530 PART 4 | SINCE WORLD WAR II
benefi ted from the folk festival as an institution that both conserves and dis-
seminates the music, bringing it to new audiences in a way that ideally is for the
good of the musicians who create it.
The roots revival indicates the heightened value placed on traditional music
in recent decades. Like popular music, folk music has proved to have lasting
value for listeners of a sort that used to be ascribed only to classical music. One
result of that higher valuation is a further blurring of the distinctions that once
were held between the classical, popular, and folk spheres. As the next chapter
will disclose, that breakdown of hierarchies has led in our own time to a vibrant
musical culture that is fi lled with possibilities for new musical innovations.QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW
- How does the category “roots music” differ from earlier definitions of “folk
music” as discussed in chapters 9, 14, and 17? How do these changing defini-
tions reflect larger societal changes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? - The introduction to this chapter states that each type of music discussed
here “originated in the contact between two or more ethnic groups.” What
evidence supports that statement for pow wow music, norteño, zydeco, slack
key guitar, and klezmer? - Does the roots revival represent a countervailing trend to the 1980s’ empha-
sis on eclecticism and hybridity, or does the transformation of roots music
from subculture to the larger musical culture reinforce that emphasis?
FURTHER READING
Browner, Tara C. “Making and Singing Pow-wow Songs: Text, Form, and the Signifi cance
of Culture-based Analysis.” Ethnomusicolog y 44 (2000): 214–33.
Chew Sánchez, Martha I. Corridos in Migrant Memory. Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press, 2006.
Koskoff, Ellen, ed. The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Vol. 3. The United States and
Canada. New York: Garland, 1998.
Sandmel, Ben. Zydeco! Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999.
Slobin, Mark, ed. American Klezmer: Its Roots and Offshoots. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2002.
Zotigh, Dennis W. “Moving History: The Evolution of the Pow wow.” Oklahoma City:
Oklahoma Historical Society Folklife Center, 1991. Online at http://w w w.okhistory
.org/research/folkarticles/MovingHistory.pdf.FURTHER LISTENING AND VIEWING
Friedman, Susan. Ki ho‘alu: That’s Slack Key Guitar. Cambridge, M A: Rounder Records,- Videocassette.
Into the Circle: An Introduction to Native American Powwows. Produced by Scott Swearingen
and Sandy Rhoades. State Arts Council of Oklahoma. Tulsa, OK: Full Circle Commu-
nications, 1992. Videocasette.
Powwow Songs: Music of the Plains Indians. New World Records, 1986.
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