by Kip Lornell
EXPLORING AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC
AMERICAN MADE MUSIC SERIES
David Evans, General Editor
Barry Jean Ancelet
Edward A. Berlin
Joyce J. Bolden
Rob Bowman
Susan C. Cook
Curtis Ellison
William Ferris
John Edward Hasse
Kip Lornell
Bill Malone
Eddie S. Meadows
Manuel H. Peña
David Sanjek
Wayne D. Shirley
Robert Walser
EXPLORING AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC
Ethnic, Grassroots, and Regional Traditions in the United States
Third Edition
KIP LORNELL
www.upress.state.ms.us
The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of American University Presses.
Copyright © 2012 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2012
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lornell, Kip, 1953–
Exploring American folk music : ethnic, grassroots, and regional traditions in the United States / Kip Lornell.—3rd ed.
p. cm.—(American made music series)
Prev. ed. published under title: Introducing American folk music.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61703-264-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-61703-265-3 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-61703-266-0 (ebook) 1. Folk music—United States—History and criticism. 2. Popular music—United States—History and criticism. I. Lornell, Kip, 1953–. Introducing American folk music. II. Title.
ML3551.L67 2012
781.62’13—dc23
2011036451
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
To the late Mark T. Tucker, family man, doubles partner, friend, and scholar, and to my father, Wally Lornell (1921–2011), who helped to show me the way
BOOKS BY KIP LORNELL
2012 Melody Man: Joe Davis and the New York Music Scene 1916–1972 Bruce Bastin with Kip Lornell (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi)
2012 Exploring American Folk Music: Grassroots, Ethnic, and Regional Music in the United States (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi)
2010 From Jubilee to Hip Hop: African American Music Since Reconstruction (New York: Prentice- Hall)
2009 The Beat! Go Go Music from Washington, D.C. (With Charles Stephenson), (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi)
2008 Shreveport Sounds in Black & White, co-edited with Tracey Laird (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi)
2004 NPR’s Curious Listeners Guide to American Folk Music (New York: Penguin/Perigee Books)
2002 Introducing American Folk Music: Grassroots and Ethnic Traditions in the United States (New York: McGraw-Hill)
2001 The Beat! Go Go’s Fusion of Funk and Hip Hop with Charles Stephenson (New York: Watson Guptil/Billboard Books)
1997 Musics of Multicultural America, co-edited with Anne Rasmussen (New York, New York: Schirmer Books/MacMillan Publishing USA).
1995 African American Vocal Harmony Quartet Singing in Memphis, Tennessee: The Sacred Tradition (Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press).
1993 Introducing American Folk Music (Madison, Wisconsin: Brown & Bencmhark/McGraw Hill).
1993 The Life and Legend of Leadbelly with Charles Wolfe (New York City: HarperCollins,); published in Great Britain and western Europe by Secker & Warburg in 1993; published as a Harper/Perennial paperback in 1994; published as a paperback by Da Capo Press in 1999).
1989 Virginia’s Blues, Country, and Gospel Records: 1902–1943—An Annotated Discography (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky).
1988 “Happy in the Service of the Lord:” Afro-American Gospel Quartets in Memphis (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press); published in Great Britain and western Europe by Bayou Press, Ltd.).
CONTENTS
Exploring American Folk Music
A Preamble to the Third Edition
A Prelude to the Second Edition
Preface and Acknowledgments
1. START HERE!
Introduction
The Roots of Twenty-first-Century Folk Music
Music in Our Daily Lives and in the Academy
Defining American Folk Music
Cultural Geography and Traditions
Folk Culture in the United States
Bred in the Bone
Listening to American Folk Music
Instruments
Accordion
Banjo
Dulcimer
Fiddle
Fife
Guitar
Harmonica
Mandolin
Mouth Bow
One-String
Quills
Washboard
Final Thoughts
2. MASS MEDIA
Introduction
Minstrel and Medicine Shows
Recording the Blues
Record Companies and Folk Music
Country Music over the Airwaves
Border Radio
The Ancestors of MTV and VH-1
Uncle Dave Macon and the Electronic Media
Final Thoughts
3. FIELDWORK IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY AMERICA
Musical Communities and Fieldwork
Accomplishing Fieldwork
Topic
Focus
Preparation
Questions
Communication
Interview
Ethics
Some Nuts and Bolts of Fieldwork
Final Thoughts
4. ANGLO-AMERICAN SECULAR FOLK MUSIC
British Ballads
Broadsides
Native American Ballads
Singing Cowboys
Tin Pan Alley and Country Music Texts
Ernest Stoneman’s Repertoire
The Father of Bluegrass
Honky-Tonk
Western Swing
Final Thoughts
5. ANGLO-AMERICAN SACRED MUSIC
Psalmody
Shape Notes
Camp Meetings
Shakers
Later Hymnody and Gospel Songs
Sanctified Styles
Southern Gospel Boogie
Final Thoughts
6. AFRICAN AMERICAN RELIGIOUS FOLK MUSIC
The Great Awakening and Camp Meetings
Spirituals
Ring Shouts
Gospel
Pentecostal Singing and Guitar Evangelists
Preachers on Record
Gospel Quartets
Final Thoughts
7. AFRICAN AMERICAN SECULAR FOLK MUSIC
Work Songs
String Bands
Fife and Drum Bands
Ragtime and Coon Songs
Ballads
Songsters and Rural Music
Down-home Blues
Modern Blues
Final Thoughts
8. ETHNIC AND NATIVE AMERICAN TRADITIONS
Jewish American: Klezmer
Native American
Music and Ceremony Today
Musical Characteristics
Instruments
Powwows
Hawaiian American
Franco-American
Cajun Country
Zydeco
Northeastern States
Scandinavian American
Ballads
Instrumental Music
Polka and More Polka!
