119-498: James Corbitt Morris (June 20, 1907 – July 12, 1998), known professionally as Jimmy Driftwood or Jimmie Driftwood , was an American folk music songwriter and musician, most famous for his songs " The Battle of New Orleans " and " Tennessee Stud ". Driftwood wrote more than 6,000 folk songs , of which more than 300 were recorded by various musicians. Driftwood was born in Timbo , Arkansas , United States on June 20, 1907. His father
238-652: A Grammy Award . Cash was last arrested in 1967 in Walker County, Georgia , after police found he was carrying a bag of prescription pills when in a car accident. Cash attempted to bribe a local deputy, who turned the money down. He was jailed for the night in LaFayette, Georgia . Sheriff Ralph Jones released him after giving him a long talk, warning him about the danger of his behavior and wasted potential. Cash credited that experience with helping him turn around and save his life. He later returned to LaFayette to play
357-482: A chuigushou . Ensembles consisting of mouth organs ( sheng ), shawms ( suona ), flutes ( dizi ) and percussion instruments (especially yunluo gongs ) are popular in northern villages; their music is descended from the imperial temple music of Beijing, Xi'an , Wutai shan and Tianjin . Xi'an drum music, consisting of wind and percussive instruments, is popular around Xi'an, and has received some commercial popularity outside of China. Another important instrument
476-430: A melody , often with repeating sections , and usually played a number of times. A collection of tunes with structural similarities is known as a tune-family . America's Musical Landscape says "the most common form for tunes in folk music is AABB, also known as binary form ." In some traditions, tunes may be strung together in medleys or " sets ." Throughout most of human history, listening to recorded music
595-584: A musicologist for the National Geographic Society . During his later life Driftwood enjoyed performing free concerts for high school and college students. He died of a heart attack on July 12, 1998, in Fayetteville , Arkansas, at age 91. †Honorary former member; was scheduled to be invited, but died before the invitation was extended Folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and
714-619: A pipa , as well as other traditional instruments. The music is generally sorrowful and typically deals with love-stricken people. Further south, in Shantou , Hakka and Chaozhou , zheng ensembles are popular. Sizhu ensembles use flutes and bowed or plucked string instruments to make harmonious and melodious music that has become popular in the West among some listeners. These are popular in Nanjing and Hangzhou , as well as elsewhere along
833-512: A "Traditional music" category that subsequently evolved into others. The term "folk", by the start of the 21st century, could cover singer-songwriters, such as Donovan from Scotland and American Bob Dylan , who emerged in the 1960s and much more. This completed a process to where "folk music" no longer meant only traditional folk music. Traditional folk music often includes sung words , although folk instrumental music occurs commonly in dance music traditions. Narrative verse looms large in
952-680: A backlog of recordings with Sun that Phillips continued to release new singles and albums featuring previously unreleased material until as late as 1964. Cash was in the unusual position of having new releases out on two labels concurrently. Sun's 1960 release, a cover of " Oh Lonesome Me ", made it to number 13 on the C&;W charts. Early in his career, Cash was given the teasing nickname "the Undertaker" by fellow artists because of his habit of wearing black clothes. He said he chose them because they were easier to keep looking clean on long tours. In
1071-427: A benefit concert; it attracted 12,000 people (the city population was less than 9,000 at the time) and raised $ 75,000 for the high school. Reflecting on his past in a 1997 interview, Cash noted: "I was taking the pills for awhile, and then the pills started taking me." June, Maybelle, and Ezra Carter moved into Cash's mansion for a month to help him get off drugs. Cash proposed onstage to June on February 22, 1968, at
1190-809: A book was published about it, leading to a re-recording of the songs by contemporary artists and the making of a documentary film about Cash's efforts with the album. This film was aired on PBS in February and November 2016. His Sings the Ballads of the True West (1965) was an experimental double record, mixing authentic frontier songs with Cash's spoken narration. Reaching a low with his severe drug addiction and destructive behavior, Cash and his first wife divorced after having separated in 1962. Some venues cancelled his performances, but he continued to find success. In 1967, Cash's duet with June Carter, " Jackson ", won
1309-401: A class dynamic to popular understandings of American folk music. This was the final element of the foundation upon which the early folk music revivalists constructed their own view of Americanism. Sandburg's working-class Americans joined with the ethnically , racially , and regionally diverse citizens that other scholars, public intellectuals, and folklorists celebrated their own definitions of
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#17327988102941428-861: A concert at the London Gardens in London, Ontario, Canada. The couple married a week later (on March 1) in Franklin, Kentucky . She had agreed to marry Cash after he had "cleaned up." Cash's journey included rediscovery of his Christian faith. He took an " altar call " in Evangel Temple, a small church in the Nashville area, pastored by Reverend Jimmie Rodgers Snow, son of country music legend Hank Snow . According to Marshall Grant , though, Cash did not completely stop using amphetamines in 1968; and did not fully end drug use for another two years. He
1547-419: A cultural dichotomy , the other side of which is found not only in the lower layers of feudal, capitalist and some oriental societies but also in 'primitive' societies and in parts of 'popular cultures'". One widely used definition is simply "Folk music is what the people sing." For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók , there was a sense of the music of the country as distinct from that of
1666-570: A distinctive scar on the right side of his jaw as a result of surgery to remove a cyst . Soon after his return, Cash married Vivian Liberto in San Antonio. She had grown up Catholic and was married in the church by her paternal uncle, Father Franco Liberto. In 1954, Cash and his first wife Vivian moved to Memphis, Tennessee . He sold appliances while studying to be a radio announcer. At night, he played with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant . Perkins and Grant were known as
