| Week 1: Overview: Women as Carriers, Creators, Conservers and Collectors of Traditions |
What is folk music? (oral tradition, multiple versions, relation to dance)
What is the place of folk music in society?
What is the relationship between music and text?
What are the key issues of performance practice?
What are the key issues of collecting?
What are the ideologies surrounding folk music and folk revival process?
What genres are women invested in? What genres are associated with women and why?
What kinds of stories do women privilege as a particular kind of telling? Of narrative?
What is the relation of women to expressive culture and folk traditions?
In what kinds of cultures do women function as storytellers?
What is the relationship between music, performance practice and text?
What is the relationship between narrative and gender?
What is the effect of music on words and conversely the effect of text on music? |  Diamond, Beverly. "The Interpretation of Gender Issues in Musical Life Stories of Prince Edward Islanders." In Music and Gender. Edited by Pirkko Moisala and Beverly Diamond. Chikago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000, pp. 99-131. ISBN: 9780252068652.
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| Week 2: The First Folk Revival: 1723/1765 Through the Early Nineteenth Century: Transatlantic Connections |
In the literary sources for the early collectors, such as Ramsey's Tea-Table Miscellany (1723) and Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry (1765) , were women important informants?
Who sang Anglo-American ballads? Who collected them? For what audience (reader, listener, singer)?
What was the nature of women's work in this period? What was the place of women in their families and in community in this period?
What were the social contexts for making music in this period?
What kinds of stories do women tell? Do women privilege a particular kind of telling? In what kinds of cultures do women function as storytellers?
What is the relation among music, performance, practice, and text for female singers and musicians?
What is the relation between women and oral culture? What is women's oral culture like and is it different from men's oral culture?
How does music as part of expressive culture help shape or contribute to collective historical feminist consciousness?
How is women's music positioned in families and communities in different cultural contexts? | Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. "Mistaken Dichotomies." Journal of American Folklore 101 (1988): 140-155.
Koskoff, Ellen, ed. "An Introduction to Women, Music, and Culture." In Women and Music in Cross Cultural Perspective. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, 1989, pp. 1-23. ISBN: 9780252060571.
Percy, Thomas. The Reliques of Ancient Poetry. London, UK: J.M. Dent & Co., 1910.
Groom, Nick. The Making of Percy's Reliques. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1999, pp. 5-12, 21-30, 32-36, 40-49, 59-64, 73-80, 99-101, 110-119, 161-171, 223-227, and 236-239. ISBN: 9780198184591.
Gibbbon, John Murray. "Women as Folk-Song Authors." Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada XLI, series III (May 1947): 47-52.
MacDowell, Paula. The Women of Grub Street. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1998, pp. 58-62 and 80-91. ISBN: 9780198183952.
Spufford, Margaret. Small Books and Pleasant Histories. Cambridge, UK: Syndicate University Press, 1985, pp. 1-18. ISBN: 9780521312189.
Rieuwerts, Sigrid. "Allan Ramsay and the Scottish Ballads." Aberdeen University Review LVIII, no. 201 (Spring 1999): 29-41.
Harker, Dave. Fakesong: The Manufacture of British 'folksong' 1700 to the Present Day. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press, 1985, pp. ix-37. ISBN: 9780335150663.
Buchan, David. The Ballad and the Folk. East Linton, Scotland: Tuckwell Press, 1997, pp. 51-86. ISBN: 9781898410676.
Goldsmith, Oliver. The Vicar of Wakefield. Hammondsworth, Middlesex, UK: Penguin Books, 1982, chapters 4-8. ISBN: 9780140431599.
Addison, Joseph. Excerpts from The Spectator (1711). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1965.
Homans, Margaret. Bearing the Word. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986, pp. 1-39. ISBN: 9780226351070.
Child, Francis, ed. "The Hunting of the Cheviot." In The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1965. ISBN: 9780486214092.
Bronson, Bertrand, ed. "The Hunting of the Cheviot." In The Singing Tradition of Child's Popular Ballads. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977. ISBN: 9780691091198.
"Sir Patrick Spens." Reliques of Ancient Poetry. London, UK: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1767.
Smith, Carleton Sprague. "Broadsides and Their Music in Colonial America." In Music in Colonial Massachusetts 1630-1820. Vol. I. Music in Public Places. Boston, MA: The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1980, pp. 295-332.
Franklin, Benjamin. Letter to his brother about "Chevy Chase." ca. 1767. [On line] | "Chevy Chase" (referred to by Addison and Franklin) as sung by Gordeanna McCulloch.
