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american folk music

American Folk Music

United States · 1800s
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Description

American folk music is a broad family of traditional and vernacular musics that developed in the United States from the 19th century onward, drawing on British Isles balladry, African American spirituals and work songs, Native American traditions, and frontier songs.

It is typically acoustic, emphasizing voice and narrative over virtuoso display. Common instruments include acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle, harmonica, mandolin, dulcimer, and upright bass. Forms are often strophic with repeated refrains, and melodies frequently use pentatonic or modal scales (Mixolydian, Dorian). Lyrical themes range from love, labor, faith, migration, and rural life to topical protest and social justice.

Regional styles—such as Appalachian ballads and string-band music, cowboy songs of the West, maritime shanties of New England, Cajun and Creole influences in Louisiana, and Midwestern and Southwestern dance tunes—sit under the umbrella of American folk, which later fed revivals and singer‑songwriter traditions.

History

Origins (19th century)

American folk music coalesced during the 1800s as immigrant ballad traditions from England, Scotland, and Ireland met African American spirituals, field hollers, and work songs, along with Native American ceremonial and social musics. On the frontier and in rural communities, songs were transmitted orally, adapted to local life, and accompanied by portable instruments like fiddle, banjo, and later guitar.

Early documentation and the 1920s–1930s

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw folklorists (e.g., Francis James Child, Cecil Sharp, John and Alan Lomax) collect ballads, blues, and work songs across the U.S. The recording industry’s “race” and “hillbilly” series (1920s) captured country blues, string bands, and the Carter Family, making rural folk forms nationally audible. During the Great Depression, topical songs and Dust Bowl ballads (e.g., Woody Guthrie) framed folk as a voice of common people and social struggle.

Mid‑century revival (1940s–1960s)

After World War II, Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, and others popularized folk music in urban coffeehouses and political gatherings. The late‑1950s/early‑1960s folk revival brought collegiate audiences, hootenannies, and a surge of albums. Artists like Joan Baez, Odetta, and Bob Dylan connected traditional ballads to civil rights and antiwar movements, bridging folk traditions and contemporary protest.

Crossovers and diversification (late 1960s–1990s)

Folk fed into electrified folk rock, country rock, and the singer‑songwriter movement. Meanwhile, regional traditions (Appalachian, Cajun/Creole, maritime, Southwestern) continued to evolve, bolstered by festivals and public media (e.g., Newport Folk Festival, PBS/NPR).

21st century

American folk persists as both preservation (old‑time, ballad singing) and innovation (indie folk, new weird America). Archival reissues, field recordings online, and community jams sustain the tradition, while contemporary artists blend folk idioms with pop, rock, and experimental production.

How to make a track in this genre

Instrumentation and texture

Use primarily acoustic instruments: voice, guitar (fingerpicking or strumming), banjo (frailing/clawhammer), fiddle, harmonica, mandolin, upright bass, and Appalachian dulcimer. Keep arrangements intimate; two to four parts often suffice. Prioritize vocal clarity and lyric storytelling.

Melody, harmony, and rhythm

Write singable melodies in major (Ionian) or modal scales (Mixolydian, Dorian); pentatonic contours are common. Harmonies are simple (I–IV–V; occasional ii or vi) with sparse extensions. Rhythms are steady and dance‑derived (reels in 2/4, waltzes in 3/4), or free when ballad‑like. Consider drones or open tunings (e.g., DADGAD, open G) for modal color.

Form and lyrics

Use strophic forms with refrains or call‑and‑response. Tell concrete, scene‑rich stories about work, travel, love, injustice, and community. Favor plain language, strong imagery, and memorable choruses. Topical songs should be specific yet universal enough to invite audience participation.

Vocal delivery and performance practice

Sing with direct, unadorned tone; light ornamentation and close harmony (duos/trios) work well. Encourage audience choruses and communal feel. Record with minimal processing; room mics and live takes capture authenticity.

Stylistic touches
•   Incorporate regional idioms (Appalachian bowing, cowboy yodels, sea‑song refrains). •   Use traditional ballad meters and incremental repetition. •   Let instrumental breaks echo the melody (fiddle/mandolin fills) rather than virtuosic departures.

Top albums

Like a Ship... (Without a Sail)
Like a Ship... (Without a Sail)
Pastor T.L. Barrett & The Youth for Christ Choir
Today!
Today!
Mississippi John Hurt
Folksongs and Instrumentals With Guitar
Folksongs and Instrumentals With Guitar
Elizabeth Cotten
Most Things Haven't Worked Out
Most Things Haven't Worked Out
Junior Kimbrough
Last Sessions
Last Sessions
Mississippi John Hurt
Father of Folk Blues
Father of Folk Blues
Son House

