110-498: Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American musician, singer and actor with a career that spanned more than six decades. Ives began his career as an itinerant singer and guitarist, eventually launching his own radio show, The Wayfaring Stranger , which popularized traditional folk songs. In 1942, he appeared in Irving Berlin 's This Is the Army and became
220-482: A chuigushou . Ensembles consisting of mouth organs ( sheng ), shawms ( suona ), flutes ( dizi ) and percussion instruments (especially yunluo gongs ) are popular in northern villages; their music is descended from the imperial temple music of Beijing, Xi'an , Wutai shan and Tianjin . Xi'an drum music, consisting of wind and percussive instruments, is popular around Xi'an, and has received some commercial popularity outside of China. Another important instrument
330-670: A coma and died from the disease on April 14, 1995, at his home in Anacortes, Washington , at age 85. He was buried at Mound Cemetery in Hunt City Township, Jasper County, Illinois . Folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival . Some types of folk music may be called world music . Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that
440-605: A pipa , as well as other traditional instruments. The music is generally sorrowful and typically deals with love-stricken people. Further south, in Shantou , Hakka and Chaozhou , zheng ensembles are popular. Sizhu ensembles use flutes and bowed or plucked string instruments to make harmonious and melodious music that has become popular in the West among some listeners. These are popular in Nanjing and Hangzhou , as well as elsewhere along
550-474: A tune is a short instrumental piece , a melody , often with repeating sections , and usually played a number of times. A collection of tunes with structural similarities is known as a tune-family . America's Musical Landscape says "the most common form for tunes in folk music is AABB, also known as binary form ." In some traditions, tunes may be strung together in medleys or " sets ." Throughout most of human history, listening to recorded music
660-512: A "Traditional music" category that subsequently evolved into others. The term "folk", by the start of the 21st century, could cover singer-songwriters, such as Donovan from Scotland and American Bob Dylan , who emerged in the 1960s and much more. This completed a process to where "folk music" no longer meant only traditional folk music. Traditional folk music often includes sung words , although folk instrumental music occurs commonly in dance music traditions. Narrative verse looms large in
770-466: A ballad about the life and death of Abraham Lincoln , written by Earl Robinson (music) and Lampell (lyrics). In 1946, Ives was cast as a singing cowboy in the film Smoky . In 1947, Ives recorded one of many versions of "The Blue Tail Fly", but paired this time with the popular Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne). The flip side of the record was a fast-paced "I'm Goin' Down the Road". Ives hoped
880-401: A class dynamic to popular understandings of American folk music. This was the final element of the foundation upon which the early folk music revivalists constructed their own view of Americanism. Sandburg's working-class Americans joined with the ethnically , racially , and regionally diverse citizens that other scholars, public intellectuals, and folklorists celebrated their own definitions of
990-424: A classic by critics. Atkinson, reviewing the revival, wrote that the musical "renews confidence in the professionalism of the theatre." Time devoted a cover story to Rodgers and Hart on September 26, 1938. The magazine reported that their success "rests on a commercial instinct that most of their rivals have apparently ignored". The article also noted their "spirit of adventure." "As Rodgers and Hart see it, what
1100-459: A comedy which costarred Hal Buckley, Joel Davison, and Brooke Adams , about the presumed richest man in the world, which replaced Walter Brennan 's somewhat similar The Tycoon on the ABC schedule from the preceding year. He played Walter Nichols in the drama The Bold Ones: The Lawyers (1969–72), a segment of the wheel series The Bold Ones . Ives narrated the 1971 season highlight film for
1210-406: A cut above, so did the team try to raise the standard of the musical form in general. Thus, A Connecticut Yankee (1927) was based on Mark Twain 's novel, and The Boys From Syracuse (1938) on William Shakespeare 's The Comedy of Errors . "They had always considered the integration of story and music a crucial factor in a successful show." They used dance significantly in their work, using
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#17328762247841320-579: A great body of English rural traditional song, music and dance, under the aegis of what became and remains the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). Sharp campaigned with some success to have English traditional songs (in his own heavily edited and expurgated versions) to be taught to school children in hopes of reviving and prolonging the popularity of those songs. Throughout the 1960s and early to mid-1970s, American scholar Bertrand Harris Bronson published an exhaustive four-volume collection of
1430-665: A long-standing relationship with the Boy Scouts of America . He was a Lone Scout before that group merged with the Boy Scouts of America in 1924. The organization "inducted" Ives in 1966. He received the Boy Scouts' Silver Buffalo Award , its highest honor. The certificate for the award is on display at the Scouting Museum in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania . Ives often performed at the quadrennial Boy Scouts of America jamboree , including
1540-629: A major star of CBS Radio . In the 1960s, he successfully crossed over into country music , recording hits such as " A Little Bitty Tear " and " Funny Way of Laughin' ". Ives was also a popular film actor through the late 1940s and '50s. His film roles included parts in So Dear to My Heart (1948) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), as well as the role of Rufus Hannassey in The Big Country (1958), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor , and
