Not commercial folk music, not the blues of professional performers like
Leadbelly, but the instrument of choice within the tradition, what was used
in the cottage or field.
The banjo, for instance, becomes commonplace in the mid-nineteenth century.
The guitar becomes popular outside of Spain in the Northern European middle
class for the first time in the 1820's. When do the people that Alan Lomax
sought out in the Appalachian hollows and their equivalents in the rest of
the English-speaking world take it up?
At 07:30 AM 7/23/2000 +0100, you wrote:
>
>> Anyone out there know the history of the guitar becoming a folk instrument
>> and then the preeminent folk instrument in the
>> anglo-hiberno-caledonio-afro-american tradition?
>>
>I've always assumed it started with Woody Guthrie in the thirties.
>
>George
>______________________________________________
>George Simmers
>Snakeskin Poetry Webzine is at
>http://www.snakeskin.org.uk
>
>
>
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