TEACH HISTORY THROUGH MUSIC
AMERICAN CULTURE MAKERS
Character Education
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.TEACH AMERICAN HISTORY THROUGH MUSIC:
the conjunction of 'routes' and 'roots' as cultural metaphors
State Standards 8th Grade History
Evaluate your own State Standards 8th grade history in comparison with the one listed here for California it says, 8.4 Students analyze the aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation. Discuss daily life, including traditions in art, music, and literature, of early national America.
FOLKLORE STANDARDS
American Culture and our Music Makers
The folk travel and bring their music with them. Folkmusic is culture. It contains the stories, and memories of the the people. Culture owns their identity expressed through their music.
- First Nation Tribal Music 1890-1933 HISTORIC TIME LINE
1890 -- Jesse Walter Fewkes records the Passamaquoddy Indians off the coast of Maine. This is the first field use of the newly-invented recording machine. - Ojibwe Scrolls Come Full Circle
The letter -- a report from a historical society that had sought interpretation from Ojibwe medicine men -- said the scrolls depicted ceremonial songs "concerning the most fundamental laws and needs of the [Ojibwe] people."
- Roots of Shanty Songs
- Origins of Nursery Rhymes and Play Party Stories
Children's oral history - playground rhymes found in newspapers from the 1800's. - Playground Game Songs Tell the Old Timey Stories of Life Today
Children's oral history - collect examples of playground rhymes found in our culture today. - ORIGINS OF GOSPEL MUSIC STORY
Willie Ruff, an Afro-American professor of music at Yale, was adamant - he had traced the to Scotland. - Roots of Sacred Harp Shape Note Singing Story
Hymnody, Psalmody, Gospel - American Folk Music Roots
Dr. Alan Jabbour Appalachian Fiddle Workshop explains where US folk music comes from.
Alan Jabbour (Fiddle) speaking about the history of "Daddy Rock the Babies to Sleep" mentions that it started out as an Irish lament.
Song and Story find more Music in the Digital Library of Appalachia.
- In 1965, the Journal of American Folklore published "Hillbilly Music: Source & Symbol," by librarian and folklorist Archie Green. Part 3 Riley Puckett and Gid Tanner March 7-8, In 1924 Puckett sang and also yodeled "Rock All Our Babies to Sleep," introducing a technique that was destined to longevity in country music.
History of the word Hillbilly [2] Origins of Hillbilly Music Story
"What brought this figure to the surface of print and speech from Georgia to the Ozarks at the turn of the century? We do not know; nor do we have any acceptable etymology for the word. One possible clue on origin might be found in a pair of Scottish colloquialisms, hill-folk and billie. The former was deprecatory, for it designated a refractory Presbyterian – a Cameronian – a rebel against Charles II. Scots hill-folk and hill-men in 1693 were noted for zeal, devotion, and prudence in seeking isolation away from their rejected monarch's rule. Billie was used in Scots dialect as early as 1505 as a synonym for fellow, companion, comrade, or mate. The words hill and billie might well have been combined in the Highlands before the first austere Cameronian took refuge in the piney uplands of the New World. Historical speculation aside, we know the word in print only from 1900 and only as an Americanism."
Hear the actual original Hillbilly music and Early Country Singers recorded in 1920's a narrarated story. More about Crocked Road
The Fries wayside audio.
First Family of Country Music the Carter Family - Wildwood Flower
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More by Carter Family
 American Whiskey Trail |
Origins of Hillbilly Music Story Roots of Moonshine Whiskey Rebellion - Amber Waves of Grain. Whiskey Rebellion 1790's all about the Amber Waves of Grain. The Whiskey Rebellion was a popular uprising that had its beginnings in 1791 and culminated in an insurrection in 1794 in the locality of Washington, Pennsylvania, in the Monongahela Valley. |
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Why Does the Cowboy Sing - Starts off with Ramblin Jack Elliott 58 minutes
The cowboy's job has always been dangerous, lonely, dusty, gory and low-paying. So why do cowboys make music, and why do they need to tell their story? Why the Cowboy Sings is a journey across the open West to explore this unique genre of folk art. Archie Green Helped to collect the information The Moonshiner
Drinking song by Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makum The Dubliners
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It was started by Irish Society of United Irishmen who resisted the excise tax on liquor and distilled drinks. This tax had been proposed by United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, passed by Congress, and signed into law by President Washington.
