The Music of the Folks

Stroll downtown in Mountain View, Ark., any day of the week and you’re likely to hear live music floating in the fresh Ozark air. If you’ve got your guitar, fiddle, or banjo, you’re free to join in as the impromptu jams meld into respectable renditions of the old standards.

Welcome to the Folk Music Capital of the World. If you doubt this, just drive out to the edge of town. It says so on the welcome sign.

“This town revolves around music,” beams Don Mellon, a frequent player and proprietor of Mellon’s Country Store in this community of 3,000. “People gather around the courthouse square, no matter what the weather is. If it’s cold or rainy, they’ll build a fire. Some nights you’ll find eight or 10 different groups playing at the same time.”

It’s one thing to call yourself the “folk music capital” and quite another to define exactly what folk music is. To some, it refers to songs imported centuries ago from the British Isles. To others, it’s the music of America’s early days as a nation. And some use the term to describe the guitar-based songs born of civil rights and labor activism in the ’40s and ’50s. Start picking it apart instead of picking on an instrument and you might have a fight on your hands. Just play it, and everyone seems to get along fine.

Perhaps the friendliest description is one offered by Tommy Byrnes, a musician from Heath, Mass., who is an avid student of this music and its European roots. He describes it as simply “music of the folks,” people’s music, old in its underpinnings if not in origin.

And in America, consider the musical melting pot from which it is drawn. Tucked away in the minds of New World settlers were reels, jigs, dirges, chanteys, ballads, and broadsides often performed with the distinctly European sounds of pipes, percussion, and all manner of stringed instruments.

Through imperfect memory or creative inspiration, these old forms took on new life as they evolved. That’s one of the most intriguing qualities of folk music, says Byrnes, who respects the old tunes but also enjoys creating new compositions with his Celtic band, Ockham’s Razor.

“Traditional music has no definitive author,” he explains. “Five hundred years ago a farmer could write a song about a battle that took place in Scotland, and over time it changes. Most of the songs from Appalachia have gone through a musical filter in coming from Ireland or Scotland.”

Thus, what was Lord McPherson’s Reel in Scotland became Turkey in the Straw in America, and a sojourner’s song from Ireland provided the basis for Wayfaring Stranger. Once the song became rooted in this country’s culture, it grew into an American treasure.

Nowhere are these treasures on grander display than at the Old Fiddler’s Convention in Galax, Va. Founded in 1935 for the purpose of “keeping alive the memories and sentiments of days gone by to make it possible for people of today to hear and enjoy the tunes of yesterday.” It’s an understatement to say that their inspiration has caught on—last summer’s festivities drew nearly 40,000 guests.

The winning vocalist in the “Folk Song” category was Leslie Dunbar of Eagle Rock, Va., who performed The Water Is Wide. Some historians suggest that it’s the oldest surviving English sailing tune, while others peg its origin to a long Scots ballad called Lord Jamie Douglas.

As Dunbar suggests, perhaps its mystery is part of the charm of old traditional songs. “A lady in the school where I teach knew The Water Is Wide, and our school choir sings it as well, but they’re totally different versions with different words and melodies,” she explains. “You wonder how close it is to the original and how the writer meant it to be.”

Oral history

Growing up in Cross Lanes, W. Va., Grammy-winning country artist Kathy Mattea was exposed to all kinds of music but became intrigued with guitars in the sixth-grade because, “I wanted to be able to sing and play anywhere. It opened me up to the sense of everyone in the room singing together in harmony and round singing, and the magic that’s created when that happens, which is very much a folk tradition.

“My manager says that the problem with the music business is that God didn’t give us music for us to press into little plastic discs and sell,” she observes. “He gave us music to play in a room together.”

Byrne agrees. “The main reason (for folk music) was getting together and singing. It was also a way of maintaining an oral history.” This storytelling aspect is also attractive to Mattea.

“Traditionally, country music has reflected people’s lives,” offers the acclaimed singer. “Whether that’s about going to prison or cheating on someone or finding love or losing love—those old clichés—country music was the folk and blues traditions put together. It’s always been an adult-oriented format because the themes were adult themes. They were about the wife and kids and struggles with the job and all of those things that we go through as grown-ups.”

Woody Guthrie, the father of American folk music, espoused a similar view more than 50 years ago: “One of the mainest ways (of speaking your mind) is by singing. Drop the word ‘folk’ and just call it real old honest-to-God American singing… If it talks the lingo of the people, it’s a cinch to catch on and will be sung here and yonder for a long time after you’ve cashed in your chips.”

The recurring themes of folk music unquestionably hit home with the common man. John Henry voices the woes of the worker. Down in the Valley laments separation. Cripple Creek anticipates reunion with a loved one.

Not only are such songs kept alive at numerous festivals such as the one held in Galax, folk and Celtic-based music is rising in popularity at pubs and clubs. Also, traditional instruments that provide the signature sounds of Western European music are becoming increasing popular additions to other genres of music.

Pop/contemporary Christian artist Michael W. Smith incorporated bagpipes into Now Is The Time, a tribute to Columbine High School victim Cassie Bernall. The Dixie Chicks, a trio of modern country divas, opened their radio hit Ready to Run with the jaunty sounds of a fiddle and tin whistle.

Since being exposed to Celtic instruments by Pat Flynn of the band New Grass Revival, Mattea felt a deep connection with the sound. As a demonstration of her affection, her albums always include at least one song featuring pipes, bodran, or whistles. She and her husband are currently toying with compositions in their home studio, which may one day result in an entire album of Celtic-flavored music.

The next generation

Although some fret about the world changing, plenty of folks are committed to keeping folk music alive in all its forms and flavors. “It’s our responsibility as American people to preserve what our forefathers left us,” says Mountain View’s Don Mellon. “It’s our heritage.”

And a new generation of musicians like 17-year-old Josiah Payne of Pagosa Springs, Colo., stands ready to shoulder that responsibility. While most teenagers lean toward rock, rap, or country music, the reigning champion of the mandolin competition at the prestigious Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kan., is confident that he’s found his niche.

His notoriety as a solo performer and as a member of his family’s bluegrass quartet, Pagosa Hot Strings, has raised the curiosity of his classmates. “It’s like I’m a door to a room they haven’t seen,” he suggests. “(With this music), there’s no middle ground. They love it or they hate it.

“I think about the music like I do classic literature,” says the young man, who professes a love for old stalwarts Jimmy Rodgers and Bill Monroe, as well as contemporary artists such as New Grass Revival and Bela Fleck. “The Odyssey is read today because it still has meaning. The music is still played because the music itself is good. It’s pleasing to the ear. It’s not carried on just because it’s tradition.”

And the evidence rings out loud and clear from front porches and festivals all across America.

Freelance writer Michael Nolan believes there’s no sweeter sound on earth than the fiddle and guitar interplay of Ashokan Farewell, the theme music of the PBS miniseries Civil War.

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