Main artists

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Influenced by
English Folk Music
English folk music is the traditional music of England, encompassing narrative ballads, dance tunes, sea songs, work songs, ritual and seasonal pieces, and broadside song traditions. Its melodies are often modal (Dorian, Mixolydian, Aeolian) or pentatonic, and many songs were historically sung unaccompanied with clear diction and strong storytelling. Instrumental traditions supply tunes for social and ritual dances—jigs, reels, hornpipes, country dances, Morris and sword dances—typically played on fiddle, melodeon, concertina, whistle, flute, and smallpipes; revival-era additions include acoustic guitar, bouzouki, and banjo. The style emphasizes memorable, singable melodies, refrains that invite participation, and lyrics grounded in local life: love and loss, agricultural and maritime labor, historical events, crime and justice, and supernatural folklore.
Scottish Folk Music
Scottish folk music is the traditional music of Scotland, encompassing Gaelic and Scots-language song, narrative ballads, dance tunes, and instrumental pipe and fiddle repertoires. It is marked by a strong sense of place and history, with repertoire ranging from ancient laments and work songs to brisk reels, jigs, and strathspeys. Core timbres include the Great Highland bagpipe and Scottish smallpipes, the fiddle, clàrsach (Celtic harp), whistle, accordion, guitar, and later-adopted bouzouki. Melodies often use modal scales (Mixolydian and Dorian are common) and drone-based textures, while distinctive rhythmic profiles—especially the “Scotch snap” in strathspeys—give the dance music its character. Singing traditions span puirt-à-beul (mouth music), waulking songs, Bothy ballads, Jacobite songs, and the Child ballads, performed in Scots, Scottish Gaelic, and English. Today the genre thrives both in community contexts (ceilidhs, sessions, festivals) and on professional stages, balancing preservation of local styles with contemporary arrangements and production.
Irish Folk
Irish folk is the traditional song and dance-music heritage of Ireland, encompassing narrative ballads, unaccompanied sean-nós singing, and instrumental dance tunes such as reels, jigs, hornpipes, polkas, and slides. Its sound is defined by modal melodies (often Dorian and Mixolydian), intricate ornamentation (cuts, rolls, triplets, and crans), and acoustic timbres from fiddle, uilleann pipes, tin whistle, wooden flute, harp, concertina/accordion, tenor banjo, bouzouki, guitar (often in DADGAD), and bodhrán. Performances commonly happen in informal “sessions,” where musicians share tune sets and variations, or on stage in folk ensembles. Lyrically, the tradition ranges from humorous and convivial pub songs to poignant ballads of love, emigration, work, and resistance. The music’s social function—supporting dance, storytelling, and communal singing—remains central to its identity.
African Folk Music
African folk music is an umbrella term for traditional, community-rooted musical practices across the African continent. It is characterized by cyclical structures, call-and-response singing, polyrhythms, and a strong integration of music with dance, storytelling, and ritual. Typical sound worlds include interlocking drum ensembles, handclaps, and idiophones; modal and pentatonic melodies; and timbral techniques such as ululation, vocal hocketing, and overtone-rich instrumental playing. Core instruments vary by region (e.g., West African kora, ngoni, balafon, and talking drum; Southern African mbira and marimba; East African lyres and fiddles; North African frame drums and lutes), but all are used to create layered textures that support social functions—work songs, praise singing, weddings, funerals, and rites of passage. Because it is transmitted orally, African folk music is fluid and adaptive, preserving deep historical memory while continually reinterpreting styles in response to migration, trade, and religious interchange.
West African Music
West African music is a broad regional tradition centered on cyclical grooves, polyrhythms, and call-and-response, carried by griot (jeli) storytellers and community ensembles. Its core sound is driven by interlocking percussion patterns—often in 12/8 or 4/4—anchored by bell timelines and hand drums, over which praise-singing, chant, and melodic ostinatos unfold. Typical instruments include the kora (21‑string harp-lute), balafon (wooden xylophone), ngoni/xalam (lute), bolon (bass harp), talking drum, djembe and dunun, sabar, and shekere. Melodies tend to be modal and pentatonic, relying on repetition, variation, and improvisation. Islamic recitation and Sahelian court traditions contribute melismatic vocal styles and poetic structures, while coastal guitar idioms (palm‑wine, dance bands) shaped modern urban genres. From Mande jeliya to Wolof sabar and Yoruba bata/talking-drum ensembles, West African music is both ceremonial and social—used for praise, weddings, initiations, communal work, and dance. Its rhythmic logic, timbral layering, and participatory performance practice profoundly shaped global popular music.
Native American Music
Native American music encompasses the diverse vocal and instrumental traditions of the Indigenous peoples of North America. It is primarily voice-centered, with communal singing supported by large powwow drums, hand/frame drums, water drums, rattles, and the Native American flute. Melodies often use pentatonic or anhemitonic scales and feature terraced (descending) contour, vocables (non-lexical syllables) alongside texts in Indigenous languages, and cyclic repetition in sets of 4 (reflecting cultural symbolism). Music serves ceremonial, social, healing, and storytelling functions, and is inseparable from dance and regalia. While distinct regional styles exist (Plains powwow, Southwestern Pueblo/Navajo, Great Basin, Northwest Coast polyphony, Inuit throat singing, Southeastern stomp dance traditions), all emphasize community participation, spiritual intention, and strong rhythmic grounding. Contemporary scenes range from traditional powwow and peyote songs to modern fusions that respect traditional aesthetics while engaging new forms.
Spirituals
Spirituals are religious folk songs created by enslaved Africans and their descendants in the United States, blending West African musical practices with Protestant Christian hymnody. Sung primarily a cappella, they feature call-and-response, improvisation, rich timbral expression, and rhythmic drive supported by body percussion (clapping, stomping) and the ring shout. Texts draw on Biblical narratives—especially Exodus, captivity, deliverance, and redemption—while often carrying coded meanings about resistance, escape, and communal hope. Melodies frequently use pentatonic patterns, blue-leaning inflections, and flexible meter, while group performance encourages heterophony and spontaneous variation. Over time, spirituals moved from work fields and praise houses to concert stages through arranged choral traditions, profoundly shaping American music by influencing gospel, blues, jazz, soul, and the broader canon of U.S. folk and popular song.
Work Song
