Folk & Pop|

Pop music is, in common with jazz, primarily an aural and improvised music. Pop and jazz represent parallel, yet only indirectly related, developments, despite their sharing a common folk music ancestry. Pop music initially drew its repertoire from the folk traditions of the US, and thus indirectly from previous African and European traditions. (Hatch and Millward, 1989) The phrase “pop music” was first coined around the middle of the 1920′s, it meant a piece of music had “popular” appeal. Numerous things that took place during the recordings of the 20′s could be seen as being the start of the modern day pop music industry, which includes rhythm and blues music, as well as, country, folk, and others. Pop music has been a profitable industry in America since the 19th century, but Early Pop/Rock is a style that took shape in the post-rock & roll era, once the more conservative elements of the record industry had come to terms with the new musical landscape. Popular culture is distributed across many forms of mass communication including newspapers, magazines, radio, television, movies, music, books and cheap novels, comics and cartoons, and advertising. It contrasts with high cultural art forms, such as opera, classical music and artworks, traditional theatre and literature. In mass communication, the term popular culture refers to messages that make limited intellectual and aesthetic demands through content that is designed to amuse and entertain audiences. (Maurice Dekatt (ft. Michael Jackson)- pop music, no date)

As times have changed, folk music has changed to reflect the times. Many of the old labour and protest songs are still sung today, albeit with new verses that were added to reflect the context in which the songs were resurrected.

Traditionally sung and played within communities - i.e. not made for popular consumption - American folk music became embedded in the mainstream tradition, creating some combination of folk and pop music, during the mid-20th Century "folk music revival". Thanks to radio and recorded music, artists and fans in New York could develop an interest in the music indigenous to the Gulf States. Folks in Seattle could discover the fiddle tunes and dance numbers from the folk music tradition of lower Appalachia.

Thus, traditional American folk music started to blend with mainstream recorded pop music, as the Baby Boomers came of age all at once, many of them listening to Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. (Ruehl, 2014)