1650-432: A new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times, but the term folk music has typically not been applied to
1760-404: A particular interest in folklore. Carl Sandburg often traveled the U.S. as a writer and a poet. He also collected songs in his travels and, in 1927, published them in the book The American Songbag . Rachel Donaldson, a historian who worked for Vanderbilt, later stated this about The American Songbird in her analysis of the folk music revival. "In his collections of folk songs, Sandburg added
1870-673: A possible better system, through the lens of the Great Depression. Woody Guthrie exemplifies songwriters and artists with such an outlook. Folk music festivals proliferated during the 1930s. President Franklin Roosevelt was a fan of folk music, hosted folk concerts at the White House , and often patronized folk festivals. One prominent festival was Sarah Gertrude Knott 's National Folk Festival , established in St. Louis, Missouri in 1934. Under
1980-597: A reference to beautiful women, while in the past they were notorious for their erotic content. The village "mountain songs" ( shan'ge ) of Jiangsu province were also well known for their amorous themes. Other regional song traditions include the "strummed lyrics" ( tanci ) of the Lower Yangtze Delta, the Cantonese Wooden Fish tradition ( muyu or muk-yu ) and the Drum Songs ( guci ) of north China. In
2090-537: A revolutionary tool to preserve vanishing musical forms. The earliest American folk music scholars were with the American Folklore Society (AFS), which emerged in the late 1800s. Their studies expanded to include Native American music , but still treated folk music as a historical item preserved in isolated societies as well. In North America, during the 1930s and 1940s, the Library of Congress worked through
2200-529: A score by Robert and Richard Sherman . In 1964, he played the genie in the movie The Brass Bottle with Tony Randall and Barbara Eden . Ives's " A Holly Jolly Christmas " and "Silver and Gold" became Christmas standards after they were first featured in the 1964 NBC-TV presentation of the Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated family special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer . Johnny Marks had composed
2310-482: A series of successful musicals and films. They quickly became among the most popular songwriters in America, and from 1925 to 1931 had fifteen scores featured on Broadway. In the early 1930s they moved to Hollywood, where they created several popular songs for film, such as " Isn't It Romantic? " and " Lover ", before returning to Broadway in 1935 with Billy Rose 's Jumbo . From 1935 to Hart's death in 1943, they wrote
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#17328762247842420-508: A significant contribution to the world of music and helped to create a climate in which our talents may find valid expression." When America Sings opened at Disneyland in 1974, Ives voiced the main host, Sam Eagle, an Audio-Animatronic . In 1976, Ives was featured as a main character in Little House on the Prairie season 3 episode 10 titled "The Hunters". Ives played an old fur trapper who
2530-472: A simple distinction of economic class yet for him, true folk music was, in Charles Seeger 's words, "associated with a lower class" in culturally and socially stratified societies. In these terms, folk music may be seen as part of a "schema comprising four musical types: 'primitive' or 'tribal'; 'elite' or 'art'; 'folk'; and 'popular'." Music in this genre is also often called traditional music. Although
2640-464: A string of highly regarded Broadway musicals, most of which were hits. Many of their stage musicals from the late 1930s were made into films, including On Your Toes (1936) and Babes in Arms (1937), though rarely with their scores intact. Pal Joey (1940), termed their masterpiece, has a book by The New Yorker writer John O'Hara . O'Hara adapted his own short stories for the show, which featured
2750-446: A title character who is a heel . Critic Brooks Atkinson wrote in his review, "Although it is expertly done, how can you draw sweet water from a foul well?" When the show was revived in 1952, audiences had learned to accept darker material, thanks in large part to Rodgers' work with Oscar Hammerstein II . The new production had a considerably longer run than the original and was now considered
2860-567: A traditional song would undergo a process of improvement akin to biological natural selection : only those new variants that were the most appealing to ordinary singers would be picked up by others and transmitted onward in time. Thus, over time we would expect each traditional song to become more aesthetically appealing, due to incremental community improvement. Literary interest in the popular ballad form dates back at least to Thomas Percy and William Wordsworth . English Elizabethan and Stuart composers had often evolved their music from folk themes,
2970-434: A tragic or regretful nature, prominently figures in many folk traditions. Nursery rhymes , children's songs and nonsense verse used to amuse or quiet children also are frequent subjects of traditional songs. Music transmitted by word of mouth through a community, in time, develops many variants, since this transmission cannot produce word-for-word and note-for-note accuracy. In addition, folk singers may choose to modify
3080-706: A waterfront home in Anacortes, Washington , in the Puget Sound area, and in Galisteo, New Mexico , near the Turquoise Trail . In the 1960s, he had another home just south of Hope Town on Elbow Cay , a barrier island of the Abacos in the Bahamas . Ives, a longtime smoker of pipes and cigars, was diagnosed with oral cancer in the summer of 1994. After several unsuccessful operations, he decided against further surgery. He fell into
3190-865: A wheelchair, reunited with Seeger during a benefit concert in New York City, having reconciled years earlier. They sang "Blue Tail Fly" together. Ives expanded his appearances in films during this decade. His movie credits include the role of Sam the Sheriff of Salinas, California, in East of Eden , Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , roles in Desire Under the Elms , Wind Across the Everglades , The Big Country , for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor , Ensign Pulver ,
