VLVL2 (15): "Like a Meat Loaf"

[Tim Strzechowski]

363.28:  "The melody was rooted in Appalachia, in a tradition of hymn and testimony, and the beat was almost -- well, lively."


"TRADITIONAL Appalachian music is mostly based upon anglo-celtic folk ballads and instrumental dance tunes.  The former were almost always sung unaccompanied, and usually by women, fulfilling roles as keepers of the families' cultural heritages and rising above dreary monotonous work through fantasies of escape and revenge.  These ballads were from the British tradition of the single personal narrative, but the list was selective; most of the one hundred or so variations of the three hundred classic ballads found in American tradition are to do with sexual struggles from the female standpoint, as Barbary Allen, Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender, and Pretty Polly.  One is less likely to find Scottish ballads of rape and dominance, or those with men as heroes.  A large percentage, perhaps almost half, of the American variations tend to be about pregnant women murdered by their boyfriends. 
"The ornamentation and vocal improvisation found in many Celtic ballads seems to have led to that particular tonal, nasal quality preferred by many traditional Appalachian singers.  But, even as content was changed to reflect American locations, contexts, and occupations, many nineteenth century versions of the Child Ballads still refer to Lords and Ladies, castles, and ghosts, and retain as their central theme love affairs and interpersonal relations.  The churches of America were also very influential and usually more puritan in nature.  Many fairly explicit lyrics were softened and cleaned up.  British paganism was frowned upon, and this censorship resulted in ballads where repentance and doom supplanted sinful behavior. 

[...]

"ONE of the greatest influences on Appalachian music, as well as many popular American music styles, was that of the African-American.  The slaves brought a distinct tradition of group singing of community songs of work and worship, usually lined out by one person with a call and response action from a group.  A joyous celebration of life and free sexuality was coupled with improvisation as lyrics were constantly updated and changed to keep up the groups' interest.  The percussion of the African music began to change the rhythms of Appalachian singing and dancing.  The introduction of the banjo to the Southern Mountains after the Civil War in the 1860s further hastened this process.  Originally from Arabia, and brought to western Africa by the spread of Islam, the banjo then ended up in America.  Mostly denigrated as a 'slave instrument' until the popularity of the Minstrel Show, starting in the 1840s, the banjo syncopation or 'bom-diddle-diddy' produced a different clog-dance and song rhythm by the turn of the century. 

[...]

"Religious music, including white Country gospel, was probably the most prevalent music heard in Appalachia.  During the Colonial period the press was controlled by a clergy which had no interest in the spread of secular music, therefore, not much of the latter survived in written form.  There were three types of religious music: ballads, hymns, and revival spiritual songs.  The latter directly arose out of the call and response of the African song tradition.  These were popularized among the white inhabitants after the revival circuit started in Kentucky in 1800.  Their simpler, repetitious text of verse and refrain was easier to sing and learn and produced an emotional fervor in the congregation.  Shape-note and revivalist gospel still flourished in the southern mountains after being eliminated in northern churches by the new 'scientific' music led by Lowell Mason and Thomas Hastings." [...]

http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/appalach.htm

http://www.sbgmusic.com/html/teacher/reference/cultures/appalach.html
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