1785-503: A fire to stay warm and, under the influence of drugs, failed to notice the fire getting out of control. When the judge asked Cash why he did it, Cash said, "I didn't do it, my truck did, and it's dead, so you can't question it." The fire destroyed 508 acres (206 ha), burned the foliage off three mountains and drove off 49 of the refuge's 53 endangered California condors . Cash was unrepentant and said, "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards." The federal government sued him and
1904-587: A great body of English rural traditional song, music and dance, under the aegis of what became and remains the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). Sharp campaigned with some success to have English traditional songs (in his own heavily edited and expurgated versions) to be taught to school children in hopes of reviving and prolonging the popularity of those songs. Throughout the 1960s and early to mid-1970s, American scholar Bertrand Harris Bronson published an exhaustive four-volume collection of
2023-776: A guest on the television game show, To Tell The Truth . For a time during the 1960s, Driftwood toured the United States and Europe with the Preservation Hall New Orleans jazz band, although as a separate act. Back home, he became a folklorist , establishing the Rackensack Folklore Society, an association of local folk singers and musicians, and began performing at the local county fair in Mountain View . Driftwood became interested in promoting Arkansas folk music and
2142-531: A letter as an advertisement in Billboard , calling the record industry cowardly: "D.J.s – station managers – owners [...] where are your guts? I had to fight back when I realized that so many stations are afraid of Ira Hayes. Just one question: WHY??? Ira Hayes is strong medicine [...] So is Rochester, Harlem, Birmingham and Vietnam." Cash kept promoting the song and persuaded disc jockeys he knew to play it. The song eventually reached number three on
2261-741: A local Arkansas radio station. Decades later, he released an album of traditional gospel songs called My Mother's Hymn Book . He was also strongly influenced by traditional Irish music , which he heard performed weekly by Dennis Day on the Jack Benny radio program. Cash enlisted in the Air Force on July 7, 1950, shortly after the start of the Korean War . After basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and technical training at Brooks Air Force Base , both in San Antonio, Texas , Cash
2380-416: A local song contest. In 1936, Driftwood married Cleda Johnson, who was one of his former students, and returned to Arkansas to raise a family and resume his teaching career. During this period of his life Driftwood wrote hundreds of songs but did not pursue a musical career seriously. He wrote his later famous " Battle of New Orleans " in 1936, to help a high school class he was teaching become interested in
2499-399: A lower class" in culturally and socially stratified societies. In these terms, folk music may be seen as part of a "schema comprising four musical types: 'primitive' or 'tribal'; 'elite' or 'art'; 'folk'; and 'popular'." Music in this genre is also often called traditional music. Although the term is usually only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre. For example,
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#17327988102942618-404: A particular interest in folklore. Carl Sandburg often traveled the U.S. as a writer and a poet. He also collected songs in his travels and, in 1927, published them in the book The American Songbag . Rachel Donaldson, a historian who worked for Vanderbilt, later stated this about The American Songbird in her analysis of the folk music revival. "In his collections of folk songs, Sandburg added
2737-401: A people's folklore , or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles . The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached
2856-453: A pleasant, distinctive, resonant sound. Driftwood attended John Brown College in northwest Arkansas and later received a degree in education from Arkansas State Teacher's College . He started writing songs during his teaching career to teach his students history in an entertaining manner. During the 1920s and 1930s, Driftwood left Arkansas, eventually hitchhiking through the southwestern United States. In Arizona he entered, and won,
2975-695: A possible better system, through the lens of the Great Depression. Woody Guthrie exemplifies songwriters and artists with such an outlook. Folk music festivals proliferated during the 1930s. President Franklin Roosevelt was a fan of folk music, hosted folk concerts at the White House , and often patronized folk festivals. One prominent festival was Sarah Gertrude Knott 's National Folk Festival , established in St. Louis, Missouri in 1934. Under
3094-621: A reference to beautiful women, while in the past they were notorious for their erotic content. The village "mountain songs" ( shan'ge ) of Jiangsu province were also well known for their amorous themes. Other regional song traditions include the "strummed lyrics" ( tanci ) of the Lower Yangtze Delta, the Cantonese Wooden Fish tradition ( muyu or muk-yu ) and the Drum Songs ( guci ) of north China. In
3213-553: A revolutionary tool to preserve vanishing musical forms. The earliest American folk music scholars were with the American Folklore Society (AFS), which emerged in the late 1800s. Their studies expanded to include Native American music , but still treated folk music as a historical item preserved in isolated societies as well. In North America, during the 1930s and 1940s, the Library of Congress worked through
3332-399: A successful country artist). He was primarily of English and Scottish descent. His paternal grandmother claimed Cherokee ancestry. But a DNA test of Cash's daughter Rosanne in 2021 on Finding Your Roots , hosted by historian Henry Louis Gates Jr , found she has no known Native American markers. The researchers found Rosanne Cash has 3.3% Sub-Saharan African DNA, and they found
3451-927: A trademark all-black stage wardrobe, which earned him the nickname " Man in Black ". Born to poor cotton farmers in Kingsland, Arkansas , Cash grew up on gospel music and played on a local radio station in high school. He served four years in the Air Force , much of it in West Germany. After his return to the United States, he rose to fame during the mid-1950s in the burgeoning rockabilly scene in Memphis, Tennessee . He traditionally began his concerts by introducing himself with "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash". He began to follow that by " Folsom Prison Blues ", one of his signature songs . His other signature songs include " I Walk