3300-507: A wondrous toy/Just made for a girl and boy" in the first stanza, then reprises with "The city's clamor can never spoil/The dreams of a boy and goil" in the last. Many of the songs (" Falling in Love with Love ", " Little Girl Blue ", " My Funny Valentine ") are wistful or sad, and emotional ambivalence seems to be perceptible in the background of even the sunnier songs. For example, "You Took Advantage of Me" appears to be an evocation of amorous joy, but
3410-658: A young John Lennon and Paul Mccartney. He was the Mystery Guest on the August 7, 1955 and February 1, 1959, episodes of What's My Line . In the 1960s, Ives began singing country music with greater frequency. In 1962, he released three songs that were popular with both country music and popular music fans: " A Little Bitty Tear ", "Call Me Mister In-Between", and " Funny Way of Laughin' ". His records, recorded in Nashville for Decca Records , were produced by Owen Bradley , one of
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3520-408: Is an ancient folk song from India, a country of Asia, of Meiteis of Manipur , that is an example of Asian folk music, and how they put it into its own genre. Archaeological discoveries date Chinese folk music back 7000 years; it is largely based on the pentatonic scale . Han traditional weddings and funerals usually include a form of oboe called a suona , and apercussive ensembles called
3630-515: Is generally no "authoritative" version of song. Researchers in traditional songs have encountered countless versions of the Barbara Allen ballad throughout the English-speaking world, and these versions often differ greatly from each other. The original is not known; many versions can lay an equal claim to authenticity. Influential folklorist Cecil Sharp felt that these competing variants of
3740-720: Is listed in the DeMolay Hall of Fame. He was also initiated into Scottish Rite Freemasonry in 1927. He was elevated to the 33rd and highest degree in 1987, and was later elected the Grand Cross. On July 23, 1929, in Richmond, Indiana , Ives made a trial recording of "Behind the Clouds" for the Starr Piano Company's Gennett label, but the recording was rejected and destroyed a few weeks later. In later years Ives did not recall having made
3850-417: Is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a people's folklore , or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles . The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century,
3960-486: Is simply "Folk music is what the people sing." For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók , there was a sense of the music of the country as distinct from that of the town. Folk music was already, "...seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear (or in some cases, to be preserved or somehow revived)," particularly in "a community uninfluenced by art music" and by commercial and printed song. Lloyd rejected this in favor of
4070-402: Is the sheng , a type of Chinese pipe , an ancient instrument that is ancestor of all Western free reed instruments, such as the accordion . Parades led by Western-type brass bands are common, often competing in volume with a shawm/chuigushou band. In southern Fujian and Taiwan , Nanyin or Nanguan is a genre of traditional ballads. They are sung by a woman accompanied by a xiao and
4180-652: Is the provenance of the American Folklife Center" at the library of Congress. Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a different history from Sub-Saharan African music traditions . The music and dance forms of the African diaspora , including African American music and many Caribbean genres like soca , calypso and Zouk ; and Latin American music genres like
4290-475: Is understood that folk music is the music of the people, observers find a more precise definition to be elusive. Some do not even agree that the term folk music should be used. Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of "old songs, with no known composers," another is that of music that has been submitted to an evolutionary "process of oral transmission ...
4400-565: The Billboard holiday charts into the 2020s. Ives was born in Hunt City , an unincorporated town in Jasper County, Illinois , near Newton , to Levi "Frank" Ives (1880–1947) and Cordelia "Dellie" (née White; 1882–1954). He had six siblings: Audry, Artie, Clarence, Argola, Lillburn, and Norma. His father was first a farmer and then a contractor for the county and others. One day, Ives was singing in
4510-646: The American Peace Mobilization (APM), a far left group initially opposed to American entry into World War II and Franklin Roosevelt 's pro-Allied policies. They recorded such songs as "Get Out and Stay Out of War" and "Franklin, Oh Franklin". In June 1941, after the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union , the APM abandoned its pacifist stance and reorganized itself into the pro-war American People's Mobilization. Ives and
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4620-466: The Great Depression . Regionalism and cultural pluralism grew as influences and themes. During this time folk music began to become enmeshed with political and social activism themes and movements. Two related developments were the U.S. Communist Party's interest in folk music as a way to reach and influence Americans, and politically active prominent folk musicians and scholars seeing communism as
4730-796: The Juilliard School in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 1938 with a small role in Rodgers and Hart 's hit musical, The Boys from Syracuse . In 1939, he joined his friend and fellow actor Eddie Albert , who had the starring role in The Boys from Syracuse , in Los Angeles. The two shared an apartment for a while in the Beachwood Canyon community of Hollywood. In 1940, Ives named his own radio show, The Wayfaring Stranger , after one of his ballads. Over
4840-745: The PRC . Folk songs have been recorded since ancient times in China. The term Yuefu was used for a broad range of songs such as ballads, laments, folk songs, love songs, and songs performed at court. China is a vast country, with a multiplicity of linguistic and geographic regions. Folk songs are categorized by geographic region, language type, ethnicity, social function (e.g. work song, ritual song, courting song) and musical type. Modern anthologies collected by Chinese folklorists distinguish between traditional songs, revolutionary songs, and newly invented songs. The songs of northwest China are known as "flower songs" ( hua'er ),
