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The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk music, vernacular 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 the British Isles, Mainland 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."
John Avery Lomax was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist, and a folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk music. He was the father of Alan Lomax, John Lomax Jr. and Bess Lomax Hawes, also distinguished collectors of folk music.
Western music is a form of music composed by and about the people who settled and worked throughout the Western United States and Western Canada. Western music celebrates the lifestyle of the cowboy on the open range, along the Rocky Mountains, and among the prairies of Western North America. The genre grew from the mix of cultural influences in the American frontier and what became the Southwestern United States at the time, it came from the folk music traditions of those living the region, those being the hillbilly music from those that arrived from the Eastern U.S., the corrido and ranchera from Northern Mexico, and the New Mexico and Tejano endemic to the Southwest. The music industry of the mid-20th century grouped the western genre with that of similar folk origins, instrumentation and rural themes, to create the banner of country and western music, which was simplified in time to country music.
"Streets of Laredo", also known as "The Dying Cowboy", is a famous American cowboy ballad in which a dying ranger tells his story to another cowboy. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
"Midnight Special" is a traditional folk song thought to have originated among prisoners in the American South. The song refers to the passenger train Midnight Special and its "ever-loving light."
"Our Goodman" is a Scottish and English humorous folk song. It describes the efforts of an unfaithful wife to explain away the evidence of her infidelity. A version of the song, "Seven Drunken Nights", was a hit record for The Dubliners in the 1960s.
Lady Diamond is an English-language folk song, existing in several variants. The story is derived from that of Ghismonda and Guiscardo from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio.
"Darlin' Cory" is a well-known American folk song about love, loss, and moonshine. It is similar in theme to "Little Maggie" and "The Gambling Man" but is not considered the same as those songs.
"Git Along, Little Dogies" is a traditional cowboy ballad, also performed under the title "Whoopie Ti Yi Yo." It is cataloged as Roud Folk Song Index No. 827. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
"On the Trail of the Buffalo", also known as "The Buffalo Skinners" or "The Hills of Mexico", is a traditional American folk song in the western music genre. It tells the story of an 1873 buffalo hunt on the southern plains. According to Fannie Eckstorm, 1873 is correct, as the year that professional buffalo hunters from Dodge City first entered the northern part of the Texas panhandle. It is thought to be based on the song Canaday-I-O.
"The Little Old Sod Shanty On The Claim" is an American folk song written by Oliver Edwin Murray of South Dakota. It appeared somewhere around 1880 published in several American newspapers. The printings suggested that it be sung to the tune of "The Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane" written by Will Hays in 1871. The song tells of the trials of homesteading on the Great Plains and became immensely popular among the settlers. The title comes from variations of a refrain found in the verses and the chorus:
"The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" is a popular song written by Will S. Hays in 1871 for the minstrel trade. Written in dialect, the song tells of an elderly man, presumably a slave or former slave, passing his later years in a broken-down old log cabin. The title is from a refrain: "de little old log cabin in de lane".
"Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie" is a cowboy folk song. Also known as "The Cowboy's Lament", "The Dying Cowboy", "Bury Me Out on the Lone Prairie", and "Oh, Bury Me Not", the song is described as the most famous cowboy ballad. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. Based on a sailor's song, the song has been recorded by many artists, including Moe Bandy, Johnny Cash, Cisco Houston, Burl Ives, Bruce Molsky, The Residents, Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, Colter Wall, William Elliott Whitmore and Sam Shackleton.
"Cumberland Gap" is an Appalachian folk song that likely dates to the latter half of the 19th century and was first recorded in 1924. The song is typically played on banjo or fiddle, and well-known versions of the song include instrumental versions as well as versions with lyrics. A version of the song appeared in the 1934 book, American Ballads and Folk Songs, by folk song collector John Lomax. Woody Guthrie recorded a version of the song at his Folkways sessions in the mid-1940s, and the song saw a resurgence in popularity with the rise of bluegrass and the American folk music revival in the 1950s. In 1957, the British musician Lonnie Donegan had a No. 1 UK hit with a skiffle version of "Cumberland Gap".
"The Old Chisholm Trail" is a cowboy song first published in 1910 by John Lomax in his book Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads.
James "Iron Head" Baker and Moses "Clear Rock" Platt were African American traditional folk singers imprisoned in the Central State Prison Farm in Sugar Land, Texas. The men made a number of field recordings of convict work songs, field hollers and other material with John Lomax for the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Music in the 1930s.
"The Rambling Gambler" is a traditional folk song of the American West. It was first recorded in print by John A. & Alan Lomax in their jointly authored 1938 edition of Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. Like many folk songs, it is known by a variety of titles, such as "Rambler, Gambler," and "I'm a Rambler, I'm a Gambler"
"Little Joe the Wrangler" is a classic American cowboy song, written by N. Howard "Jack" Thorp. It appeared in Thorp's 1908 Songs of the Cowboys, which was the first published collection of cowboy songs. The tune comes from the song "Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" written by Will Hayes in 1871. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
Nathan Howard "Jack" Thorp was an American collector and writer of cowboy songs and cowboy poetry. Starting in 1889, he collected cowboy material while living in New Mexico. His small book Songs of the Cowboys was published there in 1908. It was the first such book ever published, containing the words to only 23 songs, including the now-classic "The Streets of Laredo" and "Little Joe the Wrangler". A greatly expanded second edition was published in 1921. Today, Thorp is credited with being the first person to take a serious interest in collecting and preserving the homespun ballads of the American West.
"Goodbye Old Paint" is a traditional Western song that was created by black cowboy Charley Willis. The song was first collected by songwriter N. Howard "Jack" Thorp in his 1921 book Songs of the Cowboys. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
References
- ↑ Thorp, N. Howard (1921). Songs of the Cowboys, New York: Houghton Mifflin, p. 171.
- ↑ Thorp, N. Howard (1908). Songs of the Cowboys, Estancia, New Mexico: News Print Shop, p.27.
- ↑ Lomax, John A. (1910). Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. New York: Sturgis & Walton. p. 154.
- ↑ Russell, Country Music Records, p.55. Record: Victor V-40022
