Author: Norm Cohen Publisher: University of Illinois Press ISBN: 9780252068812 Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 774
Book Description
Impeccable scholarship and lavish illustration mark this landmark study of American railroad folksong. Norm Cohen provides a sweeping discussion of the human aspects of railroad history, railroad folklore, and the evolution of the American folksong. The heart of the book is a detailed analysis of eighty-five songs, from "John Henry" and "The Wabash Cannonball" to "Hell-Bound Train" and "Casey Jones," with their music, sources, history, and variations, and discographies. A substantial new introduction updates this edition.
Author: David Atkinson Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351544810 Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 327
Book Description
Ballads are a fascinating subject of study not least because of their endless variety. It is quite remarkable that ballads taken down or recorded from singers separated by centuries in time and by hundreds of kilometres in distance, should be both different and yet recognizably the same. In The English Traditional Ballad, David Atkinson examines the ways in which the body of ballads known in England make reference both to ballads from elsewhere and to other English folk songs. The book outlines current theoretical directions in ballad scholarship: structuralism, traditional referentiality, genre and context, print and oral transmission, and the theory of tradition and revival. These are combined to offer readers a method of approaching the central issue in ballad studies - the creation of meaning(s) out of ballad texts. Atkinson focuses on some of the most interesting problems in ballad studies: the 'wit-combat' in versions of The Unquiet Grave; variable perspectives in comic ballads about marriage; incest as a ballad theme; problems of feminine motivation in ballads like The Outlandish Knight and The Broomfield Hill; murder ballads and murder in other instances of early popular literature. Through discussion of these issues and themes in ballad texts, the book outlines a way of tracing tradition(s) in English balladry, while recognizing that ballad tradition is far from being simply chronological and linear.
Author: David Buchan Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317552903 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 343
Book Description
The ballad is an enduring and universal literary genre. In this book, first published in 1972, David Buchan is concerned to establish the nature of a ballad and of the people who produced it through a study of the regional tradition of the Northeast of Scotland, the most fertile ballad area in Britain. His account of this tradition has two parallel aims, one specifically literary – to investigate the ballad as oral literature – and one broadly ethnographic – to set the regional tradition in its social context. Dr Buchan applies the interesting and important work which has recently been done on oral tradition in Europe on the relationship of the ballad to society to his study of this particular part of Scotland. He examines a nonliterate society to discover what factors besides nonliteracy helped foster its ballad tradition. He analyses the processes of composition and transmission in the oral ballad, and considers the changes which removed nonliteracy, altered social patterns, and seriously affected the ballad tradition. By demonstrating how people who could neither read nor write were able to compose literature of a high order, David Buchan provides a convincing explanation of the ballad’s perennial appeal and an answer to the ‘ballad enigma’. His book is also a valuable study in social history of this culturally distinct region, the Northeast of Scotland.
Author: Alan Bold Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1315389746 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 117
Book Description
First published in 1979, this work presents the history of the ballad, including its origin, style, content and preservation. It explores how ballads have adapted and changed over time, particularly with the rise of mass literacy and printing and the decline in the oral tradition, and in doing so, demonstrates the versatility of the genre. With separate indexes for names and ballad titles, this book will be a valuable resource to those studying English ballads and early modern and modern poetry.
Author: Dave Thompson Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1493068245 Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 545
Book Description
The Child Ballads are a series of over 300 traditional ballads from England and Scotland that, along with their American variants, were anthologized by folklorist Francis James Child in the nineteenth century. An Evolving Tradition is the story of the Child Ballads—the world’s best-known and most highly regarded repository of traditional English folk songs, and the wellspring for approximately 10,000 recordings over the last century, from obscure musicological archives to classic releases from Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and Led Zeppelin. Drawing on interviews with numerous scholars and musicians, author Dave Thompson explains what a ballad is, outlines their dominant themes, and recounts how these ballads survived to become a mainstay of field recordings made by Cecil Sharp, Alan Lomax, and others as they traveled the English and American countryside in search of old songs. Thompson traverses the entire spectrum of rock, pop, folk, roots, experimental music, industrial, and goth to reveal the remarkable legacy and incalculable influence of the Child Ballads on all manner of modern music.
Author: Edward D. Ives Publisher: University of Illinois Press ISBN: 9780252066399 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 212
Book Description
The murder of the popular Earle of Moray in 1592 near Edinburgh was the stuff of which legends are made. This inviting volume explores that legend, relates details of the Huntly-Moray (Catholic-Protestant) feud, and traces the ballad of the slain ''Bonny Earl'' through its four centuries of growth and change.''A romp! A fine book that will be welcomed by literature students, folklorists, and those interested in Scottish history.'' -- Roger D. Abrahams, author of Singing the Master: The Emergence of African-American Culture in the Plantation South''A graceful and gripping account by a scholar whose love of scholarship, music, and teaching is obvious throughout.'' -- Marta Weigle, coeditor of The Great Southwest of the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railroad
Author: Simon J. Bronner Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190840641 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 1033
Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of American Folklore and Folklife Studies surveys the materials, approaches, concepts, and applications of the field to provide a sweeping guide to American folklore and folklife, culture, history, and society. Forty-three comprehensive and diverse chapters delve into significant themes and methods of folklore and folklife study; established expressions and activities; spheres and locations of folkloric action; and shared cultures and common identities. Beyond the longstanding arenas of academic focus developed throughout the 350-year legacy of folklore and folklife study, contributors at the forefront of the field also explore exciting new areas of attention that have emerged in the twenty-first century such as the Internet, bodylore, folklore of organizations and networks, sexual orientation, neurodiverse identities, and disability groups. Encompassing a wide range of cultural traditions in the United States, from bits of slang in private conversations to massive public demonstrations, ancient beliefs to contemporary viral memes, and a simple handshake greeting to group festivals, these chapters consider the meanings in oral, social, and material genres of dance, ritual, drama, play, speech, song, and story while drawing attention to tradition-centered communities such as the Amish and Hasidim, occupational groups and their workaday worlds, and children and other age groups. Weaving together such varied and manifest traditions, this handbook pays significant attention to the cultural diversity and changing national boundaries that have always been distinctive in the American experience, reflecting on the relative youth of the nation; global connections of customs brought by immigrants; mobility of residents and their relation to an indigenous, urbanized, and racialized population; and a varied landscape and settlement pattern. Edited by leading folklore scholar Simon J. Bronner, this handbook celebrates the extraordinary richness of the American social and cultural fabric, offering a valuable resource not only for scholars and students of American studies, but also for the global study of tradition, folk arts, and cultural practice.
Author: Norm Cohen
Author: Albert B. Friedman
Author: David Atkinson
Author: 
Author: David Buchan
Author: Alan Bold
Author: Albert B. Friedman
Author: Dave Thompson
Author: Edward D. Ives
Author: Simon J. Bronner