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The polka is originally a Czech dance and genre of dance music familiar throughout all of Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the nineteenth century in Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. The polka remains a popular folk music genre in many European and American countries, and is performed by many folk artists.
Eddie Blazonczyk, Sr. was a Grammy award-winning polka musician and founder of the band The Versatones. He was inducted into the International Polka Hall of Fame in 1970, and was a 1998 National Heritage Fellowship recipient. He has been called "one of the most important figures in the creation of the contemporary Polish-American polka sound." He released more than 60 albums.
Frank John "Frankie" Yankovic was an American accordion player and polka musician. Known as "America's Polka King," Yankovic was considered the premier artist to play in the Slovenian style during his long career. He was not related to fellow accordionist "Weird Al" Yankovic, although the two collaborated.
Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the United States Appalachian region. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Unlike mainstream country music, bluegrass is traditionally played on acoustic stringed instruments. Bluegrass has roots in traditional English, Scottish and Irish ballads and dance tunes, and in traditional African-American blues and jazz. Bluegrass was further developed by musicians who played with Monroe, including 5-string banjo player Earl Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt. Monroe characterized the genre as: "Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin'. It's Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It's blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound."
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s. It combines elements of African-American gospel music, rhythm and blues and jazz. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening in the United States, where record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa.
Post-rock is a form of experimental rock characterized by a focus on exploring textures and timbre over traditional rock song structures, chords, or riffs. Post-rock artists are often instrumental, typically combining rock instrumentation with electronics. The genre emerged within the indie and underground music scene of the 1980s and early 1990s. However, due to its abandonment of rock conventions, it often bears little resemblance musically to contemporary indie rock, borrowing instead from diverse sources including ambient, electronica, jazz, krautrock, dub, and minimalist classical.
Tejano music, also known as Tex-Mex music, is a popular music style fusing Mexican, European, and U.S. influences. With elements from Mexican-Spanish vocal traditions and Czech and German dance tunes and rhythms, particularly polka or waltz, the music is traditionally played by small groups featuring accordion and guitar. Its evolution began in northern Mexico.
The music of the United States reflects the country's pluri-ethnic population through a diverse array of styles. It is a mixture of music influenced by the music of the United Kingdom, West Africa, Ireland, Latin America, and mainland Europe, among other places. The country's most internationally renowned genres are jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, rock, rock and roll, R&B, pop, hip hop, soul, funk, gospel, disco, house, techno, ragtime, doo wop, folk music, americana, boogaloo, tejano, reggaeton, and salsa. American music is heard around the world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, some forms of American popular music have gained a near-global audience.
Dub is a genre of electronic music that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae. The style consists predominantly of partly or completely instrumental remixes of existing recordings and is achieved by significantly manipulating and reshaping the recordings, usually through the removal of some or all of the vocals, emphasis of the rhythm section, the application of studio effects such as echo and reverb, and the occasional dubbing of vocal or instrumental snippets from the original version or other works. It was an early form of popular electronic music.
Lindley Armstrong Jones, known as Spike Jones, was an American musician and bandleader specializing in spoof arrangements of popular songs and classical music. Ballads receiving the Jones treatment were punctuated with gunshots, whistles, cowbells and outlandish and comedic vocals. Jones and his band recorded under the title Spike Jones and His City Slickers from the early 1940s to the mid-1950s, and toured the United States and Canada as The Musical Depreciation Revue.
The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk music, or roots music. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and sometimes trace back to such origins as Great Britain, Europe, or Africa. Musician Mike Seeger once famously commented that the definition of American folk music is "...all the music that fits between the cracks."
Illinois, including Chicago, has a wide musical heritage. Chicago is most famously associated with the development of electric blues music. Chicago was also a center of development for early jazz and later for house music, and includes a vibrant hip hop scene and R&B. Chicago also has a thriving rock scene that spans the breadth of the rock genre, from huge stadium-filling arena-rock bands to small local indie bands. Chicago has had a significant historical impact on the development of many rock subgenres including power pop, punk rock, indie rock, emo rock, pop punk, and alternative rock.
The vast majority of the inhabitants of the United States are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. This article will focus on the music of these communities and discuss its roots in countries across Africa, Europe and Asia, excluding only Native American music, indigenous and immigrant Latinos, Puerto Rican music, Hawaiian music and African American music. The music of Irish- and Scottish-Americans will be a special focus, due to their extreme influence on Appalachian folk music and other genres. These sorts of music are often sustained and promoted by a variety of ethnic organizations.
During the 20th century there was a large increase in the variety of music that people had access to. Prior to the invention of mass market gramophone records and radio broadcasting, people mainly listened to music at live Classical music concerts or musical theatre shows, which were too expensive for many working class people; on early phonograph players ; or by individuals performing music or singing songs on an amateur basis at home, using sheet music, which required the ability to sing, play, and read music. These were skills that tended to be limited to middle-class and upper-class individuals. With the mass-market availability of gramophone records and radio broadcasts, listeners could purchase recordings of, or listen on radio to recordings or live broadcasts of a huge variety of songs and musical pieces from around the globe. This enabled a much wider range of the population to listen to performances of Classical music symphonies and operas that they would not be able to hear live, either due to not being able to afford live-concert tickets or because such music was not performed in their region.
The music history of the United States includes many styles of folk, popular and classical music. Some of the best-known genres of American music are blues, jazz, rock and roll, rock, hip hop, house, and country. The history began with the Native Americans, the first people to populate North America. The music of these people was highly varied in form, and was mostly religious in purpose.
Banda is a term to designate a genre of Regional Mexican music and the musical ensemble in which wind instruments, mostly of brass and percussion, are performed.
Those Darn Accordions, commonly abbreviated as TDA, are an American accordion band from San Francisco, California, originally formed in 1989 by Linda "Big Lou" Seekins.
Straight Outta Lynwood is the twelfth studio album by "Weird Al" Yankovic, released on September 26, 2006. It was the sixth studio album self-produced by Yankovic. The musical styles on the album are built around parodies and pastiches of pop and rock music of the mid-2000s. The album's lead single, "White & Nerdy", is a parody of Chamillionaire's hit single "Ridin'". The single peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100; "Canadian Idiot", a parody of Green Day's "American Idiot", also charted, peaking at number 82.
Polka is a music and dance style that originated in Europe in the 1830s and came to American society when people immigrated from Eastern Europe. A fast style in 2/4 time, and often associated with the pre–World War II era, polka remains a dynamic "niche" music in America.
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