3570-567: A traditional song would undergo a process of improvement akin to biological natural selection : only those new variants that were the most appealing to ordinary singers would be picked up by others and transmitted onward in time. Thus, over time we would expect each traditional song to become more aesthetically appealing, due to incremental community improvement. Literary interest in the popular ballad form dates back at least to Thomas Percy and William Wordsworth . English Elizabethan and Stuart composers had often evolved their music from folk themes,
3689-434: A tragic or regretful nature, prominently figures in many folk traditions. Nursery rhymes , children's songs and nonsense verse used to amuse or quiet children also are frequent subjects of traditional songs. Music transmitted by word of mouth through a community, in time, develops many variants, since this transmission cannot produce word-for-word and note-for-note accuracy. In addition, folk singers may choose to modify
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3808-464: A zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times, but the term folk music has typically not been applied to the new music created during those revivals. This type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock , folk metal , and others. While contemporary folk music
3927-507: Is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, in U.S. English it shares the same name, and it often shares the same performers and venues as traditional folk music. The terms folk music , folk song , and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions. They are extensions of the term folklore , which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe "the traditions, customs, and superstitions of
4046-408: Is an ancient folk song from India, a country of Asia, of Meiteis of Manipur , that is an example of Asian folk music, and how they put it into its own genre. Archaeological discoveries date Chinese folk music back 7000 years; it is largely based on the pentatonic scale . Han traditional weddings and funerals usually include a form of oboe called a suona , and apercussive ensembles called
4165-530: Is generally no "authoritative" version of song. Researchers in traditional songs have encountered countless versions of the Barbara Allen ballad throughout the English-speaking world, and these versions often differ greatly from each other. The original is not known; many versions can lay an equal claim to authenticity. Influential folklorist Cecil Sharp felt that these competing variants of
4284-685: Is one of the best-selling music artists of all time , having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. His genre-spanning music embraced country , rock and roll , rockabilly , blues , folk , and gospel sounds. This crossover appeal earned him the rare honor of being inducted into the Country Music , Rock and Roll , and Gospel Music Halls of Fame. Cash was born J. R. Cash in Kingsland, Arkansas , on February 26, 1932, to Carrie Cloveree ( née Rivers) and Ray Cash. He had three older siblings, Roy, Margaret Louise, and Jack, and three younger siblings, Reba, Joanne, and Tommy (who also became
4403-402: Is the sheng , a type of Chinese pipe , an ancient instrument that is ancestor of all Western free reed instruments, such as the accordion . Parades led by Western-type brass bands are common, often competing in volume with a shawm/chuigushou band. In southern Fujian and Taiwan , Nanyin or Nanguan is a genre of traditional ballads. They are sung by a woman accompanied by a xiao and
4522-672: Is the provenance of the American Folklife Center" at the library of Congress. Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a different history from Sub-Saharan African music traditions . The music and dance forms of the African diaspora , including African American music and many Caribbean genres like soca , calypso and Zouk ; and Latin American music genres like
4641-631: The Grand Ole Opry , Ozark Jubilee , and Louisiana Hayride . He was invited to sing for Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as an example of traditional American music during the leader's 1959 state visit to the United States. He became a member of the Opry in the 1950s. The popular peak of Driftwood's career came in 1959, when he had no fewer than six songs on the popular and country music charts, including Johnny Horton's recording of his "The Battle of New Orleans", which remained in first place on
4760-467: The Grammy Award previously used the terms "traditional music" and "traditional folk" for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. Folk music may include most indigenous music . From a historical perspective, traditional folk music had these characteristics: As a side-effect, the following characteristics are sometimes present: In folk music, a tune is a short instrumental piece ,
4879-573: The Great Depression under the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt . It was intended to give poor families the opportunity to work land that they might later own. From the age of five, Cash worked in cotton fields with his family, singing with them as they worked. Dyess and the Cash farm suffered a flood during his childhood. Later he wrote the song " Five Feet High and Rising ". His family's economic and personal struggles during
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4998-408: The Great Depression . Regionalism and cultural pluralism grew as influences and themes. During this time folk music began to become enmeshed with political and social activism themes and movements. Two related developments were the U.S. Communist Party's interest in folk music as a way to reach and influence Americans, and politically active prominent folk musicians and scholars seeing communism as
5117-752: The PRC . Folk songs have been recorded since ancient times in China. The term Yuefu was used for a broad range of songs such as ballads, laments, folk songs, love songs, and songs performed at court. China is a vast country, with a multiplicity of linguistic and geographic regions. Folk songs are categorized by geographic region, language type, ethnicity, social function (e.g. work song, ritual song, courting song) and musical type. Modern anthologies collected by Chinese folklorists distinguish between traditional songs, revolutionary songs, and newly invented songs. The songs of northwest China are known as "flower songs" ( hua'er ),
5236-574: The Tennessee Two . Cash worked up the courage to visit the Sun Records studio, hoping to get a recording contract. He auditioned for Sam Phillips by singing mostly gospel songs, only to learn from the producer that he no longer recorded gospel music. Phillips was rumored to have told Cash to "go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell". In a 2002 interview, Cash denied that Phillips made any such comment. Cash eventually won over
5355-481: The Traditional 18 Dances display the dancing of birds and animals. For example: Musical types include: The classical Sinhalese orchestra consists of five categories of instruments, but among the percussion instruments, the drum is essential for dance. The vibrant beat of the rhythm of the drums form the basic of the dance. The dancers' feet bounce off the floor and they leap and swirl in patterns that reflect
