Books in the American Folk Music and Musicians Series series

This text explores the influences of musicians, Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal. Once musical partners, they both went on to have their own careers. Cooder was influenced by rag-time blues, while Mahal was swayed by Afro-Caribbean music, both to create an emotional centre of the musical experience.

Pete Seeger is one of the most recorded artists in American history, and his recording catalog tells us not just the story of his career but the story of our culture and its political and social history. A Pete Seeger Discography: Seventy Years of Recordings is a comprehensive listing of the 45s, 78s, LPs, and CDs recorded by Seeger in his various incarnations: with the Almanac Singers, with the Weavers, as a solo artist, and with other musicians and contributors. David King Dunaway provides information, with easy to use cross-references, on rare recordings and archival collections.The discography offers details on Seegers recording history, including the album title, song(s), other artists on the recording, the publisher and number, and the year or exact recording date if known, as well as the original release date and the re-releases of each recording. Structured to make locating details easy for readers, the recordings are organized chronologically and categorized by albums, singles, private pressings, and foreign releases. Readers can easily cross-reference through album and song title indexes and a contributing artist index. An appendix listing the unreleased archival holdings of the Smithsonian Folkways collection under Moe Asch completes the volume, and a photospread with more than 30 of Seegers album covers convey a pictorial recording history of this well-loved artist.The authors gratefully acknowledge Furthermore: a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, for their funding assistance in preparing this discography.

Both biographical and topical, The Ballad Collectors of North America chronicles those individuals most influential in the gathering of North American folksongs and investigates the two leading schools of thought regarding the collection process, the leading proponents of those schools, and the projects shaped by them. Contributors also reflect on the role of technology¿especially the phonograph¿in the collection efforts and the impact of that technology. Ballad Collectors considers the larger role of ballads in the development of American identity, from the national appreciation of cowboy songs in popular culture to the use of Appalachian song forms in radio broadcasts to the role of dustbowl ballads in the urban folk revival.

Arlo Guthrie, the son of America's legendary dust bowl troubadour Woody Guthrie and Martha Graham dancer Marjorie Mazia Guthrie, was reared in the rarefied atmosphere of New York City's remnant Old Left culture, a period that brought together art, political action, and folk music. Music was part of Guthrie's life from the very beginning and his self-confessed earliest childhood memory was standing knee-high next to Lead Belly, the blues legend and ';King of the twelve-string Guitar.' Arlos earliest mentors were his father's friends, and the youngster would learn his craft from the giants of American folk music: Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Cisco Houston, Josh White, Oscar Brand, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Brownie McGhee, and Sonny Terry.Arlo Guthrie: The Warner/Reprise Years revisits Guthrie's fifteen-year ride as a recording artist for the prestigious record label. Hank Reineke guides readers through the colorful history of Guthrie's most creative period, when the droll, shaggy-haired troubadour promised in song that a ';new world was surely coming. In his thoughtful consideration of Guthries career as a popular, if idiosyncratic, recording artist for the Reprise/Warner Bros. label, Reineke regales readers with stories behind the remarkable success of Guthrie's talking blues-turned-movie Alice's Restaurant and his celebrated appearance at the 1969 Woodstock festival. Guthrie's time at Reprise/Warner Bros. from 1967 to 1982 saw twelve critically acclaimed solo albums, two staple singles of FM radio (';Coming Into Los Angeles' and ';City of New Orleans'), and a pair of treasured folk-music recording collaborations with Pete Seeger.With a look at Guthrie's life and times before and after this prolific period of his career, Arlo Guthrie: The Warner/Reprise Years is the first biography dedicated solely to this gifted artist. A goldmine of information on the Guthrie familys legacy to American music, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the record industry of the 1970s, this work also features a detailed bibliography as well as the first comprehensive discography of Guthrie's recordings through the present day. Arlo Guthrie: The Warner/Reprise Years will appeal to popular music historians, folk-rock fans, and readers interested in the American counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s.