4950-475: The Traditional 18 Dances display the dancing of birds and animals. For example: Musical types include: The classical Sinhalese orchestra consists of five categories of instruments, but among the percussion instruments, the drum is essential for dance. The vibrant beat of the rhythm of the drums form the basic of the dance. The dancers' feet bounce off the floor and they leap and swirl in patterns that reflect
5060-773: The Washington Redskins of the National Football League produced by NFL Films . The Executive Producer was NFL Films founder Ed Sabol , and chief producer was Ed's son, Steve Sabol . Ed and Steve Sabol are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame . Ives occasionally starred in macabre-themed productions. In 1970, for example, he played the title role in The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever , in which his character attempts to harvest human organs from unwilling donors. In 1972, he appeared as old man Doubleday in
5170-580: The doo-wop style, by The Marcels . Bob Dylan included his Nashville-inflected version of the song on his Self Portrait album of 1970. Frederick Nolan writes that " My Romance " (written for Jumbo ) "features some of the most elegantly wistful lyrics...[it] is, quite simply, one of the best songs Rodgers and Hart ever wrote." Other of their many hits include " My Funny Valentine ", " Falling in Love with Love ", " Here In My Arms ", " Mountain Greenery ", " My Heart Stood Still ", " The Blue Room ", " Ten Cents
5280-439: The samba , Cuban rumba , salsa ; and other clave (rhythm) -based genres, were founded to varying degrees on the music of enslaved Africans , which has in turn influenced African popular music . Many Asian civilizations distinguish between art /court/classical styles and "folk" music. For example, the late Alam Lohar is an example of a South Asian singer who was classified as a folk singer. Khunung Eshei/Khuland Eshei
5390-580: The 1960s and 1970s. In 1961, he sang the folk song, " I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly " for a short film of the same name produced by the National Film Board of Canada . In 1962, he starred with Rock Hudson in The Spiral Road , which was based on a novel of the same name by Jan de Hartog . He also starred in Disney's Summer Magic with Hayley Mills , Dorothy McGuire , and Eddie Hodges , and
5500-803: The 1970s. He was portrayed with the program's fictional spokesman, Johnny Horizon . Burl Ives was seen regularly in television commercials for Luzianne tea for several years during the 1970s and 1980s, when he was the company's commercial spokesman. In 1982 he played Carruthers, a dog trainer, in Samuel Fuller 's controversial and critically acclaimed film White Dog . In 1989, Ives officially announced his retirement from show business on his 80th birthday. However, he continued to do occasional benefit concert performances of his own accord until 1993. Ives's Broadway career included appearances in The Boys from Syracuse (1938–39), Heavenly Express (1940), This Is
5610-689: The 1981 jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, where he shared the stage with the Oak Ridge Boys . There is a 1977 sound recording of Ives being interviewed by Boy Scouts at the National Jamboree at Moraine State Park , Pennsylvania. Ives was also the narrator of a 28-minute film about the 1977 National Jamboree. In the film, which was produced by the Boy Scouts of America, Ives "shows the many ways in which Scouting provides opportunities for young people to develop character and expand their horizons." Ives
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#17328762247845720-535: The Almanacs rerecorded several of their songs to reflect the group's new stance in favor of US entry into the war. Among them were "Dear Mr. President" and "Reuben James" (the name of a US destroyer sunk by the Germans before the official US entry into the war). In early 1942, Ives was drafted into the U.S. Army . He spent time first at Camp Dix , then at Camp Upton , where he joined the cast of Irving Berlin 's This Is
5830-432: The American folk, definitions that the folk revivalists used in constructing their own understanding of American folk music, and an overarching American identity". Prior to the 1930s, the study of folk music was primarily the province of scholars and collectors. The 1930s saw the beginnings of larger scale themes, commonalities, and linkages in folk music developing in the populace and practitioners as well, often related to
5940-550: The Army (1942), Sing Out, Sweet Land (1944), Paint Your Wagon (1951–52), and Dr. Cook's Garden (1967). His most notable Broadway performance (later reprised in a 1958 movie) was as "Big Daddy" Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955–56). Ives's autobiography, The Wayfaring Stranger , was published in 1948. He also wrote or compiled several other books, including Burl Ives' Songbook (1953), Tales of America (1954), Sea Songs of Sailing, Whaling, and Fishing (1956), and The Wayfaring Stranger's Notebook (1962). Ives had
6050-585: The Army . He attained the rank of corporal. When the show went to Hollywood, he was transferred to the Army Air Forces . He was honorably discharged, apparently for medical reasons, in September 1943. Between September and December 1943, Ives lived in California with actor Harry Morgan . In December 1943, Ives went to New York City to work for CBS Radio for $ 100 a week. In 1944, he recorded The Lonesome Train ,
6160-560: The Association for Cultural Equity, is "distinct from the thousands of earlier recordings on acetate and aluminum discs he made from 1933 to 1942 under the auspices of the Library of Congress. This earlier collection—which includes the famous Jelly Roll Morton, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Muddy Waters sessions, as well as Lomax's prodigious collections made in Haiti and Eastern Kentucky (1937) —
