Browse Items (4 total)

This song could be used to introduce students to murder ballads, a subgenre of folk music. Like many other Appalachian murder ballads, "Knoxville Girl" is an adaptation of British broadside ballads. Once brought over to the States, these ballads were…

"Ode to Billie Joe" is an account of how each of the members of a Mississippi family take the news of Billie Joe McAllister's suicide. A number of ambiguous details in the narrative, which emphasizes loss and was released in 1967, lend itself to a…

This song can be used to introduce students to the influence that Appalachian music had on modern country music. Many early country songs were based on British ballads and were combined with musical influences from African-American musical traditions…

This song could be used to introduce students to the gradual shift away from the pastoral way of rural southern life that once dominated the region and the New Deal. The south had traditionally been more agrarian than the north and the songwriter Bob…