklore and vernacular culture studies. An inspiration to a generation of students and scholars, Green was known for the remarkable passion, intelligence, and curiosity he brought to his explorations of everyday people, their communities, their work, and their forms of expression. This book gathers twelve essays intended to represent the range of Green's writings over forty years. Selections include a study of folk depictions in the art of Thomas Hart Benton, investigations of occupational and labor language, and a contemplative account of personal and political morality in the study of Appalachian musicians. In an afterword, Green traces his career and reflects on the state of folklore as a discipline. Woven through the foreword by Robert Cantwell is Green's biography, key to understanding his unique mix of activism and scholarship.

Graced by more than 200 illustrations, many of them seldom seen and some never before published, this sparkling volume offers vivid portraits of the men and women who created country music, the artists whose lives and songs formed the rich tradition from which so many others have drawn inspiration. Included here are not only such major figures as Jimmie Rodgers, The Carter Family, Fiddlin' John Carson, Charlie Poole, and Gene Autry, who put country music on America's cultural map, but many fascinating lesser-known figures as well, such as Carson Robison, Otto Gray, Chris Bouchillon, Emry Arthur and dozens more, many of whose stories are told here for the first time. To map some of the winding, untraveled roads that connect today's music to its ancestors, Tony Russell draws upon new research and rare source material, such as contemporary newspaper reports and magazine articles, internet genealogy sites, and his own interviews with the musicians or their families. The result is a lively mix of colorful tales and anecdotes, priceless contemporary accounts of performances, illuminating social and historical context, and well-grounded critical judgment. The illustrations include artist photographs, record labels, song sheets, newspaper clippings, cartoons, and magazine covers, recreating the look and feel of the entire culture of country music. Each essay includes as well a playlist of recommended and currently available recordings for each artist. Finally, the paperback edition now features an extensive index.

In 1899, a fundraising program for Berea College featured a group of students from the mountains of eastern Kentucky singing traditional songs from their homes. The audience was entranced. That small en-counter at the end of the last century lies near the beginning of an unparalleled national—and international—fascination with the indigenous music of a single state. Kentucky has long figured prominently in our national sense of traditional music. Over the years, a diverse group of people—reformers, enthusiasts, the musically literate and the musically illiterate, radicals, liberals, a British gentleman and his woman companion, amateurs, local residents, and academics—have been sufficiently captivated by that music to have devoted considerable energy to harvesting it from its fertile ground, studying its various manifestations, and considering its many performers. Kentucky Folkmusic: An Annotated Bibliography is a guide to the literature of this remarkable music. More than seven hundred entries, each with an evaluative annotation, comprise the largest bibliographic resource for the folkmusic of any state or region in North America. Divided into eight sections, the bibliography covers collections and anthologies; fieldworkers and scholars; singers, musicians, and other performers; text-centered studies; studies of history, context, and style; festivals; dance; and discographies, check-lists, and other reference tools. A subject index, an author index, and an index of periodicals provide access to the materials. From early hymnals and songsters to Kentucky performers of traditional music, the bibliography is a comprehensive guide to music which has for many years been one of the major emblems of American traditional music.

Kentucky Country is a lively tour of the state's indigenous music, from the days of string bands through hillbilly, western swing, gospel, bluegrass, and honkey-tonk to through the Nashville Sound and beyond. Through personal interviews with many of the living legends of Kentucky music, Charles K. Wolfe illuminates a fascinating and important area of American culture. The list of country music stars who hail from Kentucky is a long and glittering one. Red Foley, Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn, Tom T. Hall, the Judds, Dwight Yaokum, Billy Ray Cyrus, Ricky Skaggs, John Michael Montgomery, and Keith Whitely—all these and many others have called Kentucky home. Kentucky Country is the story of these stars and dozens more. It is also the story of many Kentucky musicians whose contributions have been little known or appreciated, and of those collectors, promoters, and entrepreneurs who have worked behind the scenes to bring Kentucky music to national attention.

Contains over 500 articles Ranging over foodways and folksongs, quiltmaking and computer lore, Pecos Bill, Butch Cassidy, and Elvis sightings, more than 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, and crafts; sports and holidays; tall tales and legendary figures; genres and forms; scholarly approaches and theories; regions and ethnic groups; performers and collectors; writers and scholars; religious beliefs and practices. The alphabetically arranged entries vary from concise definitions to detailed surveys, each accompanied by a brief, up-to-date bibliography. Special features *More than 2000 contributors *Over 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, crafts, and more *Alphabetically arranged *Entries accompanied by up-to-date bibliographies *Edited by America's best-known folklore authority

North American Fiddle Music: A Research and Information Guide is the first large-scale annotated bibliography and research guide on the fiddle traditions of the United States and Canada. These countries, both of which have large immigrant populations as well as Native populations, have maintained fiddle traditions that, while sometimes faithful to old-world or Native styles, often feature blended elements from various traditions. Therefore, researchers of the fiddle traditions in these two countries can not only explore elements of fiddling practices drawn from various regions of the world, but also look at how different fiddle traditions can interact and change. In addition to including short essays and listings of resources about the full range of fiddle traditions in those two countries, it also discusses selected resources about fiddle traditions in other countries that have influenced the traditions in the United States and Canada.

Film Music in the Sound Era: A Research and Information Guide offers a comprehensive bibliography of scholarship on music in sound film (1927–2017). Thematically organized sections cover historical studies, studies of musicians and filmmakers, genre studies, theory and aesthetics, and other key aspects of film music studies. Broad coverage of works from around the globe, paired with robust indexes and thorough cross-referencing, make this research guide an invaluable tool for all scholars and students investigating the intersection of music and film. This guide is published in two volumes: Volume 1: Histories, Theories, and Genres covers overviews, historical surveys, theory and criticism, studies of film genres, and case studies of individual films. Volume 2: People, Cultures, and Contexts covers individual people, social and cultural studies, studies of musical genre, pedagogy, and the industry. A complete index is included in each volume.

Beyond the familiar forms of Mississippi Delta Blues and mainstream country music, the vernacular music of the South also ranges from the ceremonial music of Native Americans, to "shout" singing in South Carolina sea islands, Cajun fiddling, and Mexican-American conjunto music. Sounds of the South assesses past efforts to document these richly varied musical forms and the challenges facing future work. "Sounds of the South"--a 1989 conference that gathered record collectors, folklorists, musicians, record producers, librarians, archivists, and traditional music lovers--celebrated the official opening of the Southern Folklife Collection with the John Edwards Memorial Collection at the library of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Based on that conference, Sounds of the South includes Bill Malone's account of his own career as fan and scholar of country music, Paul Oliver on European blues scholarship, and Ray Funk on researching Black Gospel Quartets. The contributors look at a number of topics related to the role of the archivist/folklorist in recording and documenting the music of the South--evaluating past fieldwork and current needs in documentation, archival issues, prospects for the publication of recordings, and changes in music and technology. Written in an accessible style, this volume will be of interest to all those concerned with preserving the music of the American South.