5474-805: The United States Forest Service . He recorded the song still heard in the orientation film in the visitor center. Driftwood was appointed to direct the Arkansas Parks and Tourism Commission for his environmental efforts. He was also named to the Advisory Committee of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.. Due to his extensive knowledge of folk music he was appointed as
5593-432: The contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival . Some types of folk music may be called world music . Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with
5712-439: The samba , Cuban rumba , salsa ; and other clave (rhythm) -based genres, were founded to varying degrees on the music of enslaved Africans , which has in turn influenced African popular music . Many Asian civilizations distinguish between art /court/classical styles and "folk" music. For example, the late Alam Lohar is an example of a South Asian singer who was classified as a folk singer. Khunung Eshei/Khuland Eshei
5831-432: The American folk, definitions that the folk revivalists used in constructing their own understanding of American folk music, and an overarching American identity". Prior to the 1930s, the study of folk music was primarily the province of scholars and collectors. The 1930s saw the beginnings of larger scale themes, commonalities, and linkages in folk music developing in the populace and practitioners as well, often related to
5950-575: The Association for Cultural Equity, is "distinct from the thousands of earlier recordings on acetate and aluminum discs he made from 1933 to 1942 under the auspices of the Library of Congress. This earlier collection—which includes the famous Jelly Roll Morton, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Muddy Waters sessions, as well as Lomax's prodigious collections made in Haiti and Eastern Kentucky (1937) —
6069-471: The Great Depression gave him a lifelong sympathy for the poor and working class, and inspired many of his songs. In 1944, Cash's older brother Jack, with whom he was close, was cut almost in two by an unguarded table saw at work. He died of his wounds a week later. According to Cash's autobiography, he, his mother, and Jack all had a sense of foreboding about that day; his mother urged Jack to skip work and go fishing with Cash, but Jack insisted on working as
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#17327988102946188-679: The Line , he recorded the aforementioned album Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian . The album featured stories of a multitude of Indigenous peoples, emphasizing their violent oppression by white settlers: the Pima people ("The Ballad of Ira Hayes "), Navajo ("Navajo"), Apache ("Apache Tears"), Lakota ("Big Foot"), Seneca ("As Long as the Grass Shall Grow"), and Cherokee ("The Talking Leaves"). Cash wrote three of
6307-595: The Line ", " Ring of Fire ", " Get Rhythm ", and " Man in Black ". He also recorded humorous numbers like " One Piece at a Time " and " A Boy Named Sue ", a duet with his future wife June called " Jackson " (followed by many further duets after they married), and railroad songs such as " Hey, Porter ", " Orange Blossom Special ", and " Rock Island Line ". During the last stage of his career, he covered songs by contemporary rock artists; among his most notable covers were " Hurt " by Nine Inch Nails , " Rusty Cage " by Soundgarden , and " Personal Jesus " by Depeche Mode . Cash
6426-875: The Loma Linda Behavioral Medicine Center in Loma Linda, California , for his final rehabilitation treatment. (Several months later, his son followed him into this facility for treatment.) In the late 1950s Cash began performing concerts at prisons. He played his first notable prison concert on January 1, 1958, at San Quentin State Prison in California. These performances were recorded live, and released on highly successful albums: Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968) and Johnny Cash at San Quentin (1969). Both live albums reached number one on Billboard country album music and
6545-549: The Sub-Saharan African DNA comes from both maternal and paternal sides of Cash's family. Researchers traced the Sub-Saharan African DNA to Rosanne's enslaved maternal African ancestors: her "third great grand-mother" Sarah A. Shields and Shields' mother, who could have been of "full African descent." Gates also informed Cash that the researchers traced Sub-Saharan African DNA to "an unknown African ancestor on your father's [Johnny's] side." After meeting with
6664-435: The U.S. government. Many non-Native Americans did not address those topics in their music. In 1965, Cash and June Carter appeared on Pete Seeger 's TV show, Rainbow Quest , on which Cash explained his start as an activist for Native Americans: In '57, I wrote a song called "Old Apache Squaw" and then forgot the so-called Indian protest for a while, but nobody else seemed to speak up with any volume of voice. Columbia Music,
6783-477: The basis for the song "Starkville City Jail". He discussed this on his live At San Quentin album.) While on tour later that year, he was arrested October 4 in El Paso, Texas , by a narcotics squad. The officers suspected he was smuggling heroin from Mexico, but found instead 688 Dexedrine capsules (amphetamines) and 475 Equanil (sedatives or tranquilizers) tablets hidden inside his guitar case. Because
6902-465: The classical suite was based upon stylised folk-dances, and Joseph Haydn 's use of folk melodies is noted. But the emergence of the term "folk" coincided with an "outburst of national feeling all over Europe" that was particularly strong at the edges of Europe, where national identity was most asserted. Nationalist composers emerged in Central Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, Spain and Britain:
7021-460: The complex rhythms of the drum beat. This drum beat may seem simple on the first hearing but it takes a long time to master the intricate rhythms and variations, which the drummer sometimes can bring to a crescendo of intensity. There are six common types of drums falling within 3 styles (one-faced, two-faced, and flat-faced): Other instruments include: Johnny Cash John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash ; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003)
7140-502: The country charts and entering the top 20 on the pop charts. It was originally performed by June Carter 's sister, but the signature mariachi -style horn arrangement was provided by Cash. He said that it had come to him in a dream. His first wife Vivian (Liberto) Cash claimed a different version of the origins of "Ring of Fire". In her book, I Walked the Line: My Life with Johnny (2007), Liberto says that Cash gave Carter half
