The Georgia Sea Island Singers are an American folk music ensemble from Georgia, United States. Formed in the early 1900s, [1] the group is formed of African Americans who travel performing songs and other elements of the Gullah culture. The group's members change with time, and have included Bessie Jones, Joe Armstrong, Mable Hillery [2] and Frankie Sullivan Quimby (a current member of the collective).
The group's music was recorded in 1935 when they were known as the "Spiritual Singers Society" [3] and again in 1959-60 by Alan Lomax. A Newport Folk Festival performance was featured in the 1967 film Festival, and they performed at the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter. [1]
"World music" is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical category pose obstacles to a universal definition, but its ethic of interest in the culturally exotic is encapsulated in Roots magazine's description of the genre as "local music from out there".
William Smith Monroe was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, and created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the "Father of Bluegrass".
Gertrude "Ma" Rainey was an American blues singer and influential early-blues recording artist. Dubbed the "Mother of the Blues", she bridged earlier vaudeville and the authentic expression of southern blues, influencing a generation of blues singers. Rainey was known for her powerful vocal abilities, energetic disposition, majestic phrasing, and a "moaning" style of singing. Her qualities are present and most evident in her early recordings "Bo-Weevil Blues" and "Moonshine Blues".
The music of Barbados includes distinctive national styles of folk and popular music, including elements of Western classical and religious music. The culture of Barbados is a syncretic mix of African and British elements, and the island's music reflects this mix through song types and styles, instrumentation, dances, and aesthetic principles.
The folk music of England is a tradition-based music which has existed since the later medieval period. It is often contrasted with courtly, classical and later commercial music. Folk music traditionally was preserved and passed on orally within communities, but print and subsequently audio recordings have since become the primary means of transmission. The term is used to refer both to English traditional music and music composed or delivered in a traditional style.
Georgia's musical history is diverse and substantial; the state's musicians include Southern rap groups such as Outkast and Goodie Mob, as well as a wide variety of rock, pop, blues, and country artists such as the late Ray Charles, Otis Redding, James Brown, and The Allman Brothers Band. The music of Athens, Georgia is especially well known for a kind of quirky college rock that has included such well-known bands as R.E.M., The B-52's, and Pylon.
Girlyman was an American folk-rock band formerly based in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, later based in Atlanta, Georgia. Its 2003 self-released debut album, Remember Who I Am, sold 5,000 copies before it was re-released by Daemon Records, the independent record label run by Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls. Girlyman described its musical style as "harmony-driven gender pop" and "leading-edge three-part harmony folk-pop," and enjoyed a strong following in the gay community.
Sharon "Shari" Ulrich is a Canadian/American musician and songwriter. She has also worked as a television host, actress, film composer, and educator. A multi-instrumentalist, she plays Violin, Mandolin, guitar, piano, and Dulcimer.
The Fisk Jubilee Singers are an African-American a cappella ensemble, consisting of students at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The first group was organized in 1871 to tour and raise funds for college. Their early repertoire consisted mostly of traditional spirituals, but included some songs by Stephen Foster. The original group toured along the Underground Railroad path in the United States, as well as performing in England and Europe. Later 19th-century groups also toured in Europe.
Mary Elizabeth Jones was an American gospel and folk singer credited with helping to bring folk songs, games and stories to wider audiences in the 20th century. Alan Lomax, who first encountered Jones on a field recording trip in 1959, said, "She was on fire to teach America. In my heart, I call her the Mother Courage of American Black traditions."
Appalachian music is the music of the region of Appalachia in the Eastern United States. Traditional Appalachian music is derived from various influences, including the ballads, hymns and fiddle music of the British Isles, and to a lesser extent the music of Continental Europe.
Hobart Smith was an American old-time musician. He was most notable for his appearance with his sister Texas Gladden on a series of Library of Congress recordings in the 1940s and his later appearances at various festivals during the folk music revival of the 1960s. Smith is often remembered for his virtuosic performances on the banjo, and had also mastered various other instruments, including the fiddle, guitar, piano, harmonica, accordion and organ.
The Freedom Singers originated as a quartet formed in 1962 at Albany State College in Albany, Georgia. After folk singer Pete Seeger witnessed the power of their congregational-style of singing, which fused black Baptist a cappella church singing with popular music at the time, as well as protest songs and chants. Churches were considered to be safe spaces, acting as a shelter from the racism of the outside world. As a result, churches paved the way for the creation of the freedom song. After witnessing the influence of freedom songs, Seeger suggested The Freedom Singers as a touring group to the SNCC executive secretary James Forman as a way to fuel future campaigns. Intrinsically connected, their performances drew aid and support to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the emerging civil rights movement. As a result, communal song became essential to empowering and educating audiences about civil rights issues and a powerful social weapon of influence in the fight against Jim Crow segregation. Their most notable song “We Shall Not Be Moved” translated from the original Freedom Singers to the second generation of Freedom Singers, and finally to the Freedom Voices, made up of field secretaries from SNCC. "We Shall Not Be Moved" is considered by many to be the "face" of the Civil Rights movement. Rutha Mae Harris, a former freedom singer, speculated that without the music force of broad communal singing, the civil rights movement may not have resonated beyond the struggles of the Jim Crow South. Since the Freedom Singers were so successful, a second group was created called the Freedom Voices.
Headwater is a band from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
"O Death", also known as "O, Death", "Oh Death", "Conversations with Death", or "A Conversation with Death", is a traditional Appalachian folk song, listed as number 4933 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The song is generally attributed to the musician and Baptist preacher Lloyd Chandler, but it was likely taken or adapted from folk songs already existing in the region.
Lily May Ledford was an American clawhammer banjo and fiddle player. After gaining regional radio fame in the late 1930s as head of the Coon Creek Girls, one of the first all-female string bands to appear on radio, Ledford went on to gain national renown as a solo artist during the American folk music revival of the 1960s. In 1985, she was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship.
Sue Draheim was an American fiddler, boasting a more than forty year musical career in the US and the UK. Growing up in North Oakland, Draheim began her first private violin lessons at age eleven, having started public school violin instruction at age eight while attending North Oakland's Peralta Elementary School. She also attended Claremont Jr. High, and graduated from Oakland Technical High School in 1967.
"Diamond Teeth" Mary McClain was an American blues and gospel singer and vaudeville entertainer, whose career as a performer extended from the 1910s to the 1990s.
The Southern Journey is the popular name given to a field-recording trip around the Southern States of the US by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax. He was accompanied on the trip by his then-lover, English folk singer Shirley Collins. It resulted in the first stereo field-recordings in the Southern United States and the "discovery" of Mississippi Fred McDowell. The music collected on the trip has had a significant impact on the development of popular music. Tracks recorded on the trip were sampled by Moby for his album, Play. It also served as the inspiration for the soundtrack to the Coen Brothers' film, O Brother Where Art Thou. The Southern Journey is the subject of an autobiography by Shirley Collins entitled America Over the Water. It is also the subject of s 2017 feature documentary, The Ballad of Shirley Collins. Lomax's own recollections of the trip were documented in his autobiography, The Land Where Blues Began, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1993.
Mable Hillery was an American singer who was a member of the Georgia Sea Island Singers as well as a solo recording artist.