Roots; Old-time; Folk; Bluegrass Books

This is the section for roots, old-time and bluegrass related books.  Some of the books are available on-line (unedited) and some aren't. For now, I've left the song lyrics unedited which means there are some racially sensitive or vulgar lyrics. I use substitute lyrics in performances and usually edit the lyrics in print also. 

[Note: This is an ongoing study of the books/songs. I'll be putting in rough text (unedited) first, then editing it, adding music scores, and finally, adding some notes in blue, photos, and MP3's. Some sections of the books may not be complete.]

1) A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-songs By Hubert Gibson Shearin, Josiah Henry Combs 1911 [Although there's no music and a few short texts this book lists and categorizes the folk-songs of Kentucky know to be in existance in 1911.]

2) Brown Collection of NC Folklore- Volume 3 & Volume 5 This massive collection of songs (658 songs with mutiple texts in Volume 3; Volume 5 has 127 additional song plus music and additional texts) has excellent song notes and music arrangements. The collection is named after Frank C. Brown, the Secretary-Treasurer of the North Carolina Folklore Society from 1913-1943. The songs were collected in the early 1900s and published in 1952. I've included music from Volume 5, which has some of the music for Volume 3 plus a few additional songs. I've broken the volume into chapters to make it more manageable.  

I. Courting Songs
II. Drinking and Gambling Songs
III. Homiletic Songs
IV. Play-Party and Dance Songs
V. Lullabies and Nursery Rhymes
VI. Jingles About Animals
VII. Work Songs
VIII. Folk Lyric
IX. Satirical Songs
X. Songs of Prisoners & Tramps
XI. Marital, Political & Patriotic Songs
XII. Blackface Minstrel and Secular Negro Songs
XIII. Religious Songs

Music to texts from Voume 3 (Volume 5)
Additional Songs from Volume 5
Children's Games and Rhymes Volume 5

3)
The Negro and his Songs: A Study of Typical Negro Songs in the South This excellent collection of African-American songs by Howard Odum and Guy Johnson was published in 1925. Many of the songs were published in Odum's other long articles (and also from his wife's article in the JOAFL- See: Roots Articles). Most of the songs were collected in the early 1900's. The weakness of this book and Odum's other articles is the lack of documented sources (Odum never bothered to list the exact source, date or location for each song collected) and there are no music transcriptions. The chapters are divided as follows:

I. Presenting the Singer and His Song
II. The Religious Songs of the Negro
III. Examples of Religious Songs
IV. Examples of Religious Songs, Concluded
V. The Social Songs of the Negro
VI. Examples of Social Song
VII. Examples of Social Songs, Concluded
VIII. The Work Songs of the Negro
IX. Imagery, Style, and Poetic Effort

4) The Negro Sings A New Heaven- Mary Grissom; 1930.  This is an excellent collection of about 50 songs which are divided up into 6 sections. All the songs have musical scores. Most of the songs included in this volume have been taken directly from the Negroes in their present-day worship (late 1920s) sung in Louisville, Kentucky, and certain rural sections in Adair County.

5) Negro Workaday Songs- Odum & Johnson 1926.   This second excellent collection of African-American songs by Howard Odum and Guy Johnson was published in 1926. This time there are a few musical scores but not many. Here are the 15 chapters:

I. Background Resources in Negro Song and Work
II. The Blues: Workaday Sorrow Songs
III. Songs of the Lonesome Road
IV. Bad Man Ballads and Jamboree
V. Songs of Jail, Chain Gang, and Policemen
VI. Songs of Construction Camps and Gangs
VII. Just Songs to Help With Work
VIII. Man's Song of Woman
IX. Woman's Song of Man
X. Folk Minstrel Types
XI. Workaday Religious Songs
XII. The Annals and Blues of Left Wing Gordon
XIII. John Henry: Epic of the Negro Workingman
XIV. Types of Negro Melodies
XV. Types of Records of Negro Singers

6) English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians- 1917 Edition; This edition has 122 songs c
ollected by  Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil J. Sharp. The second edition published in 1932 by Sharp & Karpeles is enlarged and has two other sections and is superior to this edition.  Not sure if I should combine the two editions or just do the second edition. The 1917 edition has:

Introduction, Contents and Song Notes 

I. Ballads
II. Songs
III. Nursery Songs

7) American Songbag- Carl Sandburg 1927; This is still a great collection of ballads and songs with arrangements by some excellect musicians. It's organized in a haphazard way, with some song notes. Some of the arrangements are over-the-top- not really suited to fit the songs- but the melody line is there. Here are the chapters:

 Dramas and Portraits
The Ould Sod
Minstrel Songs
Tarnished Love Tales or Colonial & Rev. Antiques
Frankie and her Man
Pioneer Memories
Kentucky Blazing Star
The Lincolns and Hankses
Great Lakes and Erie Canal
Hobo Songs
The Big Brutal City
Prison and Jail Songs
Blues, Mellows, Ballets
The Great Open Spaces
Mexican Border Songs
Southern Mountains
Picnic and Hayride Follies,
Close Harmony, Ditties Railroads and Work Gangs
Lumberjacks, Loggers, Shanty-Boys Sailormen
Bandit Biographies
Five Wars
Lovely People
Road To Heaven 
 
8) Afro-American Folksongs; Henry Krehbiel 1914;  Krehbiel was a classical music critic and author so this isn't an easy read. For me, the important part of the book is the few African-American spirituals he collected from Mildred Hill of Louisville which do not appear in other collections. Here are the chapters:

