On Venerd�, mar 26, 2004, at 19:33 Europe/Rome, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Re European influence on African Music. > I recently heard an NPR program on Sacred Harp music which is a rare > singing > tradition from southern US churches. It is a shaped note method and > it struck > me that it sounds Very similar to South African choirs. And in fact > sounds > Very much like English folk songs from the 17th century. > > -- > > i don't think there was much african influence on the sort of music that first arrived in america with the convicts, poor or displaced agricultural workers and indentured servants that came from england, scotland and northern ireland. and i don't think it would have come later on. "they" - if you could call them that - would have assiduously avoided all cultural association with the africans who were later imported into america as slaves. after independence, when land ownership became available to settlers further in from the coast, these mostly english and northern irish (2nd and 3rd generation americans) settled into small, isolated mountain communities in kentucky, tennessee, etc. where it would have been very difficult to find any outside influence of any kind. i remember reading an item which suggested that linguistic patterns from 16th/17th cent. england were still discernible in this part of the u.s. today.
you might just as well ask if there was an african cultural influence on the protestant communities of 17th and 18th cent. belfast - that's where davy crockett, andrew jackson etc. came from. these communities were - are! - extremely resistant to outside influences. i've tried twice to put the following on the list but it hasn't made it yet. third time lucky?: wishing to forestall some more fatuous remarks on the early country music subject, i'd like to say that i found an interesting thread on the www.mudcat.org/ site concerning the oldest european folk song. would it be wrong to assume that music in the country didn't alter much in the transition from the medieval to renaissance and baroque periods? i have a disc by graham derrick called "under the greenwood tree" in which he follows a cycle of songs relating to robin hood from "anon." (pre-15th cent.) to john playford and thomas weelkes (17th cent.). there doesn't seem to be a great deal of difference in any of them. peace, love...the good, the true and the beautiful - bill