Work song is a functional vocal music tradition created to coordinate physical labor, set a steady pace, and build solidarity among workers. It typically features call-and-response structures, short improvised verses, and a strong, repetitive pulse aligned to the motions of the task (hammering, rowing, hauling, chopping). While versions exist in many cultures, the most documented stream is the African American work song in the United States—heard in fields, on railroads and levees, in lumber camps, and on prison farms. Closely related practices include maritime shanties, fishing chanteys, and industrial worksongs, all of which use rhythm and group participation to ease strenuous or monotonous work. Musically, work songs are commonly unaccompanied (a cappella) or use body percussion and tools as instruments. Lyrics often reference the job at hand, hardship and hope, local news, humor, or moral commentary, with leaders improvising lines answered by a chorus.
Hymns
Hymns are strophic, text-driven songs of praise, devotion, or instruction intended for congregational or communal singing, most closely associated with Christian worship. They typically use clear, memorable melodies, regular poetic meters, and straightforward harmonies so that large groups can sing together with ease. While the concept of a hymn as a sacred song predates Christianity (e.g., in Ancient Greek and Jewish traditions), Christian hymnody coalesced late in the 4th century with Ambrosian practice in Milan and then expanded through Latin and Greek liturgical cultures. Over time, hymn singing moved from monastic and cathedral settings into congregational life, especially after the Protestant Reformation, where metrical psalms and vernacular hymns became a defining feature of worship. Modern hymnody ranges from chant-like, modal melodies without accompaniment to robust, four-part chorale harmonizations with organ, and even contemporary arrangements that adapt classic hymn texts and tunes to newer popular styles.
Ballad
A ballad is a narrative song form that tells a story in simple, singable stanzas, traditionally using quatrains in ballad meter (alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and trimeter with an ABCB rhyme scheme). Ballads typically recount dramatic events—love, betrayal, tragedy, murder, the supernatural—or notable historical incidents. Early ballads were often sung unaccompanied or with minimal accompaniment, carried by memorable, modal melodies and refrains that aided oral transmission. Over time, the term also came to describe slow, sentimental popular songs in the 20th century, but the core of the genre remains the storytelling focus and strophic, easily learned structure. Ballads are central to the English- and Scots-language folk traditions, migrated to North America where they flourished in Appalachian singing, and continue to be performed, adapted, and reinterpreted in contemporary folk and roots scenes.
Blues
Blues is an African American musical tradition defined by expressive "blue notes," call-and-response phrasing, and a characteristic use of dominant-seventh harmony in cyclical song forms (most famously the 12‑bar blues). It is as much a feeling as a form, conveying sorrow, resilience, humor, and hard-won joy. Musically, blues commonly employs the I–IV–V progression, swung or shuffled rhythms, and the AAB lyric stanza. Melodies lean on the minor/major third ambiguity and the flattened fifth and seventh degrees. Core instruments include voice, guitar (acoustic or electric), harmonica, piano, bass, and drums, with slide guitar, bends, and vocal melismas as signature techniques. Over time the blues has diversified into regional and stylistic currents—Delta and Piedmont country blues, urban Chicago and Texas blues, West Coast jump and boogie-woogie—while profoundly shaping jazz, rhythm & blues, rock and roll, soul, funk, and much of modern popular music.
Gospel
Gospel is a family of Christian sacred music that emerged from African‑American church traditions in the United States. It centers the voice, communal participation, and a message of faith, hope, and testimony. Musically, gospel is characterized by call‑and‑response, powerful lead vocals answered by choirs, rich harmonies, handclaps, and a propulsive backbeat or 12/8 shuffle. Typical ensembles include voice, piano or Hammond organ, drums, bass, and guitar, with occasional horns. Harmonically it blends simple I–IV–V frameworks with blues inflections and sophisticated chord extensions, turnarounds, and modulations that heighten emotional intensity. The genre encompasses several streams, notably traditional Black gospel, Southern (white) gospel rooted in shape‑note singing, and contemporary/urban gospel that integrates R&B, soul, and hip‑hop. Its sound and spirit have profoundly influenced American popular music—from soul and R&B to rock and roll.
Sacred Harp
Sacred Harp is a tradition of communal, a cappella hymn singing that uses four-shape (fa–sol–la–mi) notation to teach parts and lead congregational participation. The melody typically sits in the tenor part, with treble, alto, and bass forming a robust, open-voiced harmony around it. Named after the influential tunebook The Sacred Harp (first published in 1844), the style is marked by powerful, unaccompanied singing, bright modal colors, fuguing entrances, and a distinctive "hollow square" seating arrangement with each voice part facing the center. Singings emphasize participation over performance, with leaders choosing songs and beating time as the class begins each piece by “singing the shapes” before the lyrics. Although rooted in religious hymnody, Sacred Harp today functions as a living folk music tradition—devotional, social, and intergenerational—celebrated at local singings and large conventions across the United States and, increasingly, around the world.
Sea Shanty
Sea shanty is a maritime work song that developed aboard sailing ships to coordinate group labor. It uses a strong, steady pulse and a call-and-response structure in which a lead singer (the shantyman) calls the verse and the crew responds in chorus to time their pulls, pushes, or turns together. Historically unaccompanied and sung in unison, shanties are tailored to specific tasks: short-drag (brief, forceful pulls), halyard/long-drag (heavier, fewer pulls per line), capstan/windlass (continuous, walking rhythm), and pumping shanties (repetitive, machine-like pulse). Lyrics mix practical timing cues with humor, bravado, longing, and port lore, and often use nonsense vocables (“way, hey,” “haul away”) to accent the work strokes. While closely related to broader “sea songs” and forebitters (off-duty songs), shanties are distinct in purpose: they are functional music designed to synchronize labor. The style flourished in the 19th century among English-speaking merchant navies, absorbing influences from British and Irish folk traditions and African-American and Afro-Caribbean work-song practices.
Indigenous North American Music
