The American Folklore Society is an international professional network serving the field of folklore, open to anyone working to understand or advance folk and traditional arts and the communities that sustain them.
Folk music is possibly the oldest musical genre known to man. Discover the most notable timelines of folk music including the influential artists over time.
Although the term is usually only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre. For example, the Grammy Award previously used the terms "traditional music" and "traditional folk" for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. [15] Folk music may include most indigenous music. [5]
Folk music is a type of traditional and generally rural music that originally was passed down through families and other small social groups. Typically, folk music, like folk literature, lives in oral tradition; it is learned through hearing rather than reading.
At its core, folk music is how people have shared their stories through time that have survived long enough to be sung generations later. We don’t limit folk to any one genre, culture, or group of instruments.
There are guys in Jubilee who play mandolin, piano, banjo, and ukulele, and one of the other men’s houses, Bonaventure, has a folk band in the mold of the Hillbilly Thomists, a Catholic cult favorite.
But sometimes, you JUST want to hear those familiar faves that remind you of why you fell in love with folk music to begin with. On Folk Alley’s Classic Folk channel you’ll enjoy hours and hours of folk music and singer/songwriters from the 90s, 80s, 70s, 60s, and earlier!