American Folk Music
The national treasure that is American folk and country music came over on boats from the British Isles in the 17th century, especially the Scots-Irish borderlands. It traveled down the Appalachian – via fiddle, banjo and guitar – in ballads and hymns, the words changing into new songs but the music immutable. For example, it was the first music that the great American songwriter Woody Guthrie ever heard: his mother singing AngloCeltic ballads in a high nasal country twang at their home outside Okemah, Oklahoma.