Indigenous North American music encompasses the diverse musical practices of Native American, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples across what is now the United States and Canada. It predates European contact by millennia, and is rooted in ceremonial, social, and storytelling functions rather than commercial or entertainment-only aims. Across regions, performance practices differ markedly: Plains powwow songs feature high-pitched leads, vocables, terraced melodic descent, honor beats, and the "incomplete repetition" form; Eastern Woodlands styles favor call-and-response and antiphonal textures; the Arctic is renowned for Inuit katajjaq (throat singing) and game songs; the Southwest (Pueblo, Navajo/Diné, Apache) includes complex ceremonial repertoires with water drums and rattle accompaniment; and the Northwest Coast employs box and log drums with intricate dance/song cycles. While typically monophonic, the music often layers voices and percussion in a rich heterophony. Instrumentation centers on large powwow drums, frame and hand drums, water drums, rattles (gourd, turtle shell), whistles, and Native flutes, with voices as the primary vehicle for melody, language, and vocables. Songs carry cultural knowledge, spiritual meaning, and social cohesion, and are performed with strict attention to context, protocol, and community ownership.
Celtic
Celtic is a broad, pan-regional umbrella for the traditional and tradition-inspired music of the Celtic nations—primarily Ireland and Scotland, but also Brittany (France), Wales, Galicia (Spain), the Isle of Man, and Cornwall. It is characterized by modal melodies (often Dorian and Mixolydian), lilting dance rhythms (reels in 4/4, jigs in 6/8, slip jigs in 9/8, hornpipes with dotted swing), and extensive ornamentation (cuts, rolls, crans, grace notes). Typical instruments include fiddle, wooden flute, tin whistle, uilleann pipes or Great Highland bagpipes, button accordion/concertina, bodhrán, Celtic harp, bouzouki (adopted into Irish music), guitar, and occasionally piano. Vocal traditions range from unaccompanied sean-nós singing to narrative ballads in English, Irish (Gaeilge), and Scottish Gaelic, as well as Breton and Welsh. Modern "Celtic" often denotes both heritage styles and contemporary hybrids that blend folk with pop, rock, and ambient/new age aesthetics while retaining core melodic modes, dance forms, and timbral signatures.
Gaelic Psalm Singing
Gaelic psalm singing (Salm Gàidhlig) is an a cappella congregational singing tradition of the Scottish Highlands and Hebrides, especially within Presbyterian churches. A precentor “lines out” each verse line of a metrical psalm, and the congregation answers in a free, highly ornamented, and heterophonic style. The sound is slow, modal, and intensely communal: individual voices bend pitch, slide between notes, and add melismas while moving at slightly different speeds, creating a shimmering, choral tide. Performances are typically unaccompanied, in Scottish Gaelic, and take place in worship rather than concert settings. While rooted in Reformation-era metrical psalmody, the style bears the imprint of Gaelic vocal aesthetics, producing a uniquely solemn, devotional, and emotionally expansive texture.
Field Hollers
Field hollers are solo, unaccompanied vocal cries historically performed by African Americans in the rural U.S. South, especially in plantations, levee camps, railroad gangs, and prison farms. They were used to communicate across distances, express emotion, keep time, or relieve the isolation of field labor. Musically, hollers feature elastic, free rhythm; soaring melismas; blue notes; wide glissandi; sudden dynamic shifts; and improvised text. Singers often project at high volume, using falsetto, moans, whoops, and bends to carry over long distances. While mostly solo, hollers sometimes prompted distant call-and-response with other workers. Lyrically, field hollers range from short location calls or work-time signals to longer complaint songs and personal laments, touching on separation, longing, hardship, and news. The style is a foundational ancestor of the blues and a close cousin to ring shouts and spirituals, preserving core elements of West African vocality within oppressive working conditions.
Scots Song
Scots song refers to the tradition of Scottish songs—especially those in the Scots language and Lowland idiom—shaped by centuries of oral balladry, communal singing, and later salon and concert arrangements. It is characterized by memorable, strophic melodies; diatonic or modal harmonies (often pentatonic or Mixolydian); narrative and lyrical texts that range from love and pastoral themes to political and Jacobite sentiments; and distinctive rhythmic figures such as the Scotch snap. While rooted in folk practice, Scots song also developed a robust "art song" strand through 18th–19th century collecting, editing, and arranging by poets and composers, making it a bridge between vernacular tradition and cultivated music-making. Performance ranges from unaccompanied solo singing to accompaniment by fiddle, clàrsach (harp), smallpipes, guitar, or piano, and in the 18th–19th centuries by parlour and chamber ensembles via arrangements by figures like Haydn and Beethoven for George Thomson’s collections.
Has influenced
Country
Country is a roots-based popular music from the rural American South that blends Anglo-Celtic ballad traditions with African American blues, gospel, and string-band dance music. It is characterized by narrative songwriting, plainspoken vocals with regional twang, and a palette of acoustic and electric instruments such as acoustic guitar, fiddle, banjo, pedal steel, and telecaster guitar. Rhythmically it favors two-step feels, train beats, shuffles, and waltzes, while harmony is largely diatonic (I–IV–V) with occasional country chromaticism and secondary dominants. Across a century, country has evolved through substyles like honky-tonk, the Nashville and Bakersfield sounds, outlaw country, neotraditionalist revivals, pop-country, and country-rap hybrids, but it consistently prioritizes storytelling about everyday life, love, work, faith, place, and identity.
Bluegrass
Bluegrass is a high-energy, acoustic string‑band music that emerged in the Appalachian South during the 1940s, crystallized by Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys. It is defined by brisk tempos, virtuosic instrumental breaks, and tight, close‑harmony singing often described as the "high lonesome" sound. Typical instrumentation features five‑string banjo (often in Earl Scruggs’ three‑finger style), mandolin (with percussive off‑beat "chop" chords), steel‑string guitar (flatpicking), fiddle, and upright bass; the dobro (resonator guitar) is common, while drums are traditionally absent. Repertoire mixes traditional ballads, fiddle tunes, gospel quartets, and original songs, all delivered with driving rhythm and improvisatory flair.
Folk Rock
Folk rock is a fusion genre that blends the narrative lyricism, modal melodies, and acoustic timbres of traditional folk with the backbeat, amplification, and song structures of rock. It typically pairs acoustic or traditional instruments (acoustic guitar, mandolin, fiddle) with a rock rhythm section (electric guitar, bass, drums), often featuring chiming 12‑string guitar textures, close vocal harmonies, and socially conscious or storytelling lyrics. The result ranges from intimate, reflective ballads with a steady backbeat to more anthemic, roots‑driven rock. Emerging in the mid‑1960s through artists such as Bob Dylan and The Byrds, folk rock became a gateway for traditional and roots materials to enter mainstream popular music, and it seeded later movements from country rock and Americana to jangle pop and modern indie folk.