"The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington" (from Beale, Albert. Classic Ballads of Britain and Ireland. 1954).
"King John and the Bishop" (Margaret MacArthur).
"Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor" (from Barker, Horton. Anglo American Ballads 2 (1939)).
"Lord Thomas and Fair Annet" (fromMurray, Jessie. Classic Ballads of Britain and Ireland. 1953.)
"Sir Patrick Spens" (In class.) |
| Week 3: The First Folk Revival Part II: The Case Study of Motherwell and Agnes Lyle, and Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-3) |
At the time of the "discovery" of folk ballads, who was collecting them and why? What was their interest in them?
What were the gender and class patterns of the informants and the collectors in the early period?
What is the musical history of modal (gapped) tunes and pentatonic tune types? Why have they survived in the populations where they have survived?
What are the literary elements of ballads such as "Dowie Dens of Yarrow," "Cruel Mother," "Chevy Chase," and "Edward"?
How does the music affect the narrative (i.e. in the case of Hind Horn)?
What counts as a "good" tune or a "good" story?
What did John Leyden mean by "spinstrelsy"?
What did Scott learn from Tibby Sheale?
Why did Ritson go so lightly in criticizing Burns?
What does the example of Anne Bannerman show? | Brown, Mary Ellen. William Motherwell's Cultural Politics. Lexinton, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1998, 2001, pp. 10-33 (skim), 78-102, appendix, and 163-170. ISBN: 9780813121888.
———. "Old Singing Women and the Canons of Scottish Balladry and Song." A History of Scottish Women's Writing. Edited by Douglas Gifford and Dorothy McMillan. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 1997, pp. 44-57. ISBN: 9780748609161.
McCarthy, William. The Ballad Matrix. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990, pp. 11-13, 25-54, 117-163, and the three-page appendix on tunes. ISBN: 9780253337184.
———. "William Motherwell as Field Collector." Folk Music Journal 3 (1987): 293-316.
Smith, Carleton Sprague. "Broadsides and Their Music in Colonial America." In Music in Colonial Massachusetts 1630-1820. Vol. I. Music in Public Places. Boston, MA: The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1980, pp. 361-367.
Abrahams, Roger, and George Foss. Anglo American Folk Song Style. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968, pp. 132-64.
Shuman, Amy. "Gender and Genre." In Feminist Theory and the Study of Folklore. Edited by Susan Tower Hollis, Linda Pershing, and M. Jane Young. Urbana, IL; Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993, pp. 71-88. ISBN: 9780252063138.
Harker, Dave. Fakesong: The Manufacture of British 'folksong' 1700 to the Present Day. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press, 1985, pp. 38-77. ISBN: 9780335150663.
Symonds, Deborah A. "Ballad Singers and Ballad Collectors." Chapter 1 in Weep Not for Me: Women, Ballads, and Infanticide in Early Modern Scotland. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997, pp. 13-37. ISBN: 9780271016177.
McQuirk, Carol. "Material on Burns." Robert Burns, Selected Poems. New York, NY: Penguin, 1994. ISBN: 9780140423822.
Brown, Mary Ellen. Burns and Tradition. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1984, pp. 1-47. ISBN: 9780252011023.
Cracium, Adriana. "Romantic Spinstrelsy: Anne Bannerman and the sexual politics of the ballad." In Scotland and the Borders of Romnticism. Edited by Leith Davis, Ian Duncan, and Janet Sorensen. Cambridge, UK; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 204-224. ISBN: 9780521832830. | "Hind Horn" (In class.)
"Cruel Mother" (Classic Ballads: Dancan Burke [1955], Cecilia Costello [1950], Thomas Moran [1954]).
"Edward " (Classic Ballads: Mary Ellen Connors [1952], Jeannie Robertson [1953], Thomas Moran [1954)] Angela Brasil [1954]).
"The Sheath and Knife" (Gordeanna McCulloch).
"Dowie Dens o' Yarrow" (Gordeanna McCulloch, Jane Turriff). |
| Week 4: The "Classic" Collections of Francis James Child |
What is the difference between Child's first collection of ballads and his third collection of ballads (other than the title)?
What were Child's innovations as a collector and what implications do they have for the study of gender and folk music?
Pick (at least) ten ballads and count the number of men and women informants for each ballad and tabulate the results. What does this elementary exercise suggest about gender and ballads? What reservations do you have about the results?
How did Child's prejudices shape the canon of ballads he created? What role does gender play in the resulting canon?
What difference does it make that Child collected texts but not tunes?
