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Folk, blues and gospel, three of America's greatest vernacular music genres, have been inextricably linked since their inceptions and share many common themes. Blues and folk music originally evolved as social, community-based forms, while gospel, naturally, came from the church. Eventually, sacred and secular musicians found themselves using melodies, lyrics and story lines that were almost interchangeable, and, staring in the late 1950s, sharing stages at folk festivals around the country.
As an oral tradition, folk music has been in America since this country's founding. British ancestors brought with them to the new land their repositories of old parlor songs, narratives, sea chanteys and ballads, and these were handed down, mother to daughter and father to son, for generations. African ancestors also brought memories of their own traditions with them, which over time metamorphosed into work songs, blues, field hollers and country dance music. Indeed, every culture that came here brought its own religious and secular music as well, and this, too, was handed down generation to generation.
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