Americana
Americana is a contemporary umbrella term for U.S. roots music that blends folk, country, blues, bluegrass, gospel, and roots rock into a songwriter-centered, largely acoustic-leaning sound. Hallmarks include story-driven lyrics; warm, organic production; and traditional instrumentation such as acoustic guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle, harmonica, pedal steel, upright or electric bass, and restrained drums. Rhythms often draw on the train beat, shuffles, two-step, waltz time, and relaxed backbeats. Harmonically it favors diatonic progressions (I–IV–V, I–vi–IV–V), modal tinges (Mixolydian), and close vocal harmonies. Rather than a rigid style, Americana functions as a bridge among related roots traditions, emphasizing authenticity, regional imagery, and narrative songwriting over genre flashiness.
Singer-Songwriter
Singer-songwriter is a song-focused style in which the same person writes, composes, and performs their own material, often accompanying themselves on acoustic guitar or piano. It emphasizes personal voice, lyrical intimacy, and storytelling over elaborate production. Arrangements are typically sparse, allowing the melody, words, and performance nuance to carry the song’s emotional weight. While rooted in folk and blues traditions, singer-songwriter embraces pop and rock songcraft, producing works that can range from quiet confessional ballads to subtly orchestrated, radio-ready pieces.
Alternative Country
Alternative country (often shortened to alt-country) is a roots-oriented offshoot of country that blends the storytelling, twang, and acoustic instrumentation of classic country with the attitude, DIY ethos, and sonic grit of indie rock and punk. It arose as a reaction to the glossy production and commercial polish of mainstream Nashville in the late 1980s and 1990s. Hallmarks include weathered vocals, prominent acoustic and electric guitars (often with pedal steel), unfussy rhythm sections, and lyrics that foreground realism, heartbreak, working-class lives, and wandering souls. Production tends to be raw and unvarnished, favoring live-in-the-room feel over studio sheen. The result is music that sits comfortably between country, folk, and rock while retaining the emotional directness of traditional country.
Indie Folk
Indie folk blends the DIY ethos and sonic aesthetics of independent rock with the acoustic instrumentation, intimate storytelling, and melodic simplicity of traditional folk. Timbres are typically warm and organic—fingerpicked acoustic guitars, close-mic’d vocals, subtle percussion, and spare ornamentation from banjo, mandolin, harmonium, or strings. Production often favors natural room ambiance, tape hiss, and gentle compression over glossy polish, creating a sense of proximity and emotional candor. Lyrically, the style is reflective and poetic, focusing on personal narratives, place, nature, spirituality, and memory. Harmony tends to be diatonic and modal, with drones, open tunings, and layered vocal harmonies adding depth. While understated, arrangements can scale into lush, choir-like textures and chamber-folk swells, balancing fragility with grandeur.
Country Rock
Country rock is a hybrid of country music’s storytelling, twang, and acoustic textures with rock’s backbeat, amplification, and song structures. It typically features electric and acoustic guitars, pedal steel, close vocal harmonies, and a steady 4/4 groove, while lyrics focus on roads, small towns, heartbreak, and everyday American life. The sound ranges from jangly and rootsy to polished and radio-friendly, bridging bar-band energy with country elegance and shaping the template for later Americana and heartland styles.
New Weird America
New Weird America (NWA) is a loosely defined early‑2000s U.S. movement that revived and mutated psychedelic and folk traditions through a DIY, experimental lens. It blends psych folk, free folk, drone, and outsider Americana with lo‑fi recording aesthetics, extended improvisation, and a surreal, pastoral sensibility. Rather than a strict genre, NWA describes a network of artists, collectives, and small labels who favored open tunings and acoustic timbres alongside noise, field recordings, tape hiss, and communal performance practices. The results range from intimate, childlike songs to sprawling trance‑drone ritual, all united by a fascination with the “old, weird” folk imaginary filtered through contemporary indie and experimental cultures.
Folk Punk
Folk punk fuses the raw speed, attitude, and DIY ethos of punk with the acoustic instruments, storytelling, and melodic traditions of folk. It often features shouted sing‑alongs, gang vocals, and energetic strumming alongside fiddles, accordions, banjos, and acoustic guitars. Lyrically, the genre ranges from personal confessionals and working‑class narratives to pointed political critique and anti‑establishment themes. Production can be intentionally rough or lo‑fi, reflecting its busking roots and community‑first approach to performance.
Freak Folk
Freak folk is a 2000s revival and mutation of psychedelic and traditional folk that embraces eccentric vocals, surreal lyrics, and homespun, experimental arrangements. It blends fingerpicked acoustics and hand percussion with harps, harmoniums, toy instruments, and found sounds, often recorded in lo‑fi, intimate settings. Aesthetically, it is earthy yet otherworldly: pastoral melodies, drones, and modal harmonies coexist with whimsical, childlike timbres and mystical imagery. The scene is closely associated with the New Weird America movement, valuing communal creativity, DIY production, and a porous boundary between folk tradition and avant‑garde exploration.
Work Song
Work song is a functional vocal music tradition created to coordinate physical labor, set a steady pace, and build solidarity among workers. It typically features call-and-response structures, short improvised verses, and a strong, repetitive pulse aligned to the motions of the task (hammering, rowing, hauling, chopping). While versions exist in many cultures, the most documented stream is the African American work song in the United States—heard in fields, on railroads and levees, in lumber camps, and on prison farms. Closely related practices include maritime shanties, fishing chanteys, and industrial worksongs, all of which use rhythm and group participation to ease strenuous or monotonous work. Musically, work songs are commonly unaccompanied (a cappella) or use body percussion and tools as instruments. Lyrics often reference the job at hand, hardship and hope, local news, humor, or moral commentary, with leaders improvising lines answered by a chorus.
Scottish Folk Revival