7259-733: The country music singles chart for ten weeks, and atop the popular music chart for six weeks that year. The song won the 1959 Grammy Award for Song of the Year . After Horton's success, Driftwood performed at Carnegie Hall and at major American folk music festivals before returning home to Timbo, Arkansas in 1962. During his recording career Driftwood also won Grammy Awards for Wilderness Road , Songs of Billy Yank and Johnny Reb and Tennessee Stud . Driftwood songs were recorded by Eddy Arnold , Johnny Cash , Hawkshaw Hawkins , Homer and Jethro (the parody "The Battle of Kookamonga"), Odetta , Doc Watson and others. In 1959, Driftwood appeared as
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#17327988102947378-552: The country top five. His " I Walk the Line " became number one on the country charts and entered the pop charts top 20. " Home of the Blues " followed, recorded in July 1957. That same year, Cash became the first Sun artist to release a long-playing album . Although he was Sun's most consistently selling and prolific artist at that time, Cash felt constrained by his contract with the small label. Phillips did not want Cash to record gospel and
7497-480: The early 1960s, Cash toured with the Carter Family, which by this time regularly included Mother Maybelle 's daughters, Anita , June, and Helen . June later recalled admiring him from afar during these tours. In the 1960s, he appeared on Pete Seeger 's short-lived television series Rainbow Quest . He also acted in, and wrote and sang the opening theme for, a 1961 film entitled Five Minutes to Live . It
7616-546: The elements of nature, and have been enjoyed and developed in the Buddhist environment. The music is of several types and uses only a few types of instruments. The folk songs and poems were used in social gatherings to work together. The Indian influenced classical music has grown to be unique. The traditional drama, music and songs of Sinhala Light Music are typically Sri Lankan. The temple paintings and carvings feature birds, elephants, wild animals, flowers, and trees, and
7735-481: The end of the 1930s these and others had turned American folk music into a social movement. Sometimes folk musicians became scholars and advocates themselves. For example, Jean Ritchie (1922–2015) was the youngest child of a large family from Viper, Kentucky that had preserved many of the old Appalachian traditional songs. Ritchie, living in a time when the Appalachians had opened up to outside influence,
7854-488: The event. In the 1950s, he changed his name to Jimmy Driftwood, both publicly and legally. In 1957, a Nashville, Tennessee song publisher learned of Driftwood, auditioned him, and signed him to his first record deal. Driftwood recalled playing some 100 of his songs in one day, of which 20 were chosen to be recorded. Driftwood's first album, Newly Discovered Early American Folk Songs , received good reviews but did not sell particularly well. "The Battle of New Orleans"
7973-523: The family needed the money. Cash often spoke of the guilt he felt over the incident. He would say that he looked forward to "meeting [his] brother in Heaven". Cash's early memories were dominated by gospel music and radio. Taught guitar by his mother and a childhood friend, Cash began playing and writing songs at the age of 12. When young, Cash had a high-tenor voice, before becoming a bass-baritone after his voice changed . In high school, he sang on
8092-434: The label for which Cash was recording then, was opposed to putting the song on his next album, considering it "too radical for the public". Cash singing songs of Indian tragedy and settler violence went radically against the mainstream of country music in the 1950s, which was dominated by the image of the righteous cowboy who makes the native's soil his own. In 1964, coming off the chart success of his previous album I Walk
8211-399: The laborers who sing them to coordinate their efforts in accordance with the rhythms of the songs. They are frequently, but not invariably, composed. In the American armed forces , a lively oral tradition preserves jody calls ("Duckworth chants") which are sung while soldiers are on the march. Professional sailors made similar use of a large body of sea shanties . Love poetry , often of
8330-563: The last 20 years of his life working on an Interactive Multimedia educational computer project he called the Global Jukebox , which included 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes , and 5,000 photographs. As of March 2012, this has been accomplished. Approximately 17,400 of Lomax's recordings from 1946 and later have been made available free online. This material from Alan Lomax's independent archive, begun in 1946, which has been digitized and offered by
8449-515: The latter crossed over to reach the top of the Billboard pop album chart. In 1969, Cash became an international hit when he eclipsed even The Beatles by selling 6.5 million albums. In comparison, the prison concerts were much more successful than his later live albums such as Strawberry Cake recorded in London and Live at Madison Square Garden , which peaked at numbers 33 and 39 on the album charts, respectively. The Folsom Prison record
8568-554: The local folk performers he knew in the area. He invited members of the Mountain View community to perform at a festival of his own devising. First held on April 19 and 20 of 1963, this festival grew over the years, and transformed into the annual Arkansas Folk Festival which would attract more than 100,000 people. Driftwood helped establish the Ozark Folk Center to preserve Ozark Mountain culture. The Folk Center
8687-408: The loss of traditional music is slowed in nations or regions where traditional folk music is a badge of cultural or national identity. Much of what is known about folk music prior to the development of audio recording technology in the 19th century comes from fieldwork and writings of scholars, collectors and proponents. Starting in the 19th century, academics and amateur scholars, taking note of
8806-457: The modern movie Songcatcher . One strong theme amongst folk scholars in the early decades of the 20th century was regionalism , the analysis of the diversity of folk music (and related cultures) based on regions of the US rather than based on a given song's historical roots. Later, a dynamic of class and circumstances was added to this. The most prominent regionalists were literary figures with
8925-567: The music of Dvořák , Smetana , Grieg , Rimsky-Korsakov , Brahms , Liszt , de Falla , Wagner , Sibelius , Vaughan Williams , Bartók , and many others drew upon folk melodies. While the loss of traditional folk music in the face of the rise of popular music is a worldwide phenomenon, it is not one occurring at a uniform rate throughout the world. The process is most advanced "where industrialization and commercialisation of culture are most advanced" but also occurs more gradually even in settings of lower technological advancement. However,
