Folk Song and the Voice
Toward an Ethnography of Singing
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19214935 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Olivia H Phillips (PDK International, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 139 |
| Issue | 552 |
| Pages | 131-152 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American Folklore (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8715 • E-ISSN: 1535-1882 |
| Publisher | University of Illinois Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.5406/15351882.139.552.01 |
| OpenAlex | W7161282810 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 22 |
Drawing from ethnomusicological voice studies and African American music scholarship, this essay advocates for attention to singing technique as a space of social meaning-making and enculturation in folk song performance. I analyze two contrasting recordings of white Appalachian traditional musician Frank Proffitt (1913–1965) that highlight underacknowledged influences from the African American blues tradition in Proffitt's vocalization. Finally, I propose that attending to the singing voice in folklore studies necessitates an ethnography of singing, modeled after the folkloristic ethnography of speaking
Blues · Enculturation · Ethnography · Ethnomusicology · Folk music · Folk song · Folklore · Singing · Space (punctuation) · Diverse Music Education Insights · Music History and Culture · Musicology and Musical Analysis
The Race of Sound
Flaming
Bright Star of the West
Belonging
On Cultural Appropriation
Searching for silenced voices in Appalachian music
Black Banjo Songsters in Appalachia
The Ethos of the Blues
Hungry listening resonant theory for indigenous sound studies
Techniques of Blues Composition among Black Folksingers
Changing Patterns in Negro Folk Songs
"Rose Connolly" Revisited
Blackbirds in the Archive
Afro-American Gospel Music
Hearing the Blues
The Ethnography of Speaking
Anthropology and Voice
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |