Overview

Building on his 2006 book, Which Side Are You On?, Dick Weissman’s A New History of American and Canadian Folk Music presents a provocative discussion of the history, evolution, and current status of folk music in the United States and Canada. North American folk music achieved a high level of popular acceptance in the late 1950s. When it was replaced by various forms of rock music, it became a more specialized musical niche, fragmenting into a proliferation of musical styles. In the pop-folk revival of the 1960s, artists were celebrated or rejected for popularizing the music to a mass audience. In particular the music seemed to embrace a quest for authenticity, which has led to endless explorations of what is or is not faithful to the original concept of traditional music. This book examines the history of folk music into the 21st century and how it evolved from an agrarian style as it became increasingly urbanized. Scholar-performer Dick Weissman, himself a veteran of the popularization wars, is uniquely qualified to examine the many controversies and musical evolutions of the music, including a detailed discussion of the quest for authenticity, and how various musicians, critics, and fans have defined that pursuit.

Full Product Details

Author:   Prof Dick Weissman (University of Colorado at Denver, USA)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic USA
Weight:   0.558kg
ISBN:  

9781501344145

ISBN 10:   1501344145
Pages:   344
Publication Date:   05 September 2019
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: A New Look at American and Canadian Folk Music 1 From the Beginning: Folksong Collectors and Collections and Regional Music Styles in the United States and Canada 2 Mass Distribution: Radio, Records and Pre-World War Two Artists 3 Early Protest Music: The Industrial Workers of the World, the Coal Miners, the Cotton Mills and Communist and Socialist Agitators 4 The Almanac Singers, People's Songs, People's Artists and the Blacklist 5 The Weavers and the Beginning of the Folk Revival 6 Meanwhile, Back in Canada 7 Selling the Music: The New York Scene 8 Beyond the Big Apple: Coffeehouses, Folk Music Organizations and Folk Music Instrument Shops in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, the Pacific Northwest, San Francisco and Toronto 9 The Riddle of Authenticity: The Civil Rights Movement and Folk Music 10 Folk-Rock and the British Invasion Decimate the Pop-Folk World: And Singer-Songwriters Move In 11 How the Singer-Songwriters Evolved from the Pop-Folk Revival and the Women's Music Movement Emerged from the Feminist Movement 12 North American Folk Festivals and Summer Teaching Camps 13 Instrumental Music: Development and Expansion of Musical Possibilities the Folk Music Business 14 What's Going On: Expansion, Contraction and Evolution 15 Looking Back: An Evaluation of Four Major Figures in the Folk Revival 16 Today and Tomorrow Notes Appendix Index

Reviews

Few insiders from the Folk movement of the 1950s/60s have been as prolific as Dick Weissman. This overview is scholarly, amiable, and anecdotal: he sheds light on the well-known and lesser known music types with his first-person experiences. He delivers an excellent study of styles and personalities that shaped this special genre of American and Canadian music. * J. Michael Kearsey, Berkshire Snow Productions, USA *

Few insiders from the Folk movement of the 1950s/60s have been as prolific as Dick Weissman. This overview is scholarly, amiable, and anecdotal: he sheds light on the well-known and lesser known music types with his first-person experiences. He delivers an excellent study of styles and personalities that shaped this special genre of American and Canadian music. * J. Michael Kearsey, Berkshire Snow Productions, USA * Dick Weissman was in the room at the dawn of the US-Canadian folk revival of the 1960s. As a musician, songwriter, and recording artist, he is uniquely placed to reflect on North American folk music as practice, cultural movement, and commercial industry. Also a professor and teacher, he is able to offer the wider historical overview. His New History is at once informed and idiosyncratic, scholarly and personal. It is sure to become a major source for future historians and lay readers alike. * Will Kaufman, Professor of American Literature & Culture, University of Central Lancashire, UK, and author of Woody Guthrie, American Radical (2011), Woody Guthrie's Modern World Blues (2017), and Mapping Woody Guthrie (2019) *

Author Information

Dick Weissman is Associate Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado at Denver, USA, and has been involved with the North American folk revival as a musician, performer, composer and scholar. He is the author of many critically acclaimed books about American roots music and the music industry, including The Folk Music Sourcebook (1989), which won the Deems Taylor ASCAP Music Critics Award; The Music Business (5th edition 2003), which sold over 100,000 copies; Navigating the Music Industry (2003); Which Side Are You On?: An Inside History of the Folk Music Revival in America (Bloomsbury, 2006); and Songwriting: The Words, the Music, and the Money (2010).

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