Chapter I. Folksongs in General
Chapter II. Songs of the American Slaves
Chapter III. Religious Character of the Songs
Chapter IV. Modal Characteristics of the Songs
Chapter V. Music Among the Africans
Chapter VI. Variations from the Major Scale
Chapter VII. Minor Variations & Typical Rhythms
Chapter VIII. Features of the Poems; Funeral Music
Chapter IX. Dances of the American Negroes
Chapter X. Songs of the Black Creoles
Chapter XI. Satirical Songs of the Creoles

9) On The Trail Of Negro Folk-Songs; Dorothy Scarborough  1925; This is an awesome collection, rivaled only by Talley's 1922 collection.  Here's are the chapters:

I. On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs
II. Negro's Part Transmitting Songs and Ballads
III. Negro Ballads IV. Dance-Songs or "Reels"
V. Children's Game Songs
VI. Lullabies
VII. Songs About Animals
VIII. Work Songs
IX. Railroad Songs
X. Blues Afterward

10) American Ballads and Folk Songs- John & Alan Lomax- 1934; This is the first important collection published by the Lomaxes and remains one of the outstanding folksong collections of all-time. The Lomaxes freely admitted that ''we have brought together what seem the best stanzas, or even lines, from widely separate sources"; but they failed to specify the sources- keep that in mind if you are doing research.
Here are the twenty-five chapters:

I. Working on The Railroad
II. The Levee Camp
III. Songs From Southern Chain Gangs
IV. Negro Bad Men
V. White Desperadoes
VI. Songs From The Mountains
VII. Cocaine and Whisky
VIII. The Blues
IX. Creole Negroes
X. "Reels"
XI. Minstrel Types
XII. Breakdowns and Play-Parties
XIII. Songs of Childhood
XIV. Miscellany
XV. Vaqueros of the Southwest
XVI. Cowboy Songs
XVII. Songs of the Overlanders
XVIII. The Miner
XIX. The Shanty-Boy
XX. The Erie Canal
XXI. The Great Lakes
XXII. Sailors and Sea Fights
XXIII. Wars and Soldiers
XXIV. White Spirituals
XXV. Negro Spirituals

11) Negro Folk Rymes- Wise and Otherwise- Thomas W. Talley- 1922;  The folk rhymes are really songs and this is an excellent collection of texts. Unfortunately there's not much music. There is a 1991 expanded edition by Charles Wolfe (recommended). This is the 1922 edition which has the same songs and texts. I've divided the book up. Part 1 is divided up into eleven rhyme section pages as indicated by Talley; Part 2 is one long page:

PART I-  NEGRO FOLK RHYMES
I. Dance Rhyme Section
II. Dance Rhyme Song Section
III. Play Rhyme Section
IV. Pastime Rhyme Section
V. Love Rhyme Section
VI. Courtship Rhyme Section
VII. Marriage & Married Life Rhyme Section
VIII. Nursery Rhyme Section
IX. Blessings
X. Wise Sayings
XI. Foreign Rhyme Section

PART II- A STUDY IN NEGRO FOLK RHYMES

12) Our Singing Country- John A. Lomax & Alan Lomax-  1941; This is the second collection by the Lomaxes which includes songs from the important 1939 Southern Recording expedition. Some of the songs have recordings at the Library of Congress site from that 1939 venture (See lyrics/recordings on my site in article section). There are some important songs in this book:

I. Religious Songs: 1. Negro Spirituals
I. Religious Songs: 2. White Religious Songs

II. Social Songs: 1. White Dance Tunes
II. Social Songs: 2. Negro Game Songs
II. Social Songs: 3. Bahaman Negro Songs
II. Social Songs: 4. Lullabies
II. Social Songs: 5. Whoppers
II. Social Songs: 6. Courting Songs
II. Social Songs: 7. Old-Time Love Songs
II. Social Songs: 8. French Songs- Louisiana

III. Men at Work: 1. Soldiers & Sailors
III. Men at Work: 2. Lumberjacks & Teamsters
III. Men at Work: 3. Cowboy Songs
III. Men at Work: 3. Railroaders & Hobos
III. Men at Work: 5. Miner's Songs
III. Men at Work: 6. Farmers of the South

IV. Outlaws
V. Hollers and Blues
VI. Negro Gang Songs

13) Bahama Songs and Stories- Charles Edwards 1895; This book seems to have been overlooked. The parallel between Bahama and American folksongs/spirituals is evident. Henry Krehbiel's Afro-American Folksongs includes several of Edwards spirituals. The book is divided into two sections:
 
I. Bahama Songs
II. Bahama Stories

There are 40 songs mostly spirituals. I'm not concerned as much with the strories but they are included as well.

14) Brown Collection of NC Folklore- Volume 2 & 4 Ballads- 1952; The book says the ballads were collected in North Carolina between 1912- 1943 but some of them are from earlier documents and a couple are not from NC. I've included the additional ballads from Volume 4 so there a total of 340 different ballads with multiple texts- many of them have music. This is one of the important American folksong collections published with excellent song notes and music notes. Here are the three large chapters:

I. Music of the Older Ballads- Mostly British  
II. Native American Ballads
III. Additional Ballads from Volume 4

15) Checklist of Recorded Folk Songs Before 1940- Alan Lomax, Library of Congress; 1942 The entire title is Check-list of Recorded Songs in the English Language in the Archive of American Folk Song to July, 1940." This was organized by Alan Lomax and a young Pete Seeger worked on the project. It's presented in three short books:

VOLUME I- Alphabetical List A-K

VOLUME II- Alphabetical List L-Z

VOLUME III- Index: Geographical  List

I'm not sure how extensive the checklist is, whether, for example, all of Gordon and other collectors recordings are included.

16) The Kentucky Highlanders- Josiah Combs 1913; This is a short 44 page book describing life in remote regions of east Kentucky (Knott County) where Combs collected folk songs. There are some excerpts of songs and ballads in one chapter.