Background Whiskey Rebellion Story
"Run Johnny Run" Pennsylvania songwriter Jimmy Driftwood wrote this 1950s rocker about the stubborn Scotch-Irish whiskey-producing farmers of western Pennsylvania aka Westsylvania who refused to pay a whiskey tax levied by President George Washington. The predominance of the federal government was enforced for the first time when Washington sent 15,000 troops to quell the rebellion.
"Copper Kettle" is another 1950s song about the Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s. The rebels fled south and became the ancestors of moonshine.
"The Whiskey Insurrection, or Rebellion, is probably the most under-studied event in American history. Although some very good books have been written on the subject, it remains an enigma in the minds of most Americans. High School students, if they study it at all, are usually told that the rebellion was started by ignorant farmers to protest a federal excise tax on their Whiskey, and there is a great amount of truth in it. But like the "Civil War" some 70 years later, the excise tax was but one of several inflammatory causes of the rebellion. Other factors were the new government’s seeming inability to deal with raiding Indians, navigation rights on the Spanish controlled Ohio river, and the desire of some western Pennsylvanians to create a new State – or Republic – called Westsylvania. And while George Washington concentrated his tax enforcement efforts in western Pennsylvania, the protest encompassed a much larger territory, extending as far South as Georgia, and west into Kentucky."[1] The Allegheny Mountains are primarily in Pennsylvania. aka: Pennsylappalachiavania [Humor]
- Woodville Plantation, the John and Presley Neville House (Bridgeville, PA) A National Historic Landmark, the Woodville Plantation was deemed "a temple of hospitality" -- the home of a general, a former commandant of Fort Pitt, a man of wealth and education. As collector of the new and hated federal excise tax on whiskey, John Neville was a major target in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.
- West Overton Museum (Scottdale, PA)
West Overton is the only pre-Civil War village still intact today in Pennsylvania. It was named to the National Register of Historic Districts in 1985 as an outstanding example of a 19th century rural industrial village complete with farm, two floors of the Overholt Mill/Distillery, industrial tools, Blacksmith Shop, a wash house and a smokehouse. - The Oliver Miller Homestead (Allegheny Countys South Park, PA)
Oliver Miller Homestead is a pioneer landmark and Whiskey Rebellion Site in Allegheny Countys South Park Pennsylvania. This old stone farmhouse nestled among the trees, is a sturdy remnant of frontier days.
The suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion encouraged small whiskey producers to relocate to Kentucky and Tennessee, which remained outside the sphere of Federal control for many more years. In these frontier areas, they also found good corn-growing country as well as limestone-filtered water and therefore began making whiskey from corn.
[2] Aug. 9 Gazette of the United States and Daily Evening Advertiser ("G. Washington" handwritten at the top) Proclamation from George Washington that “whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed… it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia of such state to suppress such combinations and to cause the law to be duly executed.”
Oct. 29 Gazette of the United States & Daily Evening Advertiser (Philadelphia) Letter from President Washington ordering Commander Henry Lee to Western Pennsylvania to put down Whiskey Rebellion
Irish American Stephen Foster - America's Troubadour
The family belonged to the pioneer aristocracy of Pittsburgh. The father, William Barcly, had come there in I796, when the future city was little more than a settlement. Born September 7, I779, in Berkeley County, Virginia, he was the third son of James Foster, himself the eldest son of Alexander Foster, an emigrant from Londonderry, Ireland, who settled in-Little Britain Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, about I728.