6270-484: The HUAC ended his blacklisting, allowing him to continue acting in movies, but it also led to a bitter rift between Ives and many folk singers, including Pete Seeger , who accused Ives of naming names and betraying the cause of cultural and political freedom to save his own career. Seeger publicly ridiculed Ives for attempting to distance himself from many of the far left organizations he had supported. In 1993, Ives, by then using
6380-596: The Johnny Marks hits which he had sung in the TV special, but with a more "pop" feel. He released them all as singles for the 1965 holiday season, capitalizing on their previous success. In 2022, 27 years after his death, " A Holly Jolly Christmas ", made the Billboard Year-End chart. Ives performed in other television productions, including Pinocchio and Roots . He starred in short-lived O.K. Crackerby! (1965–66),
6490-456: The ballets of George Balanchine . Comparisons between Rodgers and Hart and the successor team of Rodgers and Hammerstein are inevitable. Hammerstein's lyrics project warmth, sincere optimism, and occasional corniness. Hart's lyrics showed greater sophistication in subject matter, more use of overt verbal cleverness, and more of a "New York" or "Broadway" sensibility. The archetypal Rodgers and Hart song, "Manhattan", rhymes "The great big city's
6600-401: The classical suite was based upon stylised folk-dances, and Joseph Haydn 's use of folk melodies is noted. But the emergence of the term "folk" coincided with an "outburst of national feeling all over Europe" that was particularly strong at the edges of Europe, where national identity was most asserted. Nationalist composers emerged in Central Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, Spain and Britain:
6710-509: The complex rhythms of the drum beat. This drum beat may seem simple on the first hearing but it takes a long time to master the intricate rhythms and variations, which the drummer sometimes can bring to a crescendo of intensity. There are six common types of drums falling within 3 styles (one-faced, two-faced, and flat-faced): Other instruments include: Rodgers and Hart Rodgers and Hart were an American songwriting partnership between composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and
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#17328762247846820-491: The elements of nature, and have been enjoyed and developed in the Buddhist environment. The music is of several types and uses only a few types of instruments. The folk songs and poems were used in social gatherings to work together. The Indian influenced classical music has grown to be unique. The traditional drama, music and songs of Sinhala Light Music are typically Sri Lankan. The temple paintings and carvings feature birds, elephants, wild animals, flowers, and trees, and
6930-421: The end of the 1930s these and others had turned American folk music into a social movement. Sometimes folk musicians became scholars and advocates themselves. For example, Jean Ritchie (1922–2015) was the youngest child of a large family from Viper, Kentucky that had preserved many of the old Appalachian traditional songs. Ritchie, living in a time when the Appalachians had opened up to outside influence,
7040-432: The episode "The Other Way Out" of Rod Serling 's Night Gallery , in which his character seeks a gruesome revenge for the murder of his granddaughter. In honor of Ives's influence on American vocal music, on October 25, 1975, he was awarded the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit. This award, initiated in 1964, was "established to bring a declaration of appreciation to an individual each year who has made
7150-505: The fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character." Such definitions depend upon "(cultural) processes rather than abstract musical types...", upon " continuity and oral transmission ...seen as characterizing one side of a cultural dichotomy , the other side of which is found not only in the lower layers of feudal, capitalist and some oriental societies but also in 'primitive' societies and in parts of 'popular cultures'". One widely used definition
7260-414: The film noir Day of the Outlaw (1959). Ives is often associated with the Christmas season. He did voice-over work as Sam the Snowman, narrator of the classic 1964 Christmas television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer . Ives also worked on the special's soundtrack , including the songs " A Holly Jolly Christmas " and " Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer ", both of which continue to chart annually on
7370-435: The garden with his mother, and his uncle overheard them. He invited his nephew to sing at the old soldiers' reunion in Hunt City. The boy performed a rendition of the folk ballad " Barbara Allen " and impressed both his uncle and the audience. From 1927 to 1929, Ives attended Eastern Illinois State Teachers College (now Eastern Illinois University ) in Charleston, Illinois , where he played football. During his junior year, he
7480-399: The laborers who sing them to coordinate their efforts in accordance with the rhythms of the songs. They are frequently, but not invariably, composed. In the American armed forces , a lively oral tradition preserves jody calls ("Duckworth chants") which are sung while soldiers are on the march. Professional sailors made similar use of a large body of sea shanties . Love poetry , often of
7590-500: The last 20 years of his life working on an Interactive Multimedia educational computer project he called the Global Jukebox , which included 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes , and 5,000 photographs. As of March 2012, this has been accomplished. Approximately 17,400 of Lomax's recordings from 1946 and later have been made available free online. This material from Alan Lomax's independent archive, begun in 1946, which has been digitized and offered by
7700-408: The loss of traditional music is slowed in nations or regions where traditional folk music is a badge of cultural or national identity. Much of what is known about folk music prior to the development of audio recording technology in the 19th century comes from fieldwork and writings of scholars, collectors and proponents. Starting in the 19th century, academics and amateur scholars, taking note of
