The Rise of a Native American Balladry

The Rise of a Native American Balladry

First, it will be necessary to review some important points. In the

early days (1600-1770s), importation/adaptation was the dominant process.

British songs and ballads were adapted to the frontier experience,

Victorian morality and Puritan ethics. Songs which contained subject

matter which was completely irrelevant to the frontier or unacceptable to

moral and ethical standards were either discarded altogether, new lyrics

were added to old melodies, or lyrical changes were made. (Remember, there

were no copyright laws at that time). However, even from the beginning,

original folk creations began to take their place alongside the traditional

ballads.

While some strong similarities to the traditional patterns my be

observed, some important differences emerge. Compared with British ballads,

American ballads placed more emphasis on vocal harmony and instrumentation

(except in the mountain regions where women seldom played instruments).

The American ballads were more journalistic (Wolfe, in Carr, 1979:4),

that is, they paid much more attention to names (Tom Dula, Sally Goodin,

Omie Wise, Floyd Collins), dates (of train wrecks, floods, wars, mining

disasters) and place. They were certainly more moralistic - in keeping with

the Puritan moral code. Art for art's sake was considered frivolous, e.g.,

"fiddling around." The idle mind is the devil's workshop, therefore

frivolity is also probably sinful. These attitudes were very pervasive

and were instilled in generations of American youth through McGuffey's

Reader, Poor Richard's Almanac and popular literature such as Hawthorne's

Scarlet...

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...r is an instrument of Spanish origin and would

likely have been transported to the new world by Spanish colonists.

However, the guitar was in the American colonies during the colonial

period. Malone is probably correct in his assertion that the guitar was

rather late in coming into the southern musical tradition; however, once

introduced it soon became the dominant instrument. Again, the

Sears-Roebuck mail order catalog was one of the major sources for the

guitar.

Works Cited:

Carr, Patrick (ed). The Illustrated History of Country Music. Garden

City: Doubleday, 1979.

Lomax, Alan. "Folk Song Style," The American Anthropologist 61:926-955.

Malone, Bill C. Country Music USA: Fifty Year History. Austin:

University of Texas Press, 1985.

Nettl, Bruno. An Introduction to Folk Music in the United States,

l960).