American Roots Music 1

American Roots Music 2
The expression "American roots music" may not be well-known to all, and involves some enlightenment. At the start of the 20th Century, the phrase "folk music" was used by scholars to explain music made by the whites of the European ancestry. As the century grew, the meaning of folk music expanded to include the song styles, particularly the blues of Southern blacks. Folk music was viewed as a window into the cultural life of these two groups. Folk songs communicated with people’s hopes, dreams, and sadness of their everyday lives. More and more music was made by other groups of Americans such as Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and Cajuns (Louisiana)." The songs were sung on front porches where families would gather, in churches, in the fields and while rocking children to sleep. The melodies and words were passed down from parent to child. The songs and meanings were often changed to reflect change in times.
Knowledge of folk songs and musicians grew, and popular musicians began to draw on folk music as an imaginative source as never before in the 1960s. "Folk music" became a form of popular music by singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, who helped pioneer the acoustic performing style that echoed the society based on folk musicians. Music writers, intellectuals and fans began to look for new ways to describe the different musical styles still being sung and played in communities across America, and not heard on radios. The term "roots music" is now used to refer to this broad range of musical genre, which includes blues, gospel, traditional country, Native American pow-wow, western swing polka and Tex-Mex.
What can roots music teach us about cultural identity in the U.S.?
Songs are important to the cultural form because the people preserve their own histories
American Roots Music 3 in the changing of social circumstances. Spirituals songs sung by African-American slaves; had objections to the songs sung by youths in the 1960s; Texas-Mexicans singing the corridor; and "union songs" sung by labor organizers. They all suggest how music has been both a natural response to historical and cultural difference. As ethnomusicologist, (this is the scientific study of music, especially traditional or non-Western music, as an aspect of culture.) Manuel Pena notes, "The corrido functioned as a powerful symbolic response by the Texas-Mexicans to their repression under the new system installed by the Anglos all the way through the Southwest." Contemporary singer\songwriters from many different cultural backgrounds continue to use music as a way to call attention to prejudice.
American roots music draws on lived experiences of ordinary men and women, who were and are defined and limited by cultural constructions of race, gender and class. Music also reflects how Americans have struggled against oppressive social and economic conditions; music is also a means of celebrating identity and giving dignity. Music concerts or neighborhood festivals, was a place where whites and blacks could come together and rise above the social limits imposed by segregation. Historian Pete Daniel of the Smithsonian Institution points out those travelling black and white musicians often came into contact and influenced each others' musical playing styles. (Lewis C. Cassidy Academics Plus School) However, particularly in the South, racial segregation continued to keep musicians and audiences apart according to racial logic. With the arrival of radio, a broad range of Americans were exposed to a variety of musical styles, as there was no way to "segregate" the airwaves. Responses to racism and racial segregation were reflected in American roots music.
American Roots Music 4
Amongst all of America's diverse peoples, there have long been reciprocal connections between belief, song, and the reproduction of "society." In the 18th and 19th centuries, the South influenced religious music of the separate but related development of African American and Anglo sacred music. All night "singing" events drew members of a neighborhood together to hear Spiritual music in the South; black male members of Gospel quartets formed relationships of reciprocity that continued throughout their life. As Bernice Johnson Reagon notes, "the quartet provided one more community based structure where people could gather and create their own experience (www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic)." Inside black and white traditions, religious music was a source for shaping and performance of worldly songs. As historian Bill Malone has pointed out, "Country music has been subject to no greater influence than Southern religious life, evolving in a society where religion was pervasive"(www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic). Both black and white Southerners generally received their musical education in an environment that stressed religious music. Songs such as "Amazing Grace" and "Farther Along" were common to both groups.

American Roots Music 5

Reference

Ruehl Kim Top 10 Folk Music Singer/Songwriters
American Roots Music Program, http://www.berklee.edu/focused/roots/
Lewis C. Cassidy Academics Plus School www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning http://www.mcrel.org/standards-benchmarks/docs/contents.html
Arts Edge / http://artsedge. http://artsedge.kennedycenter.org/professional_resources/standardskennedy http://www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic/pbs_arm_itc_lesson_four.html http://www.ncte.org/standards/standards.shtml