Final Thoughts
9. THE HISPANIC AMERICAN DIASPORA
The Southwest
Tex-Mex Music
Corridos
Mariachi
Native American Influences
Florida
New York City
Final Thoughts
10. THE FOLK REVIVALS
Red Roots
The Mass Media and Popular Culture
Field Research
The 1960s Folk Revival
A British Invasion
The Blues Boom
Back to the Mountains
New Entrepreneurs and Frontiers
Final Thoughts
11. THE FOLK ROOTS OF CONTEMPORARY POPULAR MUSIC
Black Codes from the Underground
Improvisation in Black Musical Culture
Rhythm and Blues
Rockabilly
Early Rock ’n’ Roll and Rock
Motown and Soul
Hip-Hop and Rap
Country Music Today
Final Thoughts
12. URBAN FOLK MUSIC
Introduction
Blues and Gospel in Chicago
San Antonio’s Country and Conjunto Traditions
Washington, D.C.
Country Music
Bluegrass
Final Thoughts
Selected Song Index
General Index
EXPLORING AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC
A Preamble to the Third Edition
On consecutive weekends in mid-September 2010, I found myself in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Yarmouthport, Massachusetts, visiting relatives. My father-in-law, Bubba Gandy, insisted that we try Shreveport’s newly opened Logan’s Roadhouse for their popular Monday evening 2-for-1 catfish dinner. Bubba, as usual, was correct. The fried catfish proved an excellent choice, along with the homemade green tomato relish and hush puppies.
The local music scene also reflected the fact that I was in the Ark-La-Tex; the widely used local shorthand for the intersection of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. In addition to the live music acts (both local and national) heard at the five riverboat casinos anchored on the Red River, a twist of the AM/FM radio dial revealed no less than three radio stations featuring African American gospel music and an equal number focused on southern gospel, which included several groups playing live on Sunday morning.
My three days on Cape Cod provided me with another glimpse of regional America. A mere two blocks from my parents’ retirement condo, a flooded bog marked the autumn cranberry harvest and, yes, it sat at the end of Cranberry View Lane. My mother and I twice ate baked codfish, though I eschewed the New England clam chowder because it just doesn’t suit me. The weekend’s entertainment included the Thirty-third Annual “Eastham Windmill Weekend” featuring The Cape Cod Fiddlers. This group, which has been together for twenty-one years, playing for festivals, dances, and weddings on the Cape, performs not only local fiddle tunes but also draws from other traditions that have long informed New England fiddlers: Irish, Scottish, and French Canadian.
Because my drive home from Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport following my Cape Cod trip happened to be on Sunday evening, at 9:00 PM I tuned to WKYS-FM for the final hour of “Da Ghetto Prince Show.” Hosted by Anwan Glover (the charismatic lead talker for Backyard Band and an actor with roles in both The Wire and Treme), it’s the 2010 equivalent of a down-home D.C. house party with numerous shout-outs to residents of Trinidad (a section of D.C., not the Carribean nation) as well as to local “go-go heads” who are always identified both by name and their neighborhood. Between 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM Big G spins only go-go, certainly the most localized form of community-based American music; it’s African American music that is only heard in the “DMV” (the District of Columbia and its neighboring Maryland and Virginia suburbs). Big G several times reminded listeners that WKYS-FM was sponsoring an upcoming concert by Chuck Brown, the “Godfather of Go-Go,” who in 2005 received the prestigious “National Heritage Award” from the National Endowment for the Arts (Folk Arts).
These two brief excursions and my ride home from BWI, along with my work on the third edition of this textbook, underscore that American folk, ethnic, grassroots, and regional music (not to mention food and place names) remains integral to our daily lives. But it’s not simply food and music that mark American regionalism. A conversation with Bubba Gandy (who lived in either Shreveport or Bossier City, Louisiana, for eight decades) or my sister-in-law Patty, who has lived on or just off Cape Cod for her entire life, reveals that regional accents and colloquialisms remain alive and thriving in the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Moreover the number of books, essays, and sound recordings in this field continues to grow. I added several dozen new items to the suggested listening, reading, and viewing lists found at the end of each chapter. These additions reveal only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. I sifted through hundreds of possibilities before adding these suggestions to the lists I compiled for the second edition (2002).
