Sweet Freedom's Song

Sweet Freedom's Song
Author: the late Robert James Branham
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2002-03-28
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0190285907

Although it isn't the official national anthem, America may be the most important and interesting patriotic song in our national repertoire. Sweet Freedom's Song: "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and Democracy in America is a celebration and critical exploration of the complicated musical, cultural and political roles played by the song America over the past 250 years. Popularly known as My Country 'Tis of Thee and as God Save the King/Queen before that this tune has a history as rich as the country it extols. In Sweet Freedom's Song, Robert Branham and Stephen Hartnett chronicle this song's many incarnations over the centuries. Colonial Americans, Southern slaveowners, abolitionists, temperance campaigners and labor leaders, among others, appropriated and adapted the tune to create anthems for their own struggles. Because the song has been invoked by nearly every grassroots movement in American history, the story of America offers important insights on the story of democracy in the United States. An examination of America as a historical artifact and cultural text, Sweet Freedoms Song is a reflection of the rebellious spirit of Americans throughout our nations history. The late Robert James Branham and his collaborator, Stephen Hartnett, have produced a thoroughly-researched, delightfully written book that will appeal to scholars and patriots of all stripes.

"Desire, Drink and Death in English Folk and Vernacular Song, 1600?900 "

Author: Vic Gammon
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 451
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1351569589

This much-needed book provides valuable insights into themes and genres in popular song in the period c. 1600-1900. In particular it is a study of popular ballads as they appeared on printed sheets and as they were recorded by folk song collectors. Vic Gammon displays his interest in the way song articulates aspects of popular mentality and he relates the discourse of the songs to social history. Gammon discusses the themes and narratives that run through genres of song material and how these are repeated and reworked through time. He argues that in spite of important social and economic changes, the period 1600-1850 had a significant cultural consistency and characteristic forms of popular musical and cultural expression. These only changed radically under the impact of industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century. The book will appeal to those interested in folk song, historical popular music (including church music), ballad literature, popular literature, popular culture, social history, anthropology and sociology.

Welsh Traditional Music

Welsh Traditional Music
Author: Phyllis Kinney
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2016-06-15
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1783168587

Phyllis Kinney's Welsh Traditional Music covers the traditional music of Wales from its beginnings through to the present day, providing musical analysis and placing its material firmly into a social and historical context. Among the many different forms of Welsh traditional music discussed are seasonal music (including wassail songs, Christmas and May carols and Plygain carols), folk drama, ballad-singing, the relevance of the eisteddfod and the musical journals of the nineteenth century. Additionally, the book includes a history of song collecting from the eighteenth century to the establishment and ongoing activities of the Welsh Folk-Song Society in the twentieth; both the instrumental and the vocal traditions are examined, as well as the uniquely Welsh tradition of ‘cerdd dant’. This is a work of pioneering scholarship that accounts for Welsh traditional music within the context of a greater Welsh musical tradition.