The Complex History of Folk Music, Old Time Music, and Race in America: A Resource List
The history of folk music in America is extremely complex and entwined with the deep racism against black and African American people that has existed throughout this country’s past. At the Ministry of Folk, we wanted to learn more about the history of the music that feeds popular folk music traditions in America today, like Old Time music, and how race has played a role. We reached out to our community as well as music historian and banjo player Tony Thomas to gather useful resources on this topic.
The resources below are a few that were recommended to us and that we found during our research, but they are just a small window into the wealth of information and scholarship available. We hope you check these out and explore on your own as well.
A special thank you to Tony Thomas, MFA, for his input. Thank you also to Lauren Rioux, Richard Osban, Tatiana Hargreaves, Sharon Muenchow, and Ingrid Hojem for their suggestions. And finally, thanks to our friends at Old Time Central whose blog post on the topic served as inspiration for this post.
Please reach out to us at ministryoffolk@gmail.com if you have additional recommendations!
Podcasts/Radio
“Breaking Down the Legacy of Race in Traditional Music in America”
NPR reporter Sophia Alvarez Boyd interviewed Old Time musician Jake Blount for the special series “America Reckons with Racial Injustice.” Check out the story for an introduction to the racial history of American traditional music.
Listen to the show here.
Listen to Jake Blount’s latest album, Spider Tales, and his album, Pretty Little Mister, with Libby Weitnauer under the duo name Tui, which both draw on tunes carefully sourced from the lost voices of Black and Indigenous music.
Episode 3 of 1619: “The Birth of American Music”
How Blackface Minstrelsy formed the backbone of American music. In the podcast, New York Times critic Wesley Morris reflects on how American music was born as a “mix of an imagined blackness, real actual Irish melodies, and Polish music, with what we would now call gospel […] interlaced together with this African banjo. Basically welding into a fusion that becomes the thing that everybody wants to try to do.” This is a must-listen.
Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Decolonizing the Music Room
The organization Decolonizing the Music Room has a great list of resources for music educators looking to develop “critical practices through research, training and discourse to build a more equitable future.” They have a long list of podcasts that you can check out here.
Videos
Afro Caribbean Roots of the Banjo with Tony Thomas
This is a multi-part YouTube series in which banjo player Tom Collins has a conversation with music scholar Tony Thomas on the history of the banjo and banjo playing. Watch the first interview here.
Articles
“Dinah Put Down Your Horn: Blackface Minstrel Songs Don’t Belong in Music Class”
By Dr. Katya Ermolaeva
This article is an eye-opening look at the deep effects of the racist practice of Minstrelsy on American music and culture, and argues that songs with roots in Blackface Minstrelsy (and these include many well-known songs) should be removed from children’s music curriculums.
Read the article here.
“‘You Might Be Left With Silence When You’re Done:’ The White Fear of Taking Racist Songs Out of Music Education”
By Martin Urbach
A related look at songs with racist roots that have been sung in classrooms for decades and the importance of white teachers prioritizing the comfort and safety of their students over their fears of setting aside commonly known songs.
Read it here. See here for a crowdsourced list of racist songs.
“Rhiannon Giddens and What Folk Music Means”
By John Jeremiah Sullivan
A detailed look at Rhiannon Giddens’ journey to reclaim the music of Black stringbands and fiddlers whose music has nearly been lost through America’s racist past. This article explores the stories of some of the African American fiddlers whose music was so influential in the early 1800s, whose presence was actively unremembered, and whose playing and compositions are now being revived by musicians like Giddens.
Read it here.
“The (Mis)Representation of African American Music: The Role of the Fiddle”
By Jaqueline Cogdell Djedje
How the music of African Americans has been misrepresented in ways that emphasize jazz music and spirituals and erase the prominence of black fiddle playing. While many black fiddlers were playing music during the early 1900s, they were rarely recorded due to few living in urban areas where recordings were taking place, black fiddling being considered an outdated form of music, and fiddling being claimed as a tradition of white culture.
Books
Hidden in the Mix: the African American Presence in Country Music
Edited by Diane Pecknold
This book may say “country music” in its title, but it also contains a lot of information about the history of Old Time music and the role of black and African American musicians. In particular, check out Patrick Huber’s essay “Black Hillbillies: African American Musicians on Old-Time Records, 1924-1932” and Tony Thomas’ essay “Why African Americans Put the Banjo Down.”
Read on here.
Linthead Stomp: the Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South
By Patrick Huber
This book provides a comprehensive history of country music and discusses the history of old time music as well, including the influence of African American music and musicians.
You can purchase the book here.