The Scottish folk revival is a mid-20th-century movement that rediscovered, preserved, and reimagined Scotland’s traditional music and song. It brought oral traditions such as ballads, waulking songs, puirt à beul (mouth music), and dance tunes (reels, jigs, strathspeys) into modern performance contexts. Centred on collectors, folk clubs, and festival culture, the revival balanced respect for source singers and instrumental styles with new songwriting in Scots and Scottish Gaelic. Typical sounds include unaccompanied traditional singing and acoustic ensembles featuring fiddle, clarsach (Scottish harp), whistles, accordion, guitar, and pipes, with rhythms shaped by the strathspey’s characteristic Scotch snap and modal melodies that favour Dorian and Mixolydian colours. The movement both safeguarded heritage and catalysed innovation, inspiring later Celtic fusion styles and global interest in Scottish music.
Western
Western (often called Western or cowboy music) is a traditional North American song style rooted in the working life and mythos of the American and Canadian West. It emphasizes narrative ballads about cattle drives, trail life, prairie landscapes, and frontier values, commonly delivered with clear storytelling, memorable choruses, and occasional yodeling. Musically it draws on British Isles balladry, American folk, and Mexican traditions such as corrido and ranchera. Arrangements are typically acoustic and sparse—acoustic guitar, fiddle, harmonica, upright bass, and sometimes accordion or steel guitar—favoring diatonic harmony and strophic song forms. Rhythms often include two-step (2/4), lilting waltzes (3/4), and gentle straight-time ballads, supporting the music’s evocative, wide‑open feel distinct from but historically intertwined with country music.
American Primitive Guitar
American primitive guitar is a solo, steel‑string acoustic guitar style that blends pre‑war country blues, ragtime, and old‑time folk with modal harmony, drones, and a composerly, often experimental approach. Coined by John Fahey to label his own music, the term emphasizes a raw, unvarnished sound—fingerpicked patterns, open tunings, alternating bass, and ringing drones—used to build long-form pieces that feel both traditional and avant‑garde. Performances are typically instrumental and highly personal, drawing on early American vernacular idioms while welcoming elements from classical form, non‑Western modal systems, and tape‑age lo‑fi aesthetics. The result is a music that sounds rooted and exploratory at once: earthy timbres, propulsive thumb‑picked bass, and hymn‑ or raga‑like modalities that expand folk guitar into a contemplative, composer‑driven art form.
Cajun Music
Cajun music is the traditional dance and song tradition of the French-speaking Cajuns of southwest Louisiana. It is typically driven by diatonic button accordion and fiddle, supported by guitar, triangle (tit-fer), and, in modern bands, bass, drums, and steel guitar. The repertoire centers on lively two-steps in 4/4 and tender waltzes in 3/4, with melodies that lean on major and mixolydian modes, blue notes, and fiddle double-stops. Vocals—often in Cajun French—carry themes of love, loss, home, and community, delivered with a nasal, emotive timbre. The overall feel is simultaneously earthy, communal, and irresistibly danceable.
Roots Rock
Roots rock is a back-to-basics strain of rock music that reconnects the electric band format with its foundational American roots in blues, country, folk, rhythm & blues, and early rock and roll. It favors sturdy songcraft, earthy timbres, and groove over studio gloss—think twangy or gritty guitars, Hammond organ or piano, a steady backbeat, and plainspoken, story-driven lyrics. The style often carries a "live-in-the-room" feel, medium tempos, and blues-based progressions, evoking bar bands, roadhouses, and rural imagery. Rather than chasing cutting-edge production or virtuosic excess, roots rock emphasizes feel, narrative, and tradition—bridging the immediacy of rock with the storytelling of folk and country and the emotional bite of the blues.
Skiffle
Skiffle is a lively, do‑it‑yourself style built from American folk, blues, and jug‑band traditions, popularized in mid‑1950s Britain. It features simple song forms, energetic strumming, and an emphasis on homemade or low‑cost instruments such as washboard percussion and tea‑chest bass. The genre’s appeal lay in its accessibility: young musicians could form groups with minimal resources, covering American folk and blues standards at brisk tempos. Skiffle ignited an amateur band boom in the UK, laying the groundwork for the country’s later beat and rock movements.
Hispanic American Folk Music
Hispanic American folk music is the umbrella for traditional and community-rooted musical practices developed by Spanish-speaking and mixed-heritage (mestizo, Afro‑Latino, Indigenous) communities in the United States. It draws on borderlands traditions of the Southwest (Texas, New Mexico, California, Arizona), Caribbean diasporas (Puerto Rican and Cuban communities in New York and elsewhere), and later immigrant and transborder flows from Mexico and Central America. Stylistically, it blends narrative ballads (corridos), sacred hymnody (alabados), rural song forms (décimas, coplas), and social-dance repertoires (vals, polka, schottische, huapango). Core timbres include guitar families (requinto, bajo sexto, jarana), violin, harp, accordion, and voices in close parallel thirds. Themes often address migration, labor, love, devotion, identity, and social justice; lyrics frequently move fluidly between Spanish and English (and regionally inflected Spanglish), reflecting lived bilingual realities.
Canadian Folk Music
Canadian folk music encompasses the traditional and contemporary songs, dances, and instrumental styles that took shape among Canada’s diverse peoples, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities, French-Canadian settlers, and English-, Scottish-, and Irish-descended populations. It blends Indigenous vocal and drum traditions, French-Canadian call-and-response songs and dance tunes, and Anglo-Celtic ballads, jigs, and reels into a distinctive mosaic. The genre is marked by strong regional flavors: the driving fiddle music of Cape Breton and the Atlantic provinces; the call-and-response and foot-tapping (podorythmie) of Québécois reels; the social dance and fiddle traditions of the Prairies and the Métis Red River heritage; and the vocal, drum, and throat-singing practices of Arctic Inuit communities. In the 20th century, Canadian singer-songwriters brought these roots into modern folk, shaping a poetic, introspective style known worldwide.
Bluegrass Gospel
Bluegrass gospel is the sacred branch of bluegrass that marries the idiomatic, high‑energy string‑band sound with Christian devotional lyrics. It features close, “high lonesome” harmonies; acoustic instruments such as banjo, fiddle, mandolin, guitar, upright bass (often dobro as well); and arrangements that alternate verses with instrumental breaks. Choruses often spotlight three‑ or four‑part harmony, sometimes a cappella, with lead, tenor, baritone, and bass parts in stacked voicings. The style draws from Appalachian folk hymnody, shape‑note singing, southern gospel quartet traditions, spirituals, and old‑time and country repertoire, while retaining bluegrass’s drive, off‑beat mandolin “chop,” Scruggs‑style banjo rolls, and fiddle kick‑offs. Typical harmonic language centers on I–IV–V with plagal “Amen” cadences, occasional secondary dominants, and modulations up a whole step to heighten emotion. Lyrical themes emphasize salvation, grace, heaven, testimony, and perseverance through hardship, delivered with earnest, unembellished sincerity.
