29 July 2008
Early Music of the American South
Folk traditions shape influential regional musics
(The following is excerpted from the U.S. Department of State publication, American Popular Music.)
The terms race and hillbilly were used by the American music industry from the early 1920s until the late 1940s to classify and advertise southern music. “Race records” were recordings of performances by African-American musicians produced mainly for sale to African-American listeners. “Hillbilly” or “old-time” music, on the other hand, was performed by, and mainly intended for sale to, southern whites. Although there were some exceptions, the music industry in general reflected patterns of segregation more widespread in American society. Paradoxically, these records were also one of the main means by which music flowed across the boundaries of race.
Although a clear distinction was drawn between race music and hillbilly music – each of which comprised dozens of specific styles – the two had a number of important features in common. Both bodies of music originated mainly in the American South and were rooted in long-standing folk music traditions. As they entered the mass marketplace, both blended these older rural musical styles with aspects of national popular culture, including the minstrel show, vaudeville, and the musical forms, poetic themes, and performance styles of Tin Pan Alley pop. Race music and hillbilly music both grew out of the music industry’s efforts to develop alternative markets during a national decline in record sales and were disseminated across the country by new media – including electric recording, radio, and sound film – and by the process of urban migration, which affected the lives of millions of rural Americans during the 1920s and 1930s. And both bodies of music provided the basis for forms of popular music that emerged after World War II (rhythm & blues, country and western, and rock ’n’ roll), extending their appeal across regional and, in the end, international boundaries.
[Excerpted from American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3 by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman, published by Oxford University Press, copyright (2003, 2007), and offered in an abridged edition by the Bureau of International Information Programs.]