Taking into account Bronson's collections of tunes, what is the difference between a text-based tradition and one based on texts and multiple musical performances? Pick one ballad as a case study.
Choose a Child ballad and analyze its literary effects. Do not neglect to scrutinize its gender politics.
For one of the Child ballads whose sources you have tabulated, note who is the center of the action, who are the villains, what is the outcome? | Child, Francis James, ed. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Vol. I. New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1965, pp. xvii-xxv, xxvii-xxxiv, and 153-193. ISBN: 9780486214092.
Rieuwerts, Sigrid. ""The Genuine Ballads of the People": F. J. Child and the Ballad Cause." Journal of Folklore Research 31, nos. 1-3 (1994): 1-34. (Includes two articles by Child that were published anonymously in The Nation (1867 and 1868).)
Hart, Morris. "Professor Child and the Ballad." PMLA 21 (1906): 755-807.
Abrahams, Roger, and George Foss. Anglo American Folk Song Style. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1968, pp. 165-185. (The Musical Form of Folksong)
Bronson, Bertrand. The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959, pp. ix-xxx and 143-184. (Twa Sisters)
———. The Ballad as Song. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970, pp. 92-132. ISBN: 9780520013995.
Stewart, Polly. "Wishful Willful Wily Women: Lessons for Female Success in the Child Ballads." In Feminist Messages: Coding in Women's Folk Culture. Edited by Joan Newlon Radner. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780252062674.
Rieuwerts, Sigrid. "Women as the Chief Preservers of Traditional Ballad Poetry." Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 47, no. 1-2 (2002): 149-59. | "Barbara Allen," sung by Gordeanna McCulloch
"Barbara Allen," sung by Jane Turriff
"Four Marys," sung by Texas Gladden (Anglo American Ballads 2).
"Twa Sisters" from the Classic Ballads of Britain and Ireland: John Stachan (1951), Dorothy Fourbister (1954), Ethel Findlater (1954).
"Twa Sisters" from Anglo-American Ballads: Harton Barker (1939). |
| Week 5: The Second Anglo-American Folk Revival: Cecil Sharp and The Founding of the English Country Dance and Folk Song Society; Mary Neal; Sharp and Olive Dame Campbell in Appalachia; Emma Bell Miles |
Are there gender difference in the attitudes of the song collectors in the second folk revival towards 1) the folk 2) the music 3) tradition?
Did men and women collectors have different agendas?
Did men and women collectors collect from different populations? How did gender inhibit or facilitate collecting folk materials?
What are the politics of collection in this historical period?
In what ways does gender affect musical practice within Appalachian Mountain and rural English music?
What roles did educated rural and urban female writers, scholars, and collectors play in documenting tradition?
How does music function within movements for social change?
What is the relation of music to dance? | Miles, Emma Bell. "Some Real American Music." Chapter 8 in The Spirit of the Mountains. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1975, pp. 146-171. ISBN: 9780870491818.
Whisnant, David. All That is Native and Fine. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1984, chapter 1 and 2, pp. 17-102 and 103-180. ISBN: 9780807815618.
Harker, Dave. Fakesong: The Manufacture of British 'folksong' 1700 to the Present Day. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press, 1985, pp. 143-56 and 164-97. ISBN: 9780335150663.
Judge, Roy. "Mary Neal and the Esperance Morris." Folk Music Journal 5, no. 5 (1989): 543-91.
"A Nest of Singing Birds"
"Cecil Sharp in America"
Lee, Katie. "Some Experiences of a Folk-Song Collector." Journal of the Folk-Song Society I, no. 1 (1899): 7-13.
Selection from Jane Gentry by Betty Smith.
Ellis, Bill. "The Gentry-Long Tradition and Roots of Revivalism." In Jack in Two Worlds. Edited by William McCarthy, et al. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994. pp. 92-106. ISBN: 9780807844434.
Campbell, Olive Dame. English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians. New York, NY; London, UK: G. P. Putnam's sons, 1917, pp. 16, 21, 64, 65, 70, and 76. | "I Sowed the Seeds of Love" (In class).
"The Cuckoo Bird," sung by Hobart Smith.
"Among the New Mown Hay," recorded by Cecil Sharp from the singing of Alfred Edgell.
Video: Songcatcher: "Fair and Tender Ladies," "Pretty Saro," "The Cuckoo Bird," "Single Girl," and "Barbara Allen." |
| Week 6: African-American Women's Folk Traditions: The Legacy from the Nineteenth Century. Spirituals on the Georgia Sea Islands as a Case Study of Process and Preservation |
What are the historic sources for African American Women's Folk Traditions?
