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The persecution of Old World German Protestants and Anabaptists in the seventeenth century--following debilitating wars, the Reformation, and the Inquisition-- brought about significant immigration to America. Many of the immigrants, and their progeny, settled in the Appalachian frontier. Here they established a particularly old set of religious beliefs and traditions based on a strong sense of folk spirituality. They practiced astrology, numerology, and other aspects of esoteric thinking and left a legacy that may still be found in Appalachian folklore today. Based in part on the author's extensive collection of oral histories from the remote highlands of West Virginia, Signs, Cures, and Wi...
How a mountain community and music harmonize in an old-time fiddle player from West Virginia
The "State Line Country" of this book is a rugged area of small farms on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. Historically the area has had a homicide rate more than ten times the national average. In this gripping and penetrating study of violence and death in the State Line Country, Lynwood Montell examines the local historical and social conditions, as well as the prevailing attitudes and values, that gave rise and support to rowdy behavior and homicidal acts from the Civil War to the 1930s. The area fostered, he thinks, a culture of violence. Drawing from vivid oral accounts, which he recorded from present-day residents, Montell describes more than fifty killings that took place in the area, l...
The Madrigal: A Research and Information Guide is the first comprehensive annotated bibliography of scholarship on virtually all aspects of madrigal composition, production, and consumption. It contains 1,237 entries for items in English, French, German, and Italian. Scholars, students, teachers, librarians, and performers now have access to this rich literature in a single volume.
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Arkansas’s rich folk tradition is shown by the variety of its manifestations: a 250-year-old ballad, an archaic method of hewing railroad crossties with a broadax, the use of poultices and toddies to treat the common cold, and swamps of evil repute are all parts of the tradition that constitutes Arkansas folklore. In fact, as the essays selected by W.K. McNeil and William M. Clements show, these few examples only begin to tell the story. Starting with a working description of folklore as “cultural material that is traditional and unofficial” and characterized by a pattern of oral transmission, variation, formulaic structures, and usually uncertain origin, the authors survey in detail a...
Play Me Something Quick and Devilish explores the heritage of traditional fiddle music in Missouri. Howard Wight Marshall considers the place of homemade music in people’s lives across social and ethnic communities from the late 1700s to the World War I years and into the early 1920s. This exceptionally important and complex period provided the foundations in history and settlement for the evolution of today’s old-time fiddling. Beginning with the French villages on the Mississippi River, Marshall leads us chronologically through the settlement of the state and how these communities established our cultural heritage. Other core populations include the “Old Stock Americans” (primarily...
"This is the first book since the 1930s to study this important and little-remembered phenomenon of American folk culture. The author interviewed a large number of older Americans, both black and white, who performed play parties as young adults. A songbook of ninety musical examples and lyrics completes the picture of this vanished tradition."--Jacket.
This fully updated second edition is a selective annotated bibliography of all relevant published resources relating to church and worship music in the United States. Over the past decade, there has been a growth of literature covering everything from traditional subject matter such as the organ works of J.S. Bach to newer areas of inquiry including folk hymnology, women and African-American composers, music as a spiritual healer, to the music of Mormon, Shaker, Moravian, and other smaller sects. With multiple indices, this book will serve as an excellent tool for librarians, researchers, and scholars sorting through the massive amount of material in the field.
John Hartford was known for his quirky song writing and tap-dancing while he played the banjo, but he also possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of old-time fiddle tunes. Included in this collection are all 22 fiddle tunes from John's Hamilton Ironworks album. Each tune is presented in standard notation and in mandolin tab. Also included are many of John's variations, suggested chords, and information about the origins and insights on how to approach each tune. This collection of fiddle tunes played by John Hartford is to provide fiddle players with an accurate source so as to incorporate these great tunes into their repertoire.Difficulty ranges from relatively basic fiddling to solos that employ a range oftechniques such as slides, alternate tunings and playing on up the fingerboard. This collection is a must have for any fan of John Hartford's music and for all old-time musicians