Although my students at George Washington University or my own teenaged daughters disagree at first, not everything that you need to know can be found on the Internet. The Internet is certainly a marvelous tool that brings us closer together and engenders more expedient and diverse communication via options such as e-mail and Facebook. My classes in black American music and ethnomusicology underscore to GWU students that music in their own family, ethnic group, or community (the music of everyday life) is worth studying. Such grassroots music is increasingly found on media available by way of your computer, which provides a wonderful tool for anyone studying folk, ethnic, and regional music in the United States.
The sales of compact discs peaked around 2000, but now only a few of my students actually purchase music on a “hard” format. When the second edition of this book was published you couldn’t download the musical examples for this book from Smithsonian Folkways. Now the entire Smithsonian Folkways catalogue can be legitimately downloaded from several sources. Tom Davenport initially incorporated Folkstreams.net in 2002, while youtube.com wouldn’t hit the Internet for another three years.
Today, however, you can find video performances of African American banjo players Joe and Odell Thompson, footage of Flatt and Scruggs from the late 1950s or see Lydia Mendoza play and sing a ranchero. Individuals can download not only anything from the vast Smithsonian Folkways catalogue, but also from other important independent companies, most notably Arhoolie Records. Academic institutions can subscribe to a service via Alexander Street Press that allows students to stream selections not only from Smithsonian Folkways, but also from the African American Music Reference Library, the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online, and American Song.
Folkstreams.net began in 2002 when independent filmmaker Tom Davenport decided that films about folk culture needed wider distribution. The Web sites describes its purpose as “A National Preserve of Documentary Films about American Roots Cultures streamed with essays about the traditions and filmmaking. The site includes transcriptions, study and teaching guides, suggested readings, and links to related websites.” This nonprofit site partners with The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science (SILS) and BIBLIO.ORG at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The topics of the documentary films that you can stream from this site are not only music (though music is perhaps its strongest suit) but also religion, family, festival, and foodways.
This edition includes one new chapter, “Urban Folk Music,” that discusses traditions found in urban areas but focuses on country music and bluegrass in the District of Columbia. The suggested listening, reading, and viewing has been updated and expanded by about 20 percent. The musical examples discussed in each chapter can be accessed either by way of compact discs purchased from Smithsonian Folkways or (more likely) via downloading or streaming.
Exploring American Folk
Music: Ethnic, Grassroots, and Regional Traditions in the United States, third edition, found a new home due to the belief in this project by both the “American Made Music” series editor, David Evans, and University Press of Mississippi editor Craig Gill. Chris Freitag oversaw the first two editions of this book, first for Brown & Benchmark and then for McGraw-Hill. He quietly worked to help move this book to its new home, which I greatly appreciate. Finally, I am grateful—as always—for the love and support of my three “girls”: Kim, Cady, and Max.
A PRELUDE TO THE SECOND EDITION
“Mrs. Brown is dead.” The topic of Whoopie John Wilfahrt research and his relationship with my own relatives was broached almost immediately after I arrived in central Minnesota during the last week of May 1999. They all knew, of course, of my interest in American vernacular music, and my cousin Tom Esser and Aunt Mickey—my mother’s oldest sister—in New Ulm had helped me arrange interviews related to Whoopie John in the middle 1980s. His younger sister, Mrs. Brown, lived (quite literally) across the street from the Essers’ liquor store. When we gathered for lunch on the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend my cousin, Tom, informed me that she had passed away two weeks before.
Later that day (following a two-hour drive across the rich and verdant flat farmlands of southern Minnesota) I brought this uneasy news to my uncle, Bob Meffert, who lives in Marshall. Uncle Bob knew her but was better acquainted with her son, Dennis Brown, who lives about an hour south of Marshall. Bob (a high school instrumental music teacher with thirty years of teaching experience and a veteran of amateur polka bands in Milroy, Minnesota) discussed the importance of Whoopie John in American music and spoke about one of the unsung heros of German American (or “Dutchmen”) polka music, Leo B. “Pinky” Schroepfer, who is acknowledged locally as the man who promoted the clarinet as a key instrument in twentieth-century Dutchmen polka bands.
While riding in the car to the nearby South Dakota border, my uncle observed that we were about to drive through Ivanhoe, Minnesota, which he identified as a “real Polish town.” With a little prompting from me about local ethnic celebrations Bob also told me about some of the annual festivals, such as Edgerton’s “Dutch Festival,” Henderson’s “Sauerkraut Days,” Ghent’s “Belgium-American Days,” and, naturally, New Ulm’s “Heritage Days.” The rivers of European ethnicity run deep in this very rural part of the state.