Liner Notes
Cat. No. 80236
Release Date: 1977-01-01
Going Down the Valley: Vocal and Instrumental Styles in Folk Music from the South
New World 80236
The history of vernacular music in the United States is the chronicle of successive encounters between the various diverse cultural elements of this so-called melting pot. In particular, it is the story of the encounters between the Anglo-American tradition and the Afro-American. Almost every new musical form since the Civil War—vaudeville, ragtime, jazz, rock and roll—owes a debt to both heritages, with the Afro-American legacy generally the predominant one. Music thus achieves more peaceably what other manifestations of culture have struggled over violently: integration. But while the music may play to a beat insensitive to the drums of conflict, the musicians themselves, alas, do not always do the same.
Some hillbilly musicians openly acknowledged their debts to black musicians; others denied vehemently any possible influence, even when the musical evidence for it was ineluctable. Through the 1930s the record industry itself of course promoted total musical segregation. Separate categories were allocated to “hillbilly” on the one hand and “race” or “blues” music on the other. (There were also, at the same time, separate series devoted to other ethnic enclaves in the United States: recordings made by and for Yiddish-speaking Americans of the Northern cities, for Finnish- Americans in Michigan, for Polish-Americans in the Midwest, for French-speaking Cajuns of Louisiana, and so on.) The different series were advertised separately and marketed separately, in accord with the socio-economic facts of life of a still largely segregated United States. But whereas the record series were either black or white, and the performing groups were either black or white, the music itself was both black and white and somewhere in between. This blending becomes apparent in the recounting of the backgrounds of the principal musical instruments of the string band.
New World 80236
The history of vernacular music in the United States is the chronicle of successive encounters between the various diverse cultural elements of this so-called melting pot. In particular, it is the story of the encounters between the Anglo-American tradition and the Afro-American. Almost every new musical form since the Civil War—vaudeville, ragtime, jazz, rock and roll—owes a debt to both heritages, with the Afro-American legacy generally the predominant one. Music thus achieves more peaceably what other manifestations of culture have struggled over violently: integration. But while the music may play to a beat insensitive to the drums of conflict, the musicians themselves, alas, do not always do the same.
Some hillbilly musicians openly acknowledged their debts to black musicians; others denied vehemently any possible influence, even when the musical evidence for it was ineluctable. Through the 1930s the record industry itself of course promoted total musical segregation. Separate categories were allocated to “hillbilly” on the one hand and “race” or “blues” music on the other. (There were also, at the same time, separate series devoted to other ethnic enclaves in the United States: recordings made by and for Yiddish-speaking Americans of the Northern cities, for Finnish- Americans in Michigan, for Polish-Americans in the Midwest, for French-speaking Cajuns of Louisiana, and so on.) The different series were advertised separately and marketed separately, in accord with the socio-economic facts of life of a still largely segregated United States. But whereas the record series were either black or white, and the performing groups were either black or white, the music itself was both black and white and somewhere in between. This blending becomes apparent in the recounting of the backgrounds of the principal musical instruments of the string band.
Going Down the Valley: Vocal and Instrumental Styles in Folk Music from the South
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