For us in the US, Folk Music has been Peter Paul and Mary, Joan Baez Kingston Trio or similar artists and perhaps Appalachian mountain music.  Of course this is a part of folk, some of what you will meet on the roads you would travel. But that is a road most people have been over and we will look at some of the others.

I guess here I should begin with our own culture of Folk in the US and perhaps later I can go down that some of those other roads, and eventually to the rest of the world.

Last year I was moderating a workshop at the FAR-West Regional Folk Alliance Conference in Vancouver Washington. The workshops title “Getting in Touch With the Roots” One of the panelist spoke of how presently we have forgotten that in the Mid 1800’s the majority of those in the US were illiterate and that history was passed down orally, through storytelling and song.  Each singer would add his own touch to what he sung, perhaps a different lyric or set of lyrics, a different arrangement but none the less a story or tall tale within the song or in the case of a story teller a version of that storytellers own making.

Music was meant to be shared and more often than not sung as well as played together.  Many songs were generations old and had changed over time, often where they may no longer resemble the original rendition. The music was a living thing.

Rosalie Sorrels, one of the other panelists who I will write more of later, mentioned that one such song is “The Unfortunate Rake” which roots are over 1,500 years old.  The history of the song could easily take an entire long chapter in a book on Folk Music alone. Over the more recent period of time, 200 years, it has been heard as “The Bad Girls Lament”, “The Soldier Cut Down in His Prime”, The Young Sailer Cut Down in His Prime", “Gamblers Blues”, “A Sun Valley Song” and perhaps best known as the blues song first popularized by Cab Callaway, “Saint James Infirmary”  and even later Marty Robbins, “Streets of Laredo”.  Here we have an example of a song that has been a traditional British Isle Folk Song, becoming a Mountain Music Folk Song, a Blues standard and a Country song.  This is the Folk Process and I will write of that later as well.

In the 1800’s the Minstrel Shows with all black minstrel bands were popular. The music of Slaves had inspired American Folk Music even into the City’s and the Appalachians. From that influence came America’s first published popular songwriter, Steven Foster. Many of his songs are still sung today and one I have heard often attributed to Dylan as it sounds as if he could have written it, “Hard Times”.

Steven Foster over the next 150 years leaves a huge shadow of influence over contemporary music. His influence is so imbedded that many are not aware of just how large this shadow is cast.

There were far more who would never receive recognition except in their local communities. In Folk Music much of it was not considered important enough to reach the halls of academia until the 20^th century and much of the Folk Process did not mean transcribed music and this was before recordings.

Next, we take another road, not sure which nor where we will go but pack your lunch, we may purposely get lost, a good thing if you are chasing down this “Common Music for Uncommon People” road.