Full transcript
0:01[Music]
0:14[Music]
0:28oh
0:31[Music]
0:38nearly every immigrant that traveled to
0:40America brought folk music with him it
0:43wasn't written down it was learned by
0:45memory and passed
0:47on Europeans and Africans brought folk
0:50songs hundreds of years old that helped
0:53them remember the people in the land
0:54they left
0:56behind gradually new and unique American
0:59forms of music began to emerge from
1:01these folk
1:02Traditions today we refer to this music
1:05as American Roots Music and this is its
1:08[Music]
1:10Story American Roots music's Heritage
1:14comes from characters here we sit at the
1:17tip of a brand new century but if you
1:19look backwards for the last 100 years
1:21it's not so much the uh disposable pop
1:24fluff that gives American Music its
1:27sustaining qualities it's the root
1:29system in each form of Music whether
1:31it's zido or Bluegrass or gospel or
1:33blues that gives this entire New Century
1:37a canvas to
1:39pain music really has been the ground we
1:43stand on it really tells us who we are
1:47we would not have
1:48survived uh without the sounds of our
1:51singing and the sounds of our
1:53music don't matter how many generations
1:56Come and Go music is still a constant
1:59flow of water it may flow over here into
2:02commercial music it may flow over here
2:03into real oldtime music but there's
2:05something about that stream that still
2:07connects us you know uh to to the old
2:11and and uh I've got to have that to
2:14sustain my life to some extent the
2:16evolution of Root's music is that we
2:18have learned to accept one another for
2:24differences American Roots Music is made
2:26up of all the other musics that came
2:28here with all the people people that
2:30came here and then it all got combined
2:33here you know that's uh that's that's
2:37one of our Great American
2:39[Music]
2:54[Music]
2:56legacies as the 20th century began most
2:59Americans of were not aware that this
3:00relatively new nation had a musical
3:03Heritage of its
3:04own however with the closing of the
3:07frontier and the raft of new inventions
3:09by people like Thomas Anderson Americans
3:11became more conscious of the unique
3:13music being made in this
3:15country in the west Native American
3:18music played and sung on the land for
3:20centuries began to be recorded collected
3:22transcribed and
3:25[Music]
3:26filmed all across the land work gangs
3:29were new rhythms to an ancient African
3:31call and response style of singing which
3:34became the foundation for the
3:38blues the basis of all of what we hear
3:41today comes from the music that we heard
3:44yesterday that's
3:46authentic that's
3:50real down in Georgia Fiddlers were
3:52heading to Atlanta where they would
3:54Gather in the Municipal Auditorium and
3:56compete to see who could play the best
3:58version of turkey and St or cacklin
4:10hen in New Orleans Jazz was being played
4:14by musicians like buddy Bolton and Lewis
4:16Armstrong and will soon infect the
4:18nation with its
4:27popularity over in Asheville a country
4:30lawyer and Fiddler basam Lamar Lunsford
4:32organized the first real American Folk
4:35Festival primarily as a way to lure
4:38tourists to use the state's newly built
4:40highways and visit North Carolina's
4:42Mountain
4:43[Music]
4:50[Applause]
4:51Wonderland African amans from all across
4:54the South were using new instruments and
4:56singing styles to praise God that ology
5:00of how this music came from Africa with
5:02slaves and how it transmogrified with
5:04Christianity and gospel music and field
5:06hollers and work songs and prison songs
5:09and songs of inspiration for civil
5:11rights into the protest movement a
5:13tradition that is so rich that to not
5:17study it is robbing us of Our National
5:22Heritage out in Texas folks were reading
5:25a new book by Harvard Man John LX
5:28entitled cowboy song and other Frontier
5:30ballads this was one of the first real
5:33book length collection of American folk
5:35songs and Roots Music and featured the
5:37song Home in the
5:41[Music]
5:45range in addition mass-produced
5:47instruments like the fiddle guitar and
5:49banjo could be obtained from mail order
5:52cataloges by
5:55anyone throughout America workingclass
5:57musicians were also beginning to travel
5:59travel beyond their communities on
6:01highways and
6:03railroads some busted on street corners
6:07while others performed in Vaudeville
6:08medicine and wild west
6:11shows as the different cultures of
6:14America began to merge in intermingle
6:16over the years so did the music creating
6:18a rich
6:28gumbo
6:33you