How has race and racism affected the creative musical achievement of African-American women? In what cultural/social context has the music emerged?
What are the cultural contexts shaping performance through family and community structures?
How does traditional music and performance practice reflect racialized and gendered discourse in American society?
How can narratives about women's lives within traditional music speak to both ethnomusicological and biographical practice?
Who are the important musicians emerging through 1930s and 1940s collecting?
What are the politics of the collectors of this music (Bess and Alan Lomax, Lydia Parrish etc.)?
How does this music help shape or contribute to collective historical feminist consciousness?
Describe the intersections between the church as a social institution and the spirituals as expressive culture. | McKim, Lucy [Garrison]. "Open Letter to John Sullivan Dwight." Dwight's Journal of Music (November 8, 1862): 254-55.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. "Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl." Atlantic Monthly 11 (April, 1863): 473-481.
———. Selections from Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). A version of Uncle Tom's Cabin is available from Project Gutenberg.
Painter, Nell Irvin. Sojourner Truth. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997, pp. 151-57 and 162-3. ISBN: 9780393317084.
Allen, William Francis. Slave Songs of the United States. Edited by Charles Pickard Ware and Lucy McKim Garrison.
Read the introduction. We will sing selected songs, including "Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore," "O Daniel," "Roll, Jordan Roll, "Poor Rosy, Poor Gal," and "Nobody Knows," and "Down to the River and Pray".
Dyer, Oliver. "What I have Seen about New York." The Independent 20 (October 8, 1868). (A Lecture by Oliver Dyer.)
Epstein, Dena. Sinful Tunes and Spirituals. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1981, pp. 252-302 and 314-320. ISBN: 9780252008757.
Radano, Ronald. "Denoting Difference: The Writing of Slave Spirituals." Critical Inquiry 22, no. 3 (Spring 1996): 506-544. (Optional)
Beman, Jennie Howard. "Milly." Independent 33 (December 29, 1881): 28.
Moore, Ella Sheppard [Mrs. G. W. Moore]. "Needs of the Colored Woman and Girls." American Missionary Magazine 43 (January 1889): 22-25.
Moore, Ella Sheppard. "The Jubilee Singers." Fisk University News (1911): 41-58.
Albert, Octavia V. Rogers. The House of Bondage, 1890. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1988, Frances Foster's Introduction: xxvii-xliii, pp. 1-48 of the novel. ISBN: 9780195052633. (Reprinted with introduction by Frances Foster Smith.)
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Excerpts from Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). A version of Uncle Tom's Cabin is available from Project Gutenberg.
Williams, Sherley Anne. "Meditations on History." In Midnight Birds. Edited by Mary Helen, Washington. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1989. ISBN: 9780385260152.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Selections from: Cunard, Nancy. The Negro: An Anthology, including ZNH on "Spirituals and Neo-Spirituals" and "The Shout". New York, NY: Continuum, 1996. ISBN: 9780826408624.
Parrish, Lydia. Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands. Hatsboro, PA: Folklore Associates, Inc., 1942. Preface by Bruce Jackson, I-X, Parrish introductory material, ix-xxiii, map on xxiv, 3-10, 108-111, 114-116, and154-55.
Jones, Bessie, and Bess Lomax Hawes. Step It Down: Games, Plays, Songs & Stories from Afro-American Heritage. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1972, pp. xi-xxi, 3-8, 37-40, 43-48, 123-26, and 143-45. ISBN: 9780060117832.
Jones, Bessie. For the Ancestors: Autobiographical Memories. Collected and Edited by John Stewart. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1983, pp.vii-xxv, 30-84, and 135-152. ISBN: 9780252009594.
Katz, Bernard. "Songs That Will Not Die." Negro Quarterly I (1942): 283-88. | Georgia Sea Island Songs. Southern Journey vol. 12. Rounder 1712: "Moses," "Turkle Dove," "Daniel and the Lion's Den," "Little David," "O Day," and "O Death."
Video: Yonder Come Day. McGraw-Hill, 1975. |
| Week 7: Early and Down Home Blues: Three Pioneers: Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thornton |
How does the emergence of the female blues singer challenge distinctions between folk music and popular music?
What is the relationship between folk blues and African-American women's experience?
How can narratives about women's lives within traditional music speak to both ethnomusicological and biographical practice?
How do we read the blues as text, music, and performance practice in relation to gender?
What happened to women in the nascent "race records" recording industry?
Are the texts of women's blues different from the texts of men's blues? Is there an historical different between the early texts and the later texts?
