Scots Irish roots of country music
Posted: 23 Oct 2004 5:08 pm
Here is a link to a very interesting article about the ethnic group that gave birth to country music.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005798
(go to OpinionJournal Wall Street Journal editorial page)
The article addresses the influence of this group on electoral politics, and I don't mean for this thread to go off on that, so please let's not go there here. But the rest of the article discusses this huge ethnic group (which I am a part of), but which is rarely considered as an ethnic group. The author has also written a book on this subject which looks interesting. He says country music is the soundtrack for this ethnic group. I know Emmy Lou Harris was featured in a PBS documentary on the Scots Irish and their music, but unfortunately I have never seen it.
I was always told I came from the "Scotch Irish" who populated the Southeast. I just figured that meant the Scotch and Irish came here and got so mixed up together they were just lumped together as a group. Not so, The Scots Irish were Scots protestants who resided in Northern Ireland for several generations, and combined Scotch and Irish culture, especially music. They eventually were caught in a political squeeze between Anglican loyalists and Irish Catholics.
From the 1700s through the potato famine of the 1800s, hundreds of thousands of Scots Irish immigrated to New Hampshire and Vermont, and the Middle-Atlantic and Southeastern states. Many came with nothing as indentured servants. Over the generations they spread across the Southern portions of the Midwest and across the Southwest, all the way to Bakersfield. In the last half of the twentieth century many migrated to the industrial cities in the Northern midwest. Their nostalgia for the South fueled a big market for country music, and country music stars toured those areas as much as the South and Southwest.
I'm interested in other Forum members' thoughts on this cultural phenomenon.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David Doggett on 24 October 2004 at 07:25 AM.]</p></FONT>
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005798
(go to OpinionJournal Wall Street Journal editorial page)
The article addresses the influence of this group on electoral politics, and I don't mean for this thread to go off on that, so please let's not go there here. But the rest of the article discusses this huge ethnic group (which I am a part of), but which is rarely considered as an ethnic group. The author has also written a book on this subject which looks interesting. He says country music is the soundtrack for this ethnic group. I know Emmy Lou Harris was featured in a PBS documentary on the Scots Irish and their music, but unfortunately I have never seen it.
I was always told I came from the "Scotch Irish" who populated the Southeast. I just figured that meant the Scotch and Irish came here and got so mixed up together they were just lumped together as a group. Not so, The Scots Irish were Scots protestants who resided in Northern Ireland for several generations, and combined Scotch and Irish culture, especially music. They eventually were caught in a political squeeze between Anglican loyalists and Irish Catholics.
From the 1700s through the potato famine of the 1800s, hundreds of thousands of Scots Irish immigrated to New Hampshire and Vermont, and the Middle-Atlantic and Southeastern states. Many came with nothing as indentured servants. Over the generations they spread across the Southern portions of the Midwest and across the Southwest, all the way to Bakersfield. In the last half of the twentieth century many migrated to the industrial cities in the Northern midwest. Their nostalgia for the South fueled a big market for country music, and country music stars toured those areas as much as the South and Southwest.
I'm interested in other Forum members' thoughts on this cultural phenomenon.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David Doggett on 24 October 2004 at 07:25 AM.]</p></FONT>