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.