9044-591: The musical traditions being lost, initiated various efforts to preserve the music of the people. One such effort was the collection by Francis James Child in the late 19th century of the texts of over three hundred ballads in the English and Scots traditions (called the Child Ballads ), some of which predated the 16th century. Contemporaneously with Child, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould and later Cecil Sharp worked to preserve
9163-408: The offices of traditional music collectors Robert Winslow Gordon , Alan Lomax and others to capture as much North American field material as possible. John Lomax (the father of Alan Lomax) was the first prominent scholar to study distinctly American folk music such as that of cowboys and southern blacks. His first major published work was in 1911, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads . and
9282-705: The other. In the proliferation of popular music genres, some traditional folk music became also referred to as " World music " or "Roots music". The English term " folklore ", to describe traditional folk music and dance, entered the vocabulary of many continental European nations, each of which had its folk-song collectors and revivalists. The distinction between "authentic" folk and national and popular song in general has always been loose, particularly in America and Germany – for example, popular songwriters such as Stephen Foster could be termed "folk" in America. The International Folk Music Council definition allows that
9401-805: The outcomes of battles or lament tragedies or natural disasters . Sometimes, as in the triumphant Song of Deborah found in the Biblical Book of Judges , these songs celebrate victory. Laments for lost battles and wars, and the lives lost in them, are equally prominent in many traditions; these laments keep alive the cause for which the battle was fought. The narratives of traditional songs often also remember folk heroes such as John Henry or Robin Hood . Some traditional song narratives recall supernatural events or mysterious deaths. Hymns and other forms of religious music are often of traditional and unknown origin. Western musical notation
9520-449: The pace of many activities such as planting , weeding , reaping , threshing , weaving , and milling . In leisure time , singing and playing musical instruments were common forms of entertainment and history-telling—even more common than today when electrically enabled technologies and widespread literacy make other forms of entertainment and information-sharing competitive. Some believe that folk music originated as art music that
9639-558: The pills were prescription drugs rather than illegal narcotics, Cash received a suspended sentence . He posted a $ 1,500 bond and was released until his arraignment. In this period of the mid-1960s, Cash released a number of concept albums . His Bitter Tears (1964) was devoted to spoken word and songs addressing the plight of Native Americans and mistreatment by the government. While initially reaching charts, this album met with resistance from some fans and radio stations, which rejected its controversial take on social issues. In 2011,
9758-400: The preservation of songs as artifacts of deceased cultures. "Functional" folklorists (e.g. Botkin and Alan Lomax) maintained that songs only retain relevance when used by those cultures which retain the traditions which birthed those songs. "Left-wing" folk revivalists (e.g. Charles Seeger and Lawrence Gellert) emphasized music's role "in 'people's' struggles for social and political rights". By
9877-409: The producer with new songs delivered in his early rockabilly style. In 1955, Cash made his first recordings at Sun, " Hey Porter " and " Cry! Cry! Cry! ", which were released in late June and met with success on the country hit parade . On December 4, 1956, Elvis Presley dropped in on Phillips while Carl Perkins was in the studio cutting new tracks, with Jerry Lee Lewis backing him on piano. Cash
9996-461: The songs himself and one with the help of Johnny Horton . The majority of these protest songs were written by folk artist Peter La Farge (son of Oliver La Farge , an activist and Pulitzer prizewinner). Cash met the younger La Farge in New York in the 1960s and admired him for his activism. The album's single, " The Ballad of Ira Hayes " was generally not played by commercial radio. ( Ira Hayes
10115-471: The songs they hear. For example, around 1970 the song Mullā Mohammed Jān spread from Herat to the rest of Afghanistan , and Iran where it was recorded. Due to its repetitive refrain and the predictability of the second half of each verse, it allowed for both its popularization, and for each singer to create their own version of the song without being overly-concerned for a melody or restrictive poetic rhythm. Because variants proliferate naturally, there
10234-488: The songwriting credit for monetary reasons. In June 1965, Cash's camper caught fire during a fishing trip with his nephew Damon Fielder in Los Padres National Forest in California. It set off a forest fire that burned several hundred acres and nearly caused his death. Cash claimed that the fire was caused by sparks from a defective exhaust system on his camper, but Fielder thought that Cash started
10353-497: The southern Yangtze area. Jiangnan Sizhu (silk and bamboo music from Jiangnan ) is a style of instrumental music, often played by amateur musicians in tea houses in Shanghai. Guangdong Music or Cantonese Music is instrumental music from Guangzhou and surrounding areas. The music from this region influenced Yueju (Cantonese Opera) music, which would later grow popular during the self-described "Golden Age" of China under
10472-584: The sponsorship of the Washington Post , the festival was held in Washington, DC at Constitution Hall from 1937 to 1942. The folk music movement, festivals, and the wartime effort were seen as forces for social goods such as democracy, cultural pluralism, and the removal of culture and race-based barriers. The American folk music revivalists of the 1930s approached folk music in different ways. Three primary schools of thought emerged: "Traditionalists" (e.g. Sarah Gertrude Knott and John Lomax ) emphasized
10591-565: The term "folk music": newly composed songs, fixed in form and by known authors, which imitated some form of traditional music. The popularity of "contemporary folk" recordings caused the appearance of the category "Folk" in the Grammy Awards of 1959; in 1970 the term was dropped in favor of "Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording (including Traditional Blues)", while 1987 brought a distinction between "Best Traditional Folk Recording" and "Best Contemporary Folk Recording". After that, they had
