[Ads-l] folksinger

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED: 1898.
These refer to poets whose works popular works supposedly give voice to
their national culture:

1884 _Daily News_ (Chicago) (Nov. 2) 2:  Even in his own day [Heine] was
accepted as a folk-singer, and his rhymes found their way to the hearts of
the people and the lips of the peasantry.

 1896 _Sunday Inter-Ocean_ (Chicago) (July 19) 8: Karl Michael Bellman is
Sweden's national folk singer and poet, and lived during the time
of...Gustavus III.

 Figuratively applied to a famous composer:

 1907 _Nome Daily Nugget_ (Dec. 7) 3: A Folk Singer of the North...Edvard
Grieg.


But now we're getting modern:

1908 _Rock Island [Ill.] Argus_ (Sept. 12) 10 : Her company consists of
Rita Rich, a folk singer of all nations...."  [Who presumably sang in an
elite style.]

1912 _Boston Morning Journal_ (Jan. 23) 9:  Ten whirlwind dancers,
musicians and folk singers from Russia.

1917 _New York Times (Dec. 2) IX 3:  Cecil Sharp Publishes His Finds in the
American South....His enthusiasm for his folk singers carries him far


So as early as 1918 there wasn't much natural agreement on what a "folk
singer" sang or how he sang it.


JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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