Why were women the first commercially successful blues singers?
What difference does it make when a black woman is collecting the material?
How are the blues expressive of black women's sexual subject position? | duCille, Ann. "Blue Notes on Black Sexuality: Sex and the Texts of the Twenties and Thirties." In The Coupling Convention: Sex, Text, and Tradition in Black Women's Fiction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 66-85. ISBN: 9780195085099.
Barlow, William. Looking Up at Down: The Emergence of Blues Culture. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1989, 135-181. ISBN: 9780877225836.
Walker, Alice. "1955." In You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down.
———. "In Our Mother's Gardens." MS Magazine.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Mules and Men. Excerpt reprinted in I Love Myself When I Am Laughing. Edited by Alice Walker. New York, NY: The Feminist Press, 1979, pp. 82-122. ISBN: 9780912670669.
Davis, Angela. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1998, Introduction xi-xx, 3-41, and 66-90. ISBN: 9780679450054.
Leib, Sandra. Mother of the Blues. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982, pp. xi-xvii, 1-48, 58-63, and 164-173. ISBN: 9780870233340.
Schuller, Gunther. Early Jazz. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1968, pp. 226-241.
Hine, Darlene, Elsa Barkley Brown, and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, eds. Black Women in America. An Historical Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993, 1994, entries on "blues". ISBN: 9780253327741.
Entry on Willie Mae Thornton in The Handbook of Texas Online.
Gaar, Gillian G. She's a Rebel. The History of Women in Rock and Roll. Seattle, WA: Seal Press, 1992, pp. 1-7. | Rainey, Ma. "Black Bottom" and"See See Rider."
Smith, Bessie. "Jailhouse Blues," Backwater Blues," "Empty Bed Blues," and "St. Louis Blues."
Big Mama Thornton, "Hound Dog," "Ball and Chain," and "Wade in the Water."
Video: "Wild Women Don't Have the Blues."
Video clip in class: Smith, Bessie. "St. Louis Blues." |
| Week 8: Mountain Women: Almeda Riddle, Jean Ritchie, Emma Dusenbury (New England: Helen Harkness Flanders) |
What are the differences between British and American folk song and ballad repertories and variants?
Compare British and American versions of "Barbara Allen" literarily and musically.
What are the agendas of these collectors? i.e. Lomax, Abrahams, the Warners, Ritchie, etc. Is there a gender difference in the agendas of collectors? Do they collect from different populations?
How are women's experiences depicted by collectors and informants in Great Britain and the U.S.?
What is the relation between progressive politics and folk music?
What are the different qualities of experience and apprehension between recorded sound and the oral tradition? What difference does it make to be able to record informants' music? How do records (i.e. both making them and listening to them) change the musical traditions of folk musicians?
Are the texts of American ballads-both indigenous and imported-more or less violent and/or misogynous than ballads from the British Isles? Can you see/hear any differences between these two repertoires?
Is there a distinct feminine vocal style? The relevant quote is from the country-music authority, Charles Wolfe: "In some communities fiddling was seen as a masculine skill, like shooting; vocal music was more of an art and often passed down through the women. Doubtless more men sang than women fiddled, but there does seem to have been some correlation between women and certain vocal styles. More research needs to be done in this area to further explore whether there is a distinct feminine vocal style." | Stuttgen, Joanne Raetz. "Kentucky Folksong in Northern Wisconsin: Evolution of the Folksong Tradition in Four Generations of Jacobs Women." Southern Folklore 48 (1991): 275-89.
Burt, Olive Wooley. American Murder Ballads and Their Stories. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1958, pp. ix-xiii and 3-31.
Burdine, Lucille, and William B. McCarthy. "Sister Singers." Western Folklore 49 (October 1990): 406-12.
Flanders, Helen Hartness. Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England. Vol. I. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press [1960-1965], Preface, Introduction, pp. 15-22, Preface on Musical Annotations and Musical Style, pp. 27-37, Geographical index for vols. I and II, song texts: pp. 150-70, 208-12, 223-25, 230-238, and 280-98.
Bufwack, Mary A., and Robert K. Oermann. "The Spirit of the Mountains: Women in American Folk Music." In Finding Her Voice. The Saga of Women in Country Music. Edited by Bufwack and Oermann. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 1993, pp. 2-23. ISBN: 9780517581148.
Cook, Susan. ""Cursed Was She": Gender and Power in American Balladry." In Cecilia Reclaimed. Feminist Perspectives on Gender and Music. Edited by Susan Cook and Judy Tsou. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780252063411.