7810-666: The lyricist Lorenz Hart (1895–1943). They worked together on 28 stage musicals and more than 500 songs from 1919 until Hart's death in 1943. Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart were introduced in 1919 while Rodgers was still in high school and Hart had already graduated from Columbia University . One of their first collaborations was at Columbia, and resulted in the 1920 Varsity Show , Fly With Me , which incidentally also involved Oscar Hammerstein II . After writing together for several years, they produced their first successful Broadway musical, The Garrick Gaieties , in 1925, which introduced their hit song " Manhattan " and led to
7920-454: The modern movie Songcatcher . One strong theme amongst folk scholars in the early decades of the 20th century was regionalism , the analysis of the diversity of folk music (and related cultures) based on regions of the US rather than based on a given song's historical roots. Later, a dynamic of class and circumstances was added to this. The most prominent regionalists were literary figures with
8030-567: The music of Dvořák , Smetana , Grieg , Rimsky-Korsakov , Brahms , Liszt , de Falla , Wagner , Sibelius , Vaughan Williams , Bartók , and many others drew upon folk melodies. While the loss of traditional folk music in the face of the rise of popular music is a worldwide phenomenon, it is not one occurring at a uniform rate throughout the world. The process is most advanced "where industrialization and commercialisation of culture are most advanced" but also occurs more gradually even in settings of lower technological advancement. However,
8140-622: The musical traditions being lost, initiated various efforts to preserve the music of the people. One such effort was the collection by Francis James Child in the late 19th century of the texts of over three hundred ballads in the English and Scots traditions (called the Child Ballads ), some of which predated the 16th century. Contemporaneously with Child, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould and later Cecil Sharp worked to preserve
8250-472: The new music created during those revivals. This type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock , folk metal , and others. While contemporary folk music is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, in U.S. English it shares the same name, and it often shares the same performers and venues as traditional folk music. The terms folk music , folk song , and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions. They are extensions of
8360-472: The next decade, he popularized several traditional folk songs, such as "Foggy Dew", " The Blue Tail Fly " (an old minstrel tune now better known as " Jimmy Crack Corn "), and " Big Rock Candy Mountain " (an old hobo song). He was also associated with the Almanacs , a folk-singing group which at different times included Woody Guthrie , Will Geer , Millard Lampell , and Pete Seeger . The Almanacs were active in
8470-408: The offices of traditional music collectors Robert Winslow Gordon , Alan Lomax and others to capture as much North American field material as possible. John Lomax (the father of Alan Lomax) was the first prominent scholar to study distinctly American folk music such as that of cowboys and southern blacks. His first major published work was in 1911, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads . and
8580-650: The other. In the proliferation of popular music genres, some traditional folk music became also referred to as " World music " or "Roots music". The English term " folklore ", to describe traditional folk music and dance, entered the vocabulary of many continental European nations, each of which had its folk-song collectors and revivalists. The distinction between "authentic" folk and national and popular song in general has always been loose, particularly in America and Germany – for example, popular songwriters such as Stephen Foster could be termed "folk" in America. The International Folk Music Council definition allows that
8690-794: The outcomes of battles or lament tragedies or natural disasters . Sometimes, as in the triumphant Song of Deborah found in the Biblical Book of Judges , these songs celebrate victory. Laments for lost battles and wars, and the lives lost in them, are equally prominent in many traditions; these laments keep alive the cause for which the battle was fought. The narratives of traditional songs often also remember folk heroes such as John Henry or Robin Hood . Some traditional song narratives recall supernatural events or mysterious deaths. Hymns and other forms of religious music are often of traditional and unknown origin. Western musical notation
8800-449: The pace of many activities such as planting , weeding , reaping , threshing , weaving , and milling . In leisure time , singing and playing musical instruments were common forms of entertainment and history-telling—even more common than today when electrically enabled technologies and widespread literacy make other forms of entertainment and information-sharing competitive. Some believe that folk music originated as art music that
8910-400: The preservation of songs as artifacts of deceased cultures. "Functional" folklorists (e.g. Botkin and Alan Lomax) maintained that songs only retain relevance when used by those cultures which retain the traditions which birthed those songs. "Left-wing" folk revivalists (e.g. Charles Seeger and Lawrence Gellert) emphasized music's role "in 'people's' struggles for social and political rights". By
9020-506: The pretensions of operatic ritual. It was genteel in expressive impact without being genteel in social conformity. And it moved people". Ives was identified in the 1950 pamphlet Red Channels and blacklisted as an entertainer with supposed Communist ties. In 1952, he cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and agreed to testify, fearful of losing his source of income. Ives's statement to
9130-641: The record producers who (along with Chet Atkins ) helped define the Nashville Sound style of country music that expanded the music's appeal to a wider audience. Bradley used the Nashville A-Team of session musicians behind Ives, including the Anita Kerr Singers , which enhanced Ives' appeal. Bradley also produced the recording of Ives's perennial Holiday favorite " A Holly Jolly Christmas " in Nashville. Ives had several film and television roles during