10710-490: The term can also apply to music that, "...has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten, living tradition of a community. But the term does not cover a song, dance, or tune that has been taken over ready-made and remains unchanged." The post– World War II folk revival in America and in Britain started a new genre, Contemporary Folk Music , and brought an additional meaning to
10829-602: The term folk music should be used. Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of "old songs, with no known composers," another is that of music that has been submitted to an evolutionary "process of oral transmission ... the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character." Such definitions depend upon "(cultural) processes rather than abstract musical types...", upon " continuity and oral transmission ...seen as characterizing one side of
10948-947: The texts of 217,996 Latvian folk songs, the Latvju dainas . In Norway the work of collectors such as Ludvig Mathias Lindeman was extensively used by Edvard Grieg in his Lyric Pieces for piano and in other works, which became immensely popular. Around this time, composers of classical music developed a strong interest in collecting traditional songs, and a number of composers carried out their own field work on traditional music. These included Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams in England and Béla Bartók in Hungary. These composers, like many of their predecessors, both made arrangements of folk songs and incorporated traditional material into original classical compositions. The advent of audio recording technology provided folklorists with
11067-553: The then- laird of Falkland in Fife , Major Michael Crichton-Stuart, Cash became interested in his Scots ancestry. He traced his Scottish surname to 11th-century Fife. Cash Loch and other locations in Fife bear the surname of his father. He is a distant cousin of British Conservative politician Sir William Cash . He also had English ancestry. Because his mother wanted to name him John and his father preferred to name him Ray when he
11186-530: The then-known variations of both the texts and tunes associated with what came to be known as the Child Canon. He also advanced some significant theories concerning the workings of oral-aural tradition. Similar activity was also under way in other countries. One of the most extensive was perhaps the work done in Riga by Krisjanis Barons , who between the years 1894 and 1915 published six volumes that included
11305-484: The town. Folk music was already, "...seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear (or in some cases, to be preserved or somehow revived)," particularly in "a community uninfluenced by art music" and by commercial and printed song. Lloyd rejected this in favor of a simple distinction of economic class yet for him, true folk music was, in Charles Seeger 's words, "associated with
11424-478: The traditional folk music of many cultures. This encompasses such forms as traditional epic poetry , much of which was meant originally for oral performance, sometimes accompanied by instruments. Many epic poems of various cultures were pieced together from shorter pieces of traditional narrative verse, which explains their episodic structure, repetitive elements, and their frequent in medias res plot developments. Other forms of traditional narrative verse relate
11543-658: The twenty-first century many cherished Chinese folk songs have been inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity . In the process, songs once seen as vulgar are now being reconstructed as romantic courtship songs. Regional song competitions, popular in many communities, have promoted professional folk singing as a career, with some individual folk singers having gained national prominence. The art, music and dance of Sri Lanka derive from
11662-526: The uncultured classes". The term further derives from the German expression Volk , in the sense of "the people as a whole" as applied to popular and national music by Johann Gottfried Herder and the German Romantics over half a century earlier. Though it is understood that folk music is the music of the people, observers find a more precise definition to be elusive. Some do not even agree that
11781-610: Was a Native American who was one of the six soldiers featured in a photo raising the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima during World War II.) The record label denied it promotion due to what it considered a provocative and "unappealing" nature. Cash faced resistance and was urged by an editor of a country music magazine to leave the Country Music Association , who said: "You and your crowd are just too intelligent to associate with plain country folks, country artists, and country DJs." In reaction, on August 22, 1964, Cash posted
11900-500: Was also in the studio, and the four started an impromptu jam session . Phillips left the tapes running and the recordings, almost half of which were gospel songs, survived. They have since been released under the title Million Dollar Quartet . In Cash: the Autobiography , Cash wrote that he was the farthest from the microphone and sang in a higher pitch to blend in with Elvis. Cash's next record, "Folsom Prison Blues", made
12019-546: Was an American singer-songwriter. Most of Cash's music contains themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially songs from the later stages of his career. He was known for his deep, calm, bass-baritone voice, the distinctive sound of his backing band, the Tennessee Three , that was characterized by its train-like chugging guitar rhythms, a rebelliousness coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor, and his free prison concerts. Cash wore
12138-538: Was arguably the most prominent US folk music scholar of his time, notably during the beginnings of the folk music revival in the 1930s and early 1940s. Cecil Sharp also worked in America, recording the traditional songs of the Appalachian Mountains in 1916–1918 in collaboration with Maud Karpeles and Olive Dame Campbell and is considered the first major scholar covering American folk music. Campbell and Sharp are represented under other names by actors in
12257-467: Was assigned to the 12th Radio Squadron Mobile of the U.S. Air Force Security Service at Landsberg , West Germany . While in San Antonio, he met Vivian Liberto , an attractive girl of Sicilian, Irish and German ancestry. They dated briefly before his departure. During the years he served overseas, they exchanged thousands of letters. He worked in West Germany as a Morse code operator, intercepting Soviet Army transmissions. While working this job, Cash