Richard and JoAnne Reuss expertly capture the personality of this era and the fascinating chronology of events in American Folk Music and Left-Wing Politics, 1927-1957, a historical analysis of singers, writers, union members and organizers and their connection with left-wing politics and folk music during this revolutionary time period.

The last quarter of the twentieth-century saw a renewed interest in the hammered dulcimer in the United States at the grassroots level as well as from elements of the Folk Revival. This book offers the reader a discussion of the medieval origins of the dulcimer and its subsequent spread under many different names to other parts of the world. Drawing on articles the author has written in English as well as articles by specialists in their own languages, Gifford explains the history and evolution of the instrument. Special attention is paid to the North American tradition from the early 18th-century to the 1970s revival. Drawing from local histories, news clippings, photographs, and interviews, the book examines the playing of the dulcimer and its associated social meanings.

The Appalachian dulcimer is one of Americas major contributions to world music and folk art. Homemade and handmade, played by people with no formal knowledge of music, this beautiful instrument entered the post-World-War-II Folk Revival with virtually no written record. Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions tells the fascinating story of the effort to recover the instruments lost history through fieldwork in the Southern mountains, finding of old instruments, and listening to the tales of old folks.After reviewing the instruments distinctive musical features, Ralph Lee Smith presents the dulcimers story chronologically, tracing its roots in a Renaissance German instrument, the scheitholt; describing the early history of the scheitholt and the dulcimer in America; and outlining the development of distinctive dulcimer styles in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. The story continues into the 20th Century, through the final group of tradition-based Appalachian makers whose work flowed into the national scene of the Folk Revival.This fully revised edition provides expanded information about the history of the scheitholt and the dulcimer before the Civil War and discusses traditions and types that are still being discovered and documented. Smith also adds his personal adventures in searching for the dulcimers history. A new final chapter describes types and styles that do not fit conveniently into the mainstream development of the instrument. The book concludes with several appendixes, including measurements of representative dulcimers and listings of dulcimer recordings in the Archive of Folk Culture of the Library of Congress.

How big an act was the Kingston Trio? Big enough that the their first 19 albums not only reached Billboards Top 100, but 14 of them entered the top 10, with five albums alone hitting the no. 1 spot! At the height of their popularity, the Kingston Trio was arguably the most popular vocal group in the world, having single-handedly ushered in the folk music boom of the late ';50s and early ';60s. Their meteoric rise quite literally paved the way for Bob Dylan; Joan Baez; Peter, Paul & Mary; and the many acts that followed in their wake. With the release of their version of ';Tom Dooley' in fall 1958, the Kingston Trio changed American popular music forever, inspiring legions of young listeners to pick up guitars and banjoes and join together in hootenannies and sing-alongs.In Greenback Dollar: The Incredible Rise of The Kingston Trio, the first in-depth biography of America's first recording super-group, William J. Bush retraces the band members' personal and professional lives, from their rapid rise to stardom to their early retirement in 1967. Through interviews with Trio members, their families, and associates, Bush paints a detailed portrait of the Trios formative early years and sudden popular success, their innovations in recording technology, pioneering of the college concert and intensive tour schedule, their impact on and response to the ';60s protest movement, the first break-up of the Trio with Dave Guard's departure, and its re-formation with John Stewart.Lovers of folk music and students and scholars of the history of popular music and the music business, the counterculture movement, and the American folk tradition will find in Greenback Dollar a remarkably detailed view of the musical and cultural legacy that resulted in the Kingston Trio receiving a 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards.

The Conscience of the Folk Revival: The Writings of Israel "Izzy" Young collects Young's writing, from his regular "Frets and Frails" column for Sing Out! Magazine (1959-1969) to his commentaries on such contentious issues as copyright and commercialism.