9240-614: The record. Ives traveled about the U.S. as an itinerant singer during the early 1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his banjo . He was jailed in Mona, Utah , for vagrancy and for singing " Foggy Dew " (an English folk song), which the authorities decided was a bawdy song . Around 1931, he began performing on WBOW radio in Terre Haute, Indiana . He also went back to school, attending classes at Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana State University ). In 1933, Ives also attended
9350-625: The sequel to Mister Roberts , and Our Man in Havana , based on the Graham Greene novel. Barred for a while from American employment, he frequently played on BBC Radio's Children's Hour , with such favorites as "Big Rock Candy Mountain", "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain", and "Lavender Blue". Ives also performed at the Royal Coronation festival in 1952 which purportedly was also attended by
9460-471: The songs they hear. For example, around 1970 the song Mullā Mohammed Jān spread from Herat to the rest of Afghanistan , and Iran where it was recorded. Due to its repetitive refrain and the predictability of the second half of each verse, it allowed for both its popularization, and for each singer to create their own version of the song without being overly-concerned for a melody or restrictive poetic rhythm. Because variants proliferate naturally, there
9570-492: The southern Yangtze area. Jiangnan Sizhu (silk and bamboo music from Jiangnan ) is a style of instrumental music, often played by amateur musicians in tea houses in Shanghai. Guangdong Music or Cantonese Music is instrumental music from Guangzhou and surrounding areas. The music from this region influenced Yueju (Cantonese Opera) music, which would later grow popular during the self-described "Golden Age" of China under
9680-630: The sponsorship of the Washington Post , the festival was held in Washington, DC at Constitution Hall from 1937 to 1942. The folk music movement, festivals, and the wartime effort were seen as forces for social goods such as democracy, cultural pluralism, and the removal of culture and race-based barriers. The American folk music revivalists of the 1930s approached folk music in different ways. Three primary schools of thought emerged: "Traditionalists" (e.g. Sarah Gertrude Knott and John Lomax ) emphasized
9790-495: The standard for Broadway songwriting. "His ability to write cleverly and to come up with unexpected, polysyllabic rhymes was something of a trademark, but he also had the even rarer ability to write with utmost simplicity and deep emotion." Rodgers, as a creator of melodies, ranks with Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin . Their shows belong to the era when musicals were revue-like and librettos were not much more than excuses for comic turns and music cues. Still, just as their songs were
9900-524: The term folklore , which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe "the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes". The term further derives from the German expression Volk , in the sense of "the people as a whole" as applied to popular and national music by Johann Gottfried Herder and the German Romantics over half a century earlier. Though it
10010-558: The term "folk music": newly composed songs, fixed in form and by known authors, which imitated some form of traditional music. The popularity of "contemporary folk" recordings caused the appearance of the category "Folk" in the Grammy Awards of 1959; in 1970 the term was dropped in favor of "Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording (including Traditional Blues)", while 1987 brought a distinction between "Best Traditional Folk Recording" and "Best Contemporary Folk Recording". After that, they had
10120-485: The term can also apply to music that, "...has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten, living tradition of a community. But the term does not cover a song, dance, or tune that has been taken over ready-made and remains unchanged." The post– World War II folk revival in America and in Britain started a new genre, Contemporary Folk Music , and brought an additional meaning to
10230-520: 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. Folk music may include most indigenous music . From a historical perspective, traditional folk music had these characteristics: As a side-effect, the following characteristics are sometimes present: In folk music,
10340-933: The texts of 217,996 Latvian folk songs, the Latvju dainas . In Norway the work of collectors such as Ludvig Mathias Lindeman was extensively used by Edvard Grieg in his Lyric Pieces for piano and in other works, which became immensely popular. Around this time, composers of classical music developed a strong interest in collecting traditional songs, and a number of composers carried out their own field work on traditional music. These included Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams in England and Béla Bartók in Hungary. These composers, like many of their predecessors, both made arrangements of folk songs and incorporated traditional material into original classical compositions. The advent of audio recording technology provided folklorists with
10450-520: The then-known variations of both the texts and tunes associated with what came to be known as the Child Canon. He also advanced some significant theories concerning the workings of oral-aural tradition. Similar activity was also under way in other countries. One of the most extensive was perhaps the work done in Riga by Krisjanis Barons , who between the years 1894 and 1915 published six volumes that included
10560-509: The title song (originally an enormous hit for singing cowboy Gene Autry ) in 1949, and producers Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass retained him to compose the TV special's soundtrack. Ives voiced Sam the Snowman, the banjo-playing "host" and narrator of the story, explaining how Rudolph used his "nonconformity", as Sam refers to it, to save Christmas from being cancelled due to an impassable blizzard. The following year, Ives rerecorded all three of
