Geeking-Out March 3, 2025
American Folk and Grassroots
Curated by Meg Birmingham
American folk music is a broad musical genre that includes traditional music from an array of populations and ethnic groups. So, let’s get into it.
The typical 21st-century conception of folk music comes from beliefs about the nature of music and musical life in the village cultures of Europe from the 18th into the 19th century; but this traditional folk music culture was affected greatly by the rise of industrial society and of cities, as well as by nationalist movements beginning in the 19th century. Both the threat to folk culture and the rise of nationalism spurred revival and preservation movements in which learned musicians, poets, and scholars provided leadership. In the 20th century, further revivals associated folk music with political and social movements and blurred the musical distinctions among folk, art, and popular music.