Second British Folk Revival
The Second British Folk Revival was a mid‑20th‑century movement in the United Kingdom that reconnected contemporary audiences with traditional songs, ballads, and dance tunes from England, Scotland, and Wales. It grew around folk clubs, independent labels, and collectors/performers who emphasized both historically informed repertoire (Child ballads, broadsides, work songs) and modern performance practice. Politically engaged and community‑minded, the revival encouraged unaccompanied harmony singing, acoustic guitar and fiddle accompaniment, and a strong storytelling ethos. By the late 1960s, parts of the revival interfaced with rock, jazz, and blues, catalyzing British folk rock and influencing progressive and psychedelic currents. While grounded in tradition, its enduring legacy is a living, evolving approach to British vernacular music.
Country Folk
Country folk is a hybrid of American country music and the acoustic, narrative-driven traditions of folk. It emphasizes intimate songwriting, uncluttered arrangements, and roots instrumentation while retaining the plainspoken storytelling and melodic directness of country. Compared with country rock, country folk is typically quieter, more acoustic, and less rhythm-section heavy. It foregrounds lyrics, fingerpicked guitar, and warm, organic timbres such as fiddle, pedal steel, banjo, and upright or lightly played electric bass. The result is a style that feels reflective, pastoral, and personal, with songs that travel easily between front-porch simplicity and studio polish.
Trampská Hudba
Trampská hudba ("tramp music") is a Czech campfire‑song tradition born from the interwar tramping movement, a homegrown blend of outdoor culture, romantic escapism, and admiration for a mythic American West. Typically acoustic and chorus‑driven, it prizes singability, simple diatonic harmony, and vivid storytelling about forests, rivers, trains, friendship, freedom, and wandering. Musically it draws on American country and folk idioms while retaining Central European touches such as waltz and polka rhythms. Guitars, banjo, mandolin, and harmonica support unpretentious melodies, often harmonized in two or three parts so large groups can sing together around the campfire. Its tone ranges from cheerful and communal to tender and nostalgic, with a strong do‑it‑yourself ethos.
Traditional Cajun Music
Traditional Cajun music is the dance-driven folk style of the French-speaking Acadian (Cajun) communities of southwest Louisiana. It is typically led by fiddle and single-row diatonic accordion, with steady rhythmic support from acoustic guitar and the tit-fer (triangle). Songs are most often sung in Cajun French, featuring plaintive, nasal timbres and communal refrains. Built around two core dance forms—the lively two-step (in duple meter) and the lilting waltz (in triple meter)—the music blends French and French-Canadian fiddle traditions with local American influences, blues inflections, and Central European accordion dance rhythms. Melodies often sit in major or mixolydian modes, use drones and double-stops, and favor memorable, strophic structures suited to social dancing and house parties (bals de maison).
Christian Folk
Christian folk is a strand of faith-centered songcraft that marries the acoustic intimacy and storytelling of the folk revival with explicitly Christian themes. It typically features fingerpicked or gently strummed acoustic guitars, simple diatonic harmonies, close vocal harmonies, and narrative lyrics that paraphrase Scripture, recount testimonies, or offer prayerful reflection. Unlike arena-oriented contemporary worship, Christian folk tends to be quieter, lyric-forward, and rooted in the singer‑songwriter tradition, often suitable for small gatherings, living rooms, or contemplative church settings.
Greenwich Village Scene
The Greenwich Village scene refers to the acoustic folk- and blues-centered singer‑songwriter movement that coalesced in the coffeehouses, clubs, and streets of Greenwich Village in New York City during the late 1950s and especially the early to mid‑1960s. Rather than a single strict musical genre, it was a fertile urban hub where traditional American folk, country blues, and topical songwriting converged. Artists favored intimate, lyric‑driven songs performed with acoustic guitar, unadorned vocals, and occasional harmonica, emphasizing storytelling, social commentary, and a direct connection with audiences. The scene’s clubs—Gerde’s Folk City, the Gaslight Café, Café Wha?, and Café Au Go Go—nurtured emerging writers who transformed folk traditions into contemporary protest, confessional, and narrative songs, laying the groundwork for the modern singer‑songwriter and the rise of folk rock.
Newgrass
Newgrass (often synonymous with progressive bluegrass) is a modern, exploratory branch of bluegrass that blends the acoustic virtuosity and ensemble interplay of traditional bluegrass with the harmony, rhythm, and songcraft of rock, folk, and jazz. Typical newgrass ensembles keep the bluegrass core—mandolin, banjo, fiddle, acoustic guitar, and bass—while freely adding Dobro, percussion/drum set, piano, and occasional electric instruments. The style favors extended solos, odd meters, sophisticated harmonies, and reinterpretations of non-bluegrass repertoire alongside original songwriting. The spirit of newgrass is adventurous and improvisational: players stretch traditional forms, use complex chord colors and modal harmony, and treat arrangements as living frameworks for creative interplay.
Women's Music Movement
The women's music movement is a feminist-centered current within folk, singer‑songwriter, and community-based music that emerged in the United States during the 1970s. It foregrounds women’s voices, lesbian visibility, and social justice, often operating through artist-run labels, collectives, and women-only or women-led performance spaces. Musically, it draws on acoustic folk, gospel-inflected harmonies, and intimate storytelling, while thematically emphasizing empowerment, consciousness-raising, and everyday experiences of women. The movement’s DIY ethos fostered a parallel music infrastructure—from recording and engineering to distribution and festivals—that aimed to model equitable cultural production and audience spaces.
Acoustic Country
Acoustic country is country music performed primarily on acoustic instruments, emphasizing intimate, unadorned arrangements and narrative songwriting. It favors guitars, fiddles, banjo, mandolin, upright bass, and dobro over electrified or heavily produced sounds. The style ranges from front‑porch ballads and waltzes to toe‑tapping two‑steps, but the common thread is clear, warm timbres, close vocal harmony, and lyrics grounded in everyday life, love, loss, and place. Compared with country-pop or arena-oriented styles, acoustic country aims for honesty, space, and dynamics, letting the singer and song take center stage.
Folk Pop
