[Ads-l] Antedating of "Folk-Singer"

[Jonathan Lighter]

In terms of common usage, the concepts of "folk music" and "folk singer"
have  gone predictably from the Romantic to the Anarchic.

JL

On Sat, Jul 15, 2023 at 10:30 AM Geoffrey Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
wrote:

> Margaret and I, who are traditional (and modern) folk music fans
> (particularly Scottish and
> other British Isles and Nova Scotia) have often discussed the category. An
> early Cognitive Grammar
> concept, the 'radial prototype category’ fits well here. When we listen to
> a 'folk music' channel
> (SiriusXM, Folk Alley) there's only a tenuous thread among the songs. For
> example, Judy Collins singing
> Sondheim's  'Send in the Clowns', or, conversely, Sting singing  'Long
> Black Veil'.
> Just musing on the semantics of the term…
>
> Geoff
>
> Geoffrey S. Nathan
> WSU Information Privacy Officer (Retired)
> Emeritus Professor, Linguistics Program
> https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/an6993
>
> geoffnathan at wayne.edu
>
>
> From: Jonathan Lighter<mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2023 9:57 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Folk-Singer"
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Antedating of "Folk-Singer"
>
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>
> What I find interesting is that the first "folk singers" appear to have
> been national poets or, in the case of the sagas, storytellers.
>
> The "Great Man" theory as applied to national cultures.
>
> What is "folk" has been a vexed question for a long time.
>
> Music review by John Donahue in _The New Yorker_, June 8, 2015, p. 26:
>
> "Olivia Chaney...is bringing the grand tradition of British folk music into
> the twenty-first century...She often performs barefoot....When she takes
> her place behind the harmonium ... and, with a steely gaze, starts singing,
> it's as if a mystical spirit has entered the room. It's chilling when she
> slowly intones 'Stand by the roadside/ facing the headlights/ wait for the
> break of dawn,' on her adaptation of 'Blessed Instant,' by the Norwegian
> jazz singer Sidsel Endresen...."
>
> JL
>
> On Sat, Jul 15, 2023 at 8:42=E2=80=AFAM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.ed
> =
> u> wrote:
>
> > I believe the second article I ever published, many years ago, was titled
> > "Antedatings of Folk- Compounds in OED and Its Supplement."  The
> etymolog=
> y
> > of these compounds is complicated: some of them were inspired by W. J.
> > Thoms's coinage of "folk-lore" in 1846, others were formed on German
> mode=
> ls.
> >
> > folk-singer (OED 1898)
> >
> > 1870 _The Orchestra_ 2 Sept. 378 (ProQuest)  Dupont on the other hand was
> > a Folk singer -- a poet of the people.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
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