Yesterday we fawned over the fiddle. Today, let’s marvel at the mandolin. Though the mandolin, Italy’s regional variant of the ancient and widespread lute, started to appear in the United States as early as the 1850s, many Italian immigrants brought their mandolins with them when they immigrated to America in the 1880s. At the turn of the 20th century the mandolin was a familiar Vaudeville instrument, and also became popular among the middle class youth on college campuses and in towns throughout the South, though inthe ’30s and ’40s bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe, who you can see tearin’ it up in this video, was the first mandolin virtuoso to take the instrument to the country music-loving masses.
Tag Archives | Folk
Fantastic Fiddlin’
Folk music was formed by fiddles. English and Irish immigrants brought their fiddles with them when they came to “the Colonies,” and as early as the mid 1700s you’d be hard pressed to find an American folk ensemble without one. “The fiddle” was always a bit less reputable than its classical cousin, “the violin”–in fact, the two instruments are exactly the same, the only difference is the approach of the musician. American fiddle players diverged from their European and even their Canadian fellows as they picked up African-American phrasing and syncopation. Watch this 2003 performance of “Orange Blossom Special” by Vassar Clements and the Del McCoury Band for an example of great country/folk fiddlin’.
Early “folk” was early “blues”
In the early days of genres we now know as folk and blues, much of the difference between the genres lay not in the themes of the songs or the way singers used songs to express their struggles, but in the race of the singer. The first recordings of American folk and blues music became widely available in the 1920s — enjoy the Mamie Smith hit, “Crazy Blues.” Folk records essentially fell into two camps: “race recordings,” which was the term for records featuring African-American musicians, marketed primarily to African-Americans (though musically-aware whites did seek them out), and “hillbilly music,” which was music performed by Appalachian whites, and marketed to a mainly white audience.
Going Way Back to Find Folk
This week we’re going to focus on some of the earliest American folk music — folk/blues, folk/country and old time. The term “folk music” is so very vague; basically it could refer to any music folks from a particular place make, concerning pretty much any topic, created by the “folks” who live there. In America, early “folks” who settled (the already-settled) “New World” came from many places, including European countries such as England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany, and, usually unwillingly, Africa. Life in America was far from easy for any of the colonists, let alone for their African slaves. These folks sang about their struggles as a way to share them. They sang about their struggles as a way to survive.