Folk pop is a commercially friendly blend of traditional folk sensibilities and modern pop songwriting. It preserves the acoustic instrumentation, close harmonies, and storytelling of folk while adopting pop structures, memorable hooks, and radio-ready production. The genre is marked by clear vocals, singalong choruses, and warm, organic textures built around acoustic guitar, light percussion, and sometimes banjo, mandolin, or strings. Lyrically it is personal and narrative-driven, often touching on love, memory, place, and everyday life in a direct and relatable way.
British Folk
British folk is the modern revival and continuation of traditional song and dance music from England, Scotland, Wales, and associated islands. It centers on narrative ballads, dance tunes, and communal singing traditions, refreshed in the mid‑20th century by collectors, performers, and folk clubs. Characterized by modal melodies, unaccompanied or sparsely accompanied vocals, and acoustic instrumentation (guitar, fiddle, concertina, melodeon), British folk emphasizes storytelling drawn from history, work, and everyday life. Contemporary practitioners often blend archival repertoire with new compositions that retain traditional forms, dialects, and ornamentation. While it overlaps with Celtic and English regional traditions, “British folk” usually denotes the post‑1950s revival scene that codified repertoire, performance practice, and a club-based culture, and later intersected with folk‑rock, singer‑songwriter, and experimental “wyrd folk” currents.
Shaker Music
Shaker music is the sacred song tradition of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (the Shakers), a communal Christian movement that flourished in the United States from the late 18th to the 19th century. Characterized by simple, singable melodies, mostly unison (monophonic) textures, and clear, devotional texts, Shaker songs were created for worship that often included ecstatic movement and communal dancing. Many are strophic, diatonic, and frequently pentatonic or modal (often Mixolydian), with refrains designed for congregational participation. The repertoire includes lively “dance songs,” work-like “laboring songs,” and visionary “gift songs” believed to be received through spiritual inspiration. Although largely a cappella, performances commonly incorporate body percussion (hand-clapping, foot-treading) and coordinated motions, reinforcing the music’s communal and devotional purpose.
Traditional Country
Traditional country is a roots-oriented branch of country music that preserves the acoustic timbres, plainspoken storytelling, and danceable rhythms of early "hillbilly" and honky-tonk styles. It favors fiddles, acoustic and steel guitars, upright bass, and modest percussion, with melodies and harmonies grounded in Anglo-American folk, gospel, and blues. Songs typically revolve around everyday life—love, heartbreak, faith, work, and small-town or rural experience—delivered with an unadorned, emotive vocal style. As a practice and ethos, traditional country resists pop sheen and elaborate production, emphasizing live ensemble interplay, two-step and waltz feels, and concise verse–chorus forms. Its sound is closely associated with the Grand Ole Opry era, barn-dance radio, and mid‑century jukebox honky-tonks.
German Singer-Songwriter
German singer-songwriter (often called Liedermacher) is a lyric‑driven tradition centered on intimate vocal delivery and acoustic accompaniment, typically guitar or piano. Songs foreground storytelling, social observation, and personal reflection over virtuosity or elaborate production. The style draws from folk and cabaret idioms: strophic song forms, clear diction, witty or poetic wordplay, and a strong performer–audience connection. While some artists emphasize political critique and satire, others favor introspective, tender narratives about everyday life, love, and memory.
Pre-War Blues
Pre-war blues refers to the acoustic, largely rural and early urban blues recorded and performed in the United States before World War II, roughly from the early 1920s through the late 1930s. It encompasses several regional styles—most notably Delta (Mississippi), Piedmont (Southeast), Texas, Memphis, and St. Louis blues—as well as the "classic" female blues of the vaudeville and theater circuits, which featured powerful vocalists accompanied by small jazz ensembles. Hallmarks include expressive, melismatic singing, bent or "blue" notes, call-and-response between voice and instrument, slide guitar, ragtime-derived fingerpicking, and strophic verses often in an AAB lyrical pattern over 12-bar or related blues forms. Lyrically, pre-war blues chronicles everyday life—work, migration, love, faith, injustice, and resilience—with a vivid mixture of poetry, metaphor, and lived detail. The sound world is intimate and direct, shaped by solo or small-ensemble performances captured to 78 rpm discs, and it provided the foundational vocabulary for later blues, R&B, rock and roll, and much of American popular music.
Country Singer-Songwriter
Country singer-songwriter is a narrative-focused branch of country music centered on artists who write and perform their own songs. It blends the plainspoken storytelling and twang of traditional country with the introspection and craft of the broader singer-songwriter movement. Arrangements are typically acoustic-forward and organic—acoustic guitar, fiddle, pedal steel, piano, and understated rhythm sections—leaving space for lyrics about place, love, loss, work, faith, and memory. Melodies favor major and pentatonic contours, while harmonies lean on simple progressions that spotlight the voice and story. The style emerged from Nashville’s writing rooms and Texas folk circuits, matured with the 1970s outlaw ethos, and later fed into Americana and alt‑country, maintaining an emphasis on authenticity, regional detail, and songwriter identity.
American Folk Revival
American folk revival is a mid-20th-century movement that brought traditional American songs, ballads, and rural styles into mainstream consciousness. Centered on acoustic performance, close vocal harmony, and community sing‑alongs ("hootenannies"), the revival emphasized authenticity, plainspoken storytelling, and topical lyrics connected to labor organizing, civil rights, and peace movements. Its repertoire drew from Appalachian ballads, spirituals, blues, work songs, old-time fiddle tunes, and early country, while coffeehouse and campus circuits in places like Greenwich Village and Cambridge nurtured a new generation of performers. The sound is typically intimate and unadorned—voice, acoustic guitar, banjo, and occasionally fiddle, mandolin, or upright bass—designed to foreground lyrics, lineage, and participation.
Lds
LDS is sacred and devotional music associated with members and institutions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It spans traditional hymnody, large-scale choir-and-orchestra works, and contemporary pop/folk worship songs that emphasize faith in Jesus Christ, family, missionary service, and personal devotion. Stylistically, it blends 19th‑century Anglo-American hymn traditions and Western classical choral writing with modern adult-contemporary and singer‑songwriter sensibilities. Production ranges from reverent, text‑forward piano/strings ballads to expansive, cinematic choral/orchestral recordings, often created for meetings, broadcasts, and cultural events.
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