12376-476: Was awarded $ 125,172. Cash eventually settled the case and paid $ 82,001. Although Cash cultivated a romantic outlaw image, he never served a prison sentence. Despite landing in jail seven times for misdemeanors , he was held only one night each time. On May 11, 1965, he was arrested in Starkville, Mississippi , for trespassing late at night onto private property to pick flowers. (He used this incident as
12495-465: Was born, they compromised on the initials "J. R." But when Cash enlisted in the Air Force after high school, he was not permitted to use initials as a first name. He adopted the name "John R. Cash". In 1955, when signing with Sun Records , he started using the name "Johnny Cash". In March 1935, when Cash was three years old, the family settled in Dyess, Arkansas , a New Deal colony established during
12614-424: Was changed and probably debased by oral transmission while reflecting the character of the society that produced it. In many societies, especially preliterate ones, the cultural transmission of folk music requires learning by ear , although notation has evolved in some cultures. Different cultures may have different notions concerning a division between "folk" music on the one hand and of "art" and "court" music on
12733-420: Was deeply addicted to amphetamines. Cash would use the stimulants to stay awake during tours. Friends joked about his "nervousness" and erratic behavior, many ignoring the warning signs of his worsening drug addiction . Although he was in many ways spiraling out of control, Cash could still deliver hits due to his frenetic creativity. His rendition of " Ring of Fire " was a crossover hit, reaching number one on
12852-646: Was drug-free for a period of seven years. In his memoir about time with Cash, Grant said that the birth of Cash's son, John Carter Cash , inspired the singer to end his dependence. Cash began using amphetamines again in 1977. By 1983, he was deeply addicted again. He entered rehab at the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage for treatment. He stayed off drugs for several years, but relapsed. In 1989, he entered Nashville's Cumberland Heights Alcohol and Drug Treatment Center. In 1992, he started care at
12971-457: Was folk singer Neal Morris. He is on the album Songs of the Ozarks. Driftwood learned to play the guitar at a young age on his grandfather's homemade instrument. Driftwood used that unique guitar throughout his career and noted that its neck was made from a fence rail, its sides from an old ox yoke, and the head and bottom from the headboard of his grandmother's bed. This homemade instrument produced
13090-572: Was included on the album, but did not conform to the radio standards of the time because of the words " hell " and " damn " in the lyrics. Driftwood said that at the time those words could be preached but not sung in secular contexts for broadcast. Driftwood was asked to make a shorter censored version of the song for a live radio performance. Singer Johnny Horton , after hearing the song, contacted Driftwood and told him that he wished to record his own version. Driftwood left Arkansas for Nashville and became popular by his appearances on programs including
13209-532: Was introduced by a rendition of his "Folsom Prison Blues", while the San Quentin record included the crossover hit single " A Boy Named Sue ", a Shel Silverstein novelty song that reached number one on the country charts and number two on the U.S. top-10 pop charts. In 1972 Cash performed at the Österåker Prison in Sweden. The live album På Österåker ( At Österåker ) was released in 1973. "San Quentin"
13328-659: Was later absorbed into the Arkansas State Park system and remains a popular tourist destination. Driftwood became involved with environmental issues when the United States Army Corps of Engineers planned to dam the Buffalo River . He worked to defeat the plan, which ultimately resulted in the establishment of Buffalo National River . Driftwood had a major role in preserving Blanchard Springs Caverns which later came under management of
13447-488: Was later re-released as Door-to-door Maniac . Cash's career was handled by Saul Holiff , a London, Ontario , promoter. Their relationship was the subject of Saul's son's biopic My Father and the Man in Black . As his career was taking off in the late 1950s, Cash started drinking heavily and became addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates . For a brief time, he shared an apartment in Nashville with Waylon Jennings , who
13566-405: Was not possible. Music was made by common people during both their work and leisure, as well as during religious activities. The work of economic production was often manual and communal. Manual labor often included singing by the workers, which served several practical purposes. It reduced the boredom of repetitive tasks, it kept the rhythm during synchronized pushes and pulls, and it set
13685-411: Was originally created to preserve the lines of Gregorian chant , which before its invention was taught as an oral tradition in monastic communities. Traditional songs such as Green grow the rushes, O present religious lore in a mnemonic form, as do Western Christmas carols and similar traditional songs. Work songs frequently feature call and response structures and are designed to enable
13804-445: Was paying him a 3% royalty rather than the standard rate of 5%. Presley had already left Sun, and Cash felt that Phillips was focusing most of his attention and promotion on Lewis. In 1958, Cash left Phillips to sign a lucrative offer with Columbia Records . His single " Don't Take Your Guns to Town " became one of his biggest hits. He recorded a collection of gospel songs for his second album for Columbia. However, Cash left behind such
13923-494: Was recorded with Cash replacing "San Quentin" with "Österåker". In 1976, a concert at Tennessee State Prison was videotaped for TV broadcast. It was posthumously released after Cash's death as a CD entitled A Concert Behind Prison Walls . Cash used his stardom and economic status to bring awareness to the issues surrounding the Native American people. Cash sang songs about indigenous humanity in an effort to confront
14042-414: Was said to be the first American to be given the news of Joseph Stalin 's death (supplied via Morse code). His daughter, Rosanne , said that Cash had recounted the story many times over the years. While at Landsberg, he created his first band, "The Landsberg Barbarians". On July 3, 1954, he was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant , and he returned to Texas. During his military service, he acquired
14161-499: Was university educated and ultimately moved to New York City, where she made a number of classic recordings of the family repertoire and published an important compilation of these songs. In January 2012, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress , with the Association for Cultural Equity, announced that they would release Lomax's vast archive of 1946 and later recording in digital form. Lomax spent
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