Ritchie, Jean. The Singing Family of the Cumberlands. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1955. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Geordie Music Publishing, 1980. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1988. ISBN: 9780813101866.
McLucas, Anne Dhu. "The Multi-Layered Concept of "Folk Song" in American Music: The Case of Jean Ritchie's "The Two Sisters." In Themes and Variations: Writings on Music in Honor of Rulan Chao Pian. Edited by Bell Yung and Joseph S. C. Lam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University and the Institute of Chinese Studies University of Hon Kong, 1994, pp. 212-30. ISBN: 9780674877498.
Tannen, Holly. "Women and the Dulcimer." Sing Out! 25, no. 2 (1976): 19-21.
Cohen, Norm and Anne. "Folk and Hillbilly Music: Further Thoughts on Their Relation." JEMF Quarterly 13 (Summer 1997): 50-72.
Abrahams, Roger D., and Almeda Riddle. A Singer and Her Songs: Almeda Riddle's Book of Ballads. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1970, pp. 1-49, 117-123, and 147-160. ISBN: 9780807100219.
Cochran, Robert B. ""All the Songs in the World": The Story of Emma Dusenbury." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 44, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 3-15.
Eaker, Susan. "Appalachian Women and America's First Instrument." The Old-Time Herald 8, no. 2. | Ritchie, Jean. "Nottamun Town."(In class.)
Emma Dusenbury (In class.)
Class CD #2: 17-28: Almeda Riddle, "Poor Wayfarin Stranger, "Bury Me Beneath the Willow," "Lonesome Dove," "Black Jack Davey," "Jessie James," and "Titanic."
Emmy, Cousin. "Wish I Was A Single Girl Again," Hobart Smith. "Wayfaring Stranger," "Ellen Smith," Doc Watson. "Pretty Saro."
Murder ballads: "Ommie Wise" and "Pearl Bryan." (Sing in class.)
Video: Legends of Old Time Country Music: Jean and Edna Ritchie. |
| Week 9: Alan Lomax "Portraits" in the United States: Vera Hall, Texas Gladden |
What is distinctive about Texas Gladden's repertoire?
What makes her a great folksinger?
What do you know about her influences in terms of family, singers, and locale?
Compare her on these issues to Vera Hall.
Describe their individual performance styles.
What attracted the Lomaxes to these singers?
What is the agenda of Ruby Pickens Tartt?
What difference does it make that she's a woman?
Under what social and economic conditions is class and/or gender implicated in the survival of traditional repertoires?
What are the social contexts for this music? Do different social contexts affect repertoire?
What is the effect on a traditional singer-on style and on repertoire - of entering the wider world because of the performing circuit? Is there a gendered dimension to these effects?
In considering the Lomax field notes, what else might they have asked? Did their time and social location limit their research frame?
What kinds of practices does Alan Lomax follow in his advocacy of contemporary folk artists? What controversies have surrounded his career?
Compare and contrast Alan Lomax's purposes with those of Sharp.
What kinds of aesthetic standards can we bring to bear on traditional music and traditional texts? | Hine, Darlene, Elsa Barkley Brown, and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, eds. Black Women in America. An Historical Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993, 1994, entries on "gospel". ISBN: 9780253327741.
Lomax, Alan. The Rainbow Sign. New York, NY: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1959, pp. 3-74 and 97-119.
McGregory, Jerrilyn. "The significance of Vera Ward Hall." Tributaries 5: Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association (1994).
Brown, Virginia Pounds. Toting the Lead Row: Ruby Pickens Tartt, Alabama Folklorist. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1981, pp. 1-39, 123-29, 147-151, and 162-163. ISBN: 9780817300746.
Sweeney, Margaret. "Mrs, Ernest Shope: A Memorable Informant." The Kentucky Folklore Record 11, no. 2 (1965): 17-24.
Boulez, Pierre. "The Vestal Virgin and the Fire-stealer: memory, creation, and authenticity." Early Music (August 1990): 355-358.
Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936). A version of "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is available online.
Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip. Songs collected in Texas, Alabama, Florida, S. Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Virginia, 1939. Southern Mosaic. Fieldnotes. Section 17: Livingston, Alabama and vicinity, May 26-30. (on Ruby Pickens Tartt, Vera Hall, Dock Reed etc.) in the Library of Congress American Memory data base. (Type in "Southern Mosaic" and "John Lomax" to arrive there quickly.) | Vera Hall on Alabama: From Lullabies to Blues. Deep River of Song. Rounder Records 11661-1829-2: "Another Man Done Gone," "Railroad Bill," "Poor Lazarus," "I Been Drinking," "Moaning" (I'll Soon Be Gone)" Vera and Dock Hall, "Come Up Horsey," and "Titty, mama, titty."