James Foster, Stephen's grandfather, served in the Revolutionary War, and was present at the surrender of Cornwallis. Shortly after the war he settled near Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, nineteen miles from Pittsburgh. When he died at his daughter's home in Poland, Ohio, April 7, I814, James left a substantial inheritance to his children. His wife, William's mother, was Ann Barclay, a relative of the Barclays and Rowans of Kentucky, the kin who figure so prominently in the Kentucky episodes of Stephen Foster's life. Judge John Rowan, at one time a United States Senator, was the owner of Federal Hill, the homestead at Bardstown, Kentucky, now maintained by the State as "My Old Kentucky Home." We shall examine the claims in behalf of this "shrine" later. William Barclay Foster deserves a biography for himself alone. Previous accounts of Stephen's life have told of his father, and have painted pictures of him that are faithful as far as they go, but they present only one aspect of his many-sided nature. His son, Morrison Foster, in his biography of Stephen,' shows his father as the man of substance he actually was at one time; the public-spirited patriot who dipped into his own pocket to help equip the troops and boats in the War of I8I2, who donated a burying ground for soldiers. /snip/
In 1851 Foster wrote his most famous song, Old Folks at Home. As first written it began, "Way down upon the Pedee River." Not liking the name Pedee, the writer went to his brother's house, and the two men searched the map of the United States until they found the name Suwanee, the name of a little river in Florida. Stephen, delighted, ran home to cross out Pedee and write Swanee instead. Foster never saw the river that he made famous. The song too was first published as being written by another man, this man having paid the author for the privilege of having it published as his own. During the next four years Foster wrote Massa's in de Cold, Cold Ground, Old Dog Tray, Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair, Hard Times Come Again No More and Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming. All of these became popular and are still sung. By the time of the Civil War, the the Bowery had given way to brothels, beer gardens, and flophouses, like the one at #15 in which the composer Stephen Foster lived in 1864. Stephen Foster died with .38 cents in his pocket.
THE IRISH / SCOTTISH CONNECTION STORY explains the origins of word JAZZ and Yippie Yi Yo Git along Little Doogie.
Philadelphia Mummers and Irish Wassail Story
The Culture of Honor History - Bryan Palmer article explains the connections between charivari, rough music and forerunners of the KKK in American Southern history in a Canadian journal called Labour.
Etymology of Hillbilly and Race Terms of Music Story
Archie Green's excellent JAF article, Hillbilly Music: Source and Symbol contains the etymology of the word Hillbilly and Race Music. and Ralph S. Peer of Okeh records originated the terms ‘Hillbilly' and ‘Race' as applied to the record business. Music editor Abel Green the first writer, to combine hillbilly and music in print, but he went to the heart of show business's exploitation of the new product. Earl Scruggs said hillbilly music, is called bluegrass now.
"During 1940, 1 had served in the Civilian Conservation Corps at a road camp in California’s Siskiyou Mountains. Our Forest Service foreman, Lawrence Roberts — my first “Indian” teacher — taught raw city boys to work cooperatively and to read nature’s signs. At that time, I did not know that Alfred Kroeber at Berkeley had pointed anthropology students to the Klamath River to gather Yurok and Karok tribal lore from Roberts’ kin. I could not know in 1940 that decades might elapse before Kroeber’s precepts also guided my actions."
[What Do Folklorists Do?]
The American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress will honor the exemplary career of the "dean of laborlore," Archie Green. Beginning in the post-war years, Green's seminal investigations into the expressive cultural traditions of a broad range of working communities -- miners, tinsmiths, textile workers, railroad workers, coal miners, and cowboys -- influenced a generation of scholarship on occupational culture and working life. He is a noted labor historian, union organizer, shipwright and also emeritus university professor of Folklore and English.
ETYMOLOGY OF THE ROOTS OF BOOGIE WOOGIE
Sister Rosetta Tharpe is credited with being the bridge between Boogie Woogie & County to Rock and Roll is [more]
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Etymology of Rock 'n Roll
Archie Green, author of Only a Miner, which was published by University of Illinois Press in 1972 has argued that rock 'n' roll goes back to the rhythmic exchanges between the hammer man and his shaker, who held the drill and rolled it between blows.
John Henry fought the machine, won the battle, and died with a hammer in his hand, building the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in the 1870s toward the hard mountains on the Virginia-West Virginia. The song most likely took shape in the 1870s or 1880s, probably first as a hammer song, which railroad tunnelers used to pace themselves as they bored through solid rock. (Work Song)
Roots of Rap Find Ameria's First Rap Song 1861 Roger Abrahams explains Signifying, Toasts, Griots, The Sporting Life, Oral Tradition, Hip Hop, The Dozens, Vaudevillian bawdy songs, dialect humour, minstrel patter, Calypso Kings and Queens.
Etymology of the Roots of Raggae explained by Toots Hibbert.