American folk music has provided a narrative thread to the fibre of the US since its earliest days. Forms ranging from New England sea shanties to Pennsylvania Dutch worksongs helped shape life in the Northeast. Appalachian ballads evolved in the South, as did slave spirituals that served as codes for the Underground Railroad.

American folk music has provided a narrative thread to the fibre of the US since its earliest days. Forms ranging from New England sea shanties to Pennsylvania Dutch worksongs helped shape life in the Northeast. Appalachian ballads evolved in the South, as did slave spirituals that served as codes for the Underground Railroad. Folk ballads on lumbering and mining grew in the Midwest and Northwest, while cowboy ballads emerged across the Great Plains and the West, and railroad songs accompanied expansion along the American frontier. Norm Cohen presents a thorough exploration of the many ways in which folk music genres and subgenres have arisen in different regions of America. Chapters on folk song types, folk instrumentation, and the urban folk revival set further context to the discussion, and an itemized summary of noted folksong collections serves as an additional tool for both general readers and folk music scholars.

Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Foreword/Preface
Introduction
Ballads and Songs
Instruments and Music
Folk Music of the Northeast
Folk Music of the Southeast
Folk Music of the Midwest and Great Lakes
Folk Music of the Far West
Folk Songs of Occupations and Cultures
Commercial Folk-derived Musical Traditions
The Urban Folk Revival
Representative Biographical Sketches
Appendix: Plot Synopses of Ballads Most Commonly Found in the United States and Canada
Indexes (by name, subject, and song).