Texas Gladden Portrait: listen to all the interviews, "One Morning in May," "Mary Hamilton," "Devil's Nine Questions," "Hush, Baby Don't Cry," "The Three Babes," "Lord Thomas," "Ellen Smith," "I Am a Man of Honor," "Cold Mountains," and " Devil and Farmer's Wife." |
| Week 10: Alan Lomax Portraits in Ireland and Scotland: Jeannie Robertson and Margaret Barry |
Under what social and economic conditions are class and/or gender implicated in the survival of traditional repertoires?
What do you notice about the performance style of these singers?
How are their national differences embodied in their performance practice?
How do musical idioms reflect national differences?
What do these idioms suggest about other cultural differences as well?
What difference does age make to a woman's singing?
What are the social contexts for this music? Do different social contexts affect repertoire?
What is the effect on a traditional singer-on style and on repertoire-of entering the wider world because of the performing circuit? Is there a gendered dimension to these effects?
Virtually no literature on Margaret Barry exists. How would you begin researching an article on Margaret Barry?
What can you say about Barry along the lines of the commentary on Robertson? | Porter, James, and Herschel Gower. Jeannie Robertson: Emergent Singer, Transformative Voice. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1995, pp. xv-xlvi, 3-16, 36-78, 90-93, 96-97, 101-109, 151-2, 157-61, 182-83, 246-50, 255-67, and 282-306. ISBN: 9780870499043.
Koskoff, Ellen. "Gender, Power and Music." In The Musical Woman: An International Perspective. Edited by Judith Lang Zaimont. Vol. 3. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991, pp. 769-88. ISBN: 9780313235894.
Salzman, Rochelle. "Can Praxis Make Perfect?" In Feminist Theory and the Study of Folklore. Edited by Susan Hollis, Linda Pershing, and M. Jane Young. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780252063138.
Kodish, Debora. "Absent Gender, Silent Encounter." JAF 100, no. 398: 573-78.
Goldstein, Kenneth. "The Impact of Recording Technology on the British Folksong Revival." In Folk Music and Modern Sound. Edited by William Ferris and Mary L. Hart. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi, 1982. ISBN: 9780878051571.
Henderson, Hamish. "Jeannie Robertson as Storyteller." Tocher 6 (1972): 169-78.
Monro, Ailie. "Lizzie Higgins, and the Oral Transmission of 10 Child Ballads." Scottish Studies 14, no. 2 (1970): 155-188.
Henderson, Hamish, and Francis Collinson. "New Child Ballads from Oral Tradition." Scottish Studies 9 (1965): 1-33.
Gower, Herschel, and James Porter. "Jeannie Robertson: The Child Ballads." Scottish Studies 14, no. 2 (1970): 35-58. | Portrait CDs of Margaret Barry and Jeannie Robertson. |
| Week 11: The Music of Political Communities: Miners' Union Movement and the Movement for Civil Rights: Aunt Molly Jackson, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bernice Reagon. |
How does expressive culture intersect with issues of gender and race in eras of emergent identity?
How did gender and race intersect with patterns of collecting and recording folk music?
How have women used music as an instrument for social protest?
What are the interactions between political agency and music?
What is the relationship between music, class, and gender in music from labor protest movements?
How have women used tradition and expressive culture as instruments of social change? How have women used music as an instrument for social protest?
How does concern for social justice relate to feminist consciousness among white working-class women of this era?
How does activism change existing musical practice among women?
How do newly composed texts build on or deviate from existing tradition?
What role did traditional women musicians play in the protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s?
What is the nature of a "singing-school movement" as the agency for protest?
How does music function as an agent of social change? | Bufwack, Mary, and Robert Oermann. "Hungry Disgusted Blues: Women in Protest." In Finding Her Voice: The Saga of Women in Country Music. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 1993, pp. 108-23. ISBN: 9780517581148.
Romalis, Shelly. "Music, Politics and Women's Resistance." In Pistol Packin' Mama: Aunt Molly Jackson and the Politics of Folksong. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1998, pp. 1-53 and 127-192. ISBN: 9780252067280.
For Further Exploration
Archival Source:
Mary Barnicle-Cadle Papers, Schlesinger Library. (Mary Barnicle-Cadle was a folklorist and collector who linked Aunt Molly Jackson with Alan Lomax.
