Transatlantic Roots Music

Essays that track identity and authenticity in blues and folk music that crossed the ocean With essays by Duck Baker, Robert H. Cataliotti, Ronald D. Cohen, John Hughes, Will Kaufman, Andrew Kellett, Erich Nunn, Christian O'Connell, Paul Oliver, David Sanjek, Roberta Freund Schwartz, Jill Terry, Brian Ward, and Neil A. Wynn Transatlantic Roots Music presents a collection of essays on the debates about origins, authenticity, and identity in folk and blues music. These essays originated in an international conference on the transatlantic paths of American roots music, out of which emerged common themes and questions of origins and authenticity in folk music, be it black or white, American or British. While the central theme of the collection is musical influences, issues of national, local, and racial identity are also recurring subjects. Were these identities invented, imagined, constructed by the performers, or by those who recorded the music for posterity? The book features a new essay on the blues by Paul Oliver alongside an essay on Oliver's seminal blues scholarship. There are also several essays on British blues and the links between performers and styles in the United States and Britain. And there are new essays on critical figures such as Alan Lomax and Woody Guthrie. This volume uniquely offers perspectives from both sides of the Atlantic on the interplay of influences in roots music and the debates about these subjects. The book draws on the work of eminent, established scholars and emerging, young academics who are already making a contribution to the field. Throughout, contributors offer the most recent scholarship available on key issues. Jill Terry, Worcester, United Kingdom, is principal lecturer and head of the division of English, journalism and media, and cultural studies for the Institute Of Humanities and Creative Arts at the University of Worcester. Neil A. Wynn, Cheltenham, United Kingdom, is professor of twentieth-century American history at the University of Gloucestershire. He is editor of Cross the Water Blues: African American Music in Europe (published by University Press of Mississippi), among others.