Young People's Records and Children's Record Guild were the first commercially significant record clubs in the world. By applying proven book club methods to the field of phonograph records, these two related companies attracted some hundred thousand subscribers at their peak and serviced perhaps a million members in their existence. Revolutionizing Children's Records: The Young People's Records and Children's Record Guild Series, 1946-1977 tells the history of YPR/CRG, explaining how these two labels intersected important developments in the histories of mass marketing, recording technology, educational philosophy, folk music, contemporary composition, and Cold War politics. David Bonner covers in detail the history of YPR/CRG, tracing its influences back to the beginnings of music education in the 19th Century and incorporating the impact of the American folk music revival on music educators.The narrative follows the career paths of the company principals, such as its progressive founder Horace Grenell; the musicians who recorded for him, like American folk music revival pioneer Tom Glazer; and the record industry offshoots they created in the process. Bonner considers advances the club made in recording technology as the first record label devoted exclusively to "e;unbreakable"e; vinyl discs and provides a comprehensive summary of record club marketing, including the application of "e;music appreciation"e; to phonograph records. He also charts the commercial, critical, and political response to these endeavors, including an historical footnote to the "e;Red Scare"e; unavailable in existing Cold War literature. A complete and detailed discography listing every YPR and CRG recording, including all known writers and performers, concludes this excellent reference for scholars, nostalgists, and phonographic fanatics.

Paul Clayton and the Folksong Revival is the first biography of the folk singer and song collector Paul Clayton (1931-1967). Preeminently a scholar-balladeer, Clayton is credited with the Top-Ten hit "Gotta Travel On" and single-handedly brought hundreds of obscure folksongs to light for the mid-century radio and recording market. He influenced listeners and friends from Dave Van Ronk to Bob Dylan, who considered Clayton a mentor, "mindguard," and well of folksong.

New in paper! Proceedings of the May 1991 Richard Reuss Memorial Folk Music Conference, held at Indiana University in Bloomington.

In African American Folksong and American Cultural Politics: The Lawrence Gellert Story, scholar and musician Bruce Conforth tells the story of one of the most unusual collections of African American folk music ever amassedand the remarkable story of the man who produced it: Lawrence Gellert. Compiled between the World Wars, Gellerts recordings were immediately adopted by the American Left as the voice of the true American proletariat, with the songslargely variants of traditional work songs or bluesdubbed by the Left as songs of protest. As both the songs and Gellert's standing itself turned into propaganda weapons of left-wing agitators, Gellert experienced a meteoric rise within the circles of left-wing organizations and the American Communist party. But such success proved ephemeral, with Gellert contributing to his own neglect by steadfastly refusing to release information about where and from whom he had collected his recordings. Later scholars, as a result, would skip over his closely held, largely inaccessible research, with some asserting Gellert's work had been doctored for political purposes. And to a certain extent they were correct. Conforth reveals how Gellert at least assisted in the creation of some of his more political material. But hidden behind the few protest songs that Gellert allowed to become public was a vast body of legitimate African America folksongsenough to rival the work of any of his contemporary collectors.Had Gellert granted access to all his material, scholars would have quickly seen that it comprised an incredibly complete and diverse collection of all African American song genres: work songs, blues, chants, spirituals, as well as the largest body of African American folktales about Irish Americans (what were referred to as One Time Ishman tales). It also included vast swaths of African American oral literature collected by Gellert as part of the Federal Writers Project.In African American Folksong and American Cultural Politics, Conforth brings to light for the first time the entire body of work collected by Lawrence Gellert, establishing his place, and the place for the material he collected, within the pages of American folk song scholarship. In addition to shedding new light on the concept of protest music within African American folk music, Conforth discusses the unique relationship of the American Left to this music and how personal psychology and the demands of the American Communist party would come to ruin Gellert's life.African American Folksong and American Cultural Politics will appeal to students and scholars in the fields of American social and political history, African American studies, the history of American folk music, and ethnomusicology.

This book presents a history of folk music festivals in the United States, beginning in the 19th century and ending in the early 21st century. The focus is on the proliferation and diversity of festivals in the 20th century.