10670-478: The traditional folk music of many cultures. This encompasses such forms as traditional epic poetry , much of which was meant originally for oral performance, sometimes accompanied by instruments. Many epic poems of various cultures were pieced together from shorter pieces of traditional narrative verse, which explains their episodic structure, repetitive elements, and their frequent in medias res plot developments. Other forms of traditional narrative verse relate
10780-468: The trio's success would help the record sell well, which it did, becoming both a best-selling disc and a Billboard hit. His version of the song " Lavender Blue " became his first hit and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song after Ives introduced it in the 1949 film So Dear to My Heart . Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives' voice ... had the sheen and finesse of opera without its latter-day Puccinian vulgarities and without
10890-635: The twenty-first century many cherished Chinese folk songs have been inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity . In the process, songs once seen as vulgar are now being reconstructed as romantic courtship songs. Regional song competitions, popular in many communities, have promoted professional folk singing as a career, with some individual folk singers having gained national prominence. The art, music and dance of Sri Lanka derive from
11000-414: The very title suggests some doubt as to whether the relationship is mutual or exploitative. One of Rodgers and Hart's best known songs, " Blue Moon ", had an unusual genesis. The tune was originally called "Prayer," and was to be sung by Jean Harlow in the 1934 film Hollywood Party , but was cut. Hart then wrote a new lyric, intended to be the title song for Manhattan Melodrama (1934), which
11110-529: Was arguably the most prominent US folk music scholar of his time, notably during the beginnings of the folk music revival in the 1930s and early 1940s. Cecil Sharp also worked in America, recording the traditional songs of the Appalachian Mountains in 1916–1918 in collaboration with Maud Karpeles and Olive Dame Campbell and is considered the first major scholar covering American folk music. Campbell and Sharp are represented under other names by actors in
11220-401: Was blind and afraid to leave the comfort and safety of his cabin which he shared with his adult son (Johnny Crawford). In this episode Ives paired off with Laura Ingalls (Melissa Gilbert) to help rescue her injured father who was accidentally shot while hunting for venison. Ives lent his name and image to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management 's "This Land Is Your Land – Keep It Clean" campaign in
11330-424: Was changed and probably debased by oral transmission while reflecting the character of the society that produced it. In many societies, especially preliterate ones, the cultural transmission of folk music requires learning by ear , although notation has evolved in some cultures. Different cultures may have different notions concerning a division between "folk" music on the one hand and of "art" and "court" music on
11440-541: Was cut again. A third lyric, "The Bad in Every Man," was used in the film. At the urging of Jack Robbins, head of MGM's music publishing unit, Hart wrote a fourth lyric as a standalone song. Glen Grey and the Casa Loma Orchestra recorded it in 1936, and that version topped the charts for three weeks. Elvis Presley included a haunting version on his self-titled debut album, in 1956. It again was #1 in 1961, this time in
11550-897: Was inducted as a laureate of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the state's highest honor) by the governor of Illinois in 1976 in the area of the performing arts. Ives was inducted into the DeMolay International Hall of Fame in June 1994. On December 6, 1945, Ives, then 36, married 29-year-old script writer Helen Peck Ehrlich. Their son Alexander was born in 1949. Ives and Helen Peck Ehrlich were divorced in February 1971. Ives married Dorothy Koster Paul in London two months later. In their later years, Ives and Paul lived in
11660-406: Was killing musicomedy was its sameness, its tameness, its eternal rhyming of June with moon." Their songs have long been favorites of cabaret singers and jazz artists. Ella Fitzgerald recorded their songbook and Andrea Marcovicci based one of her cabaret acts entirely on Rodgers and Hart songs. Hart's lyrics – facile, vernacular, dazzling, sometimes playful, sometimes melancholic – raised
11770-405: Was not possible. Music was made by common people during both their work and leisure, as well as during religious activities. The work of economic production was often manual and communal. Manual labor often included singing by the workers, which served several practical purposes. It reduced the boredom of repetitive tasks, it kept the rhythm during synchronized pushes and pulls, and it set
11880-411: Was originally created to preserve the lines of Gregorian chant , which before its invention was taught as an oral tradition in monastic communities. Traditional songs such as Green grow the rushes, O present religious lore in a mnemonic form, as do Western Christmas carols and similar traditional songs. Work songs frequently feature call and response structures and are designed to enable
11990-469: Was sitting in English class, listening to a lecture on Beowulf , when he suddenly realized he was wasting his time. As he walked out of the door, the professor made a snide remark and Ives slammed the door behind him, shattering the window in the door. Sixty years later, the school named a building after its most famous dropout. Ives was a member of the Charleston Chapter of The Order of DeMolay and
12100-489: Was university educated and ultimately moved to New York City, where she made a number of classic recordings of the family repertoire and published an important compilation of these songs. In January 2012, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress , with the Association for Cultural Equity, announced that they would release Lomax's vast archive of 1946 and later recording in digital form. Lomax spent
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