Miles, Kay. This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fanny Lou Hamer. New York, NY: Dutton, 1993, pp. 6-29, 36-64, and 78-104. ISBN: 9780525935018.
King, Mary. Freedom Song. A Personal Story of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. New York, NY: William Morrow, 1988, pp. 92-98. ISBN: 9780688082512.
Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Right Movement through its Songs. Edited and compiled by Guy and Candie Carawan. Bethlehem, PA: Sing Out, 1990, pp. 175-237. ISBN: 9780865711808.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. "Freedom Songs: My African American Singing and Fighting Mothers." In If You Don't Go, Don't Hinder Me. The African American Sacred Song Tradition. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2000, pp. 100-141. ISBN: 9780803289833.
Selections from: "Songs of American Women." Sing Out! 25, no. 2 (1976).
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. "Women's Voices. Thoughts on Women's Music in America," and "My Name is Sarah Ogan Gunning." In If You Don't Go, Don't Hinder Me. The African American Sacred Song Tradition. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2000, pp. 2-3 and 15-17. ISBN: 9780803289833. | CD: Coal Mining Women.
Freedom Songs and the Civil Rights Movement: Class CD #3 Selections 39, 40, 41, and 42. |
| Week 12: The Third Folk Revival: Washington Square; Later Celebrity Performers: Joan Baez and Janis Joplin |
What role did women musicians play in the folk revival movement of the 1960s?
What patterns of participation shaped the role of women musicians in the folk revival movement of the 1960s?
What is the relationship between the female singer/songwriter and the traditional folk singer?
How does gender mediate between urban and rural female music-making within the fourth folk revival?
What historic patterns of participation and reception within traditional music shaped women's roles in the Urban Folk Revival?
In what ways do these contemporary figures reflect the influences of their predecessors in terms of repertory, performance style, instrumentation, and reception?
What is missing from these readings and how might they be supplemented or rewritten? | Rahn, Millie. "The Folk Revival. Beyond Child's Canon and Sharp's Song Catching." In American Popular Music. New Approaches to the Twentieth Century. Edited by Rubin, Rachel and Jeffrey Melnick. Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001: 193-210. ISBN: 9781558492684.
Echols, Alice. Scars of Sweet Paradise. The Life and Times of Janis Joplin. New York, NY: Henry Holt Company, 2000, pp. 38-59, 234-240, and 305-311. ISBN: 9780805053944.
Willis, Ellen. "Don't Turn Your Back on Love." In CD box set, Janis. Sony, 1993, pp. 19-22. Ann Powers, "Janis Without Tears," in Ellen Willis, "Don't Turn Your Back on Love," pp. 31-43.
Reynolds, Simon, and Joy Press. The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion, and Rock 'n' Roll. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995, pp. 249-250 and 269-275. ISBN: 9780674802728.
Montgomery, Susan. "The Folk Furor." Mademoiselle, December 1960, 98-99 and 118.
Staff anon. "The Folk-Girls." Time, June 1, 1962, 39-40.
"Sibyl with Guitar." Time, November 23, 1962.
Baez, Joan. The Joan Baez Songbook. New York, NY: Crown, 1988. ISBN: 9780517034811. Introductory material, and Index of Titles. Xeroxes of "Virgin Mary" and "Barbara Allen," and "The Four Marys" and "House Carpenter," and "The Cherry Tree Carol."
Stekkert, Ellen. "Cents and Nonsense in the Urban Folksong Movement, 1930-1960." In Transforming Tradition. Folk Music Revivals Examined. Edited by Neil Rosenberg. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993, pp. 84-106. ISBN: 9780252019821.
Blaustein, Richard. "Rethinking Folk Revivalism: Grass-Roots Preservationism and Folk Romanticism." In Transforming Tradition. Folk Music Revivals Examined. Edited by Neil Rosenberg. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993, pp. 258-74. ISBN: 9780252019821.
Cantwell, Robert. When We Were Good: The Folk Revival. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997, pp. 313-352. ISBN: 9780674951334.
Von Schmidt, Eric, and Jim Rooney. Baby Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994, Forward, pp. 24-215, 37-47, 52-58, 133-141, and 222-27. ISBN: 9780870239250. | Baez, Joan. "House Carpenter," "Barbara Allen" "Mary Hamilton" "John Riley" "Geordie" and "Hard Rain Gonna Fall."
Excerpts from The Essential Janis. "Ball and Chain," "O Lord Won't You Buy Me a Mercedez Benz?" and "Me and Bobby McGee."
Class CD #3. Selections 43, 44, 45, 46, and 47. |
