Willapa Hills Farm is a working family farm and creamery located in the coastal hills of Southwestern Washington. Since moving to our century-old farmstead in the Willapa Hills in 2005, we have dreamed of filling our historic gambrel barn with music and dancing. An annual barn dance with family and friends has inspired us to increase the prominence of live music on our farm and in our lives. Autum
n 2017 will see us embarking on this new adventure with the introduction of our first annual American Roots Autumn Music Series. This once-a-month event will showcase regional folk and roots artists in a unique and intimate setting - the loft of our barn, set up as an intimate listening room, with ample space for dancing if the music calls. Participants in these family-friendly events will enjoy a variety of traditional music styles over the course of the series. Stay tuned as dates and performances are firmed up in the coming weeks! In the meantime, we will be sharing artists and music we love - and if we are lucky - a few of our favorites will join us in the Willapa Hills in the coming months and years...
WHAT IS AMERICAN ROOTS MUSIC? The following description does an excellent job fleshing out the eclectic combination of musical traditions and genres that make up American Roots Music. It also serves as an effective guide for the music that Willapa Hills Farm will be hosting in the months and years ahead. American folk music is a musical term that encompasses numerous genres, many of which are known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk music or roots music. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and can sometimes be traced back to such places of origin as Great Britain, Europe, or Africa. Roots music is a broad category of music including bluegrass, gospel, old time music, jug bands, Appalachian folk, blues, Cajun and Native American music. The music is considered American either because it is native to the United States or because it developed there, out of foreign origins, to such a degree that it struck musicologists as something distinctly new. It is considered "roots music" because it served as the basis of music later developed in the United States, including rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and jazz. Many roots musicians do not consider themselves to be folk musicians; the main difference between the American folk music revival and American "roots music" is that roots music seems to cover a slightly broader range, including blues and country. Roots music developed its most expressive and varied forms in the first three decades of the 20th century. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were extremely important in disseminating these musical styles to the rest of the country, as Delta blues masters, itinerant honky tonk singers, and Latino and Cajun musicians spread to cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. The growth of the recording industry in the same period was also important; higher potential profits from music placed pressure on artists, songwriters, and label executives to replicate previous hit songs. This meant that musical fads, such as Hawaiian slack-key guitar, never died out completely, since a broad range of rhythms, instruments, and vocal stylings were incorporated into disparate popular genres. By the 1950s, forms of roots music had led to pop-oriented forms. Folk musicians like the Kingston Trio, pop-Tejano and Cuban-American fusions like boogaloo, chachacha and mambo, blues-derived rock and roll and rockabilly, pop-gospel, doo wop and R&B (later secularized further as soul music) and the Nashville sound in country music all modernized and expanded the musical palette of the country. The roots approach to music emphasizes the diversity of American musical traditions, the genealogy of creative lineages and communities, and the innovative contributions of musicians working in these traditions today. In recent years roots music has been the focus of popular media programs such as Garrison Keillor's public radio program, A Prairie Home Companion and the feature film by the same name. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_folk_music
