FRESHMAN COMPOSITION, RHETORIC, GRAMMAR II

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INTRO. TO LITERARY RESEARCH & WRITING

INSTRUCTOR: James Maxfield

American Roots Music is the contemporary term used to denote our traditional folk song and work song heritage brought to America by all European immigrants and African slaves. It also includes "the blues, gospel, country, bluegrass, Cajun, zydeco and Tejano [from tejanos music]—that influence today’s popular music, especially rock ‘n’ roll" (Santelli, Intro. 128), and I would add to this list our Native-American music, too. (See the recent publication American Roots Music.) All of our other American forms (jazz, rhythm and blues, pop music, rock-and-roll—all forms of "rock," including folk-rock and other mixed forms, such as folk-blues, jazz-rock, gospel-rock, and even contemporary cowboy songs) were derived from these influences. The term American "Roots Music" was coined in the 1980s to replace "folk music" and is used to describe "any American music form that had influenced pop music and was a root of rock-and-roll, or as a simple substitute [term] for folk" (77).

The term folk music was coined by John and Alan Lomax (father and son), noted folklorists in early twentieth-century America. They collected and recorded songs from the early decades of the century "sung on front porches, on the range, in the fields, in churches, at a cradle, over a pile of wood, at a dance, or in prison" (Walters and Mansfield ix). They are credited with uncovering and preserving much of our American roots music and making Leadbelly (the American folk cultural icon) both famous and a major influence on the urban folk singers of the late 50s and early 60s.

A hymn is a song of praise intended to be sung and may be either religious or secular in nature. During the Middle Ages, a literary form of hymn, which was intended to be read, was introduced; and Spenser provides a good example with his Fowre Hymns (1596) (Abrams 119). Religious hymns are thought to be related to the folk song and ballad, and as such retain many of the same structural characteristics: The hymnal stanza is virtually identical to the common ballad stanza with the abcb rhyme scheme dominating (Hirsch 284). However, metrically hymns are generally evenly accented lines of tetrameter rather than alternating with trimeter lines. Religious lyric songs and hymns were set to music during the Middle Ages, especially in Germany. These directly inspired the religious church hymns of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many of which are still sung today in church services. When American hymns were blended with African-American work songs, the Negro spiritual and gospel songs were developed; songs like "Go Down, Moses," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "This Train" are illustrative. Note that generally the chorus or refrain in a hymn is repeated without variation after each verse. (See Burden.)

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Last modified: 04/30/06