4. Music of the folk

If folk music made it possible to imagine world music, it did so from a European perspective. ‘Music of the folk’ examines what concepts of folk and nationality meant to Hungarian composers Bartók and Kodály and explores the global success of folk-inspired Celtic music. Musical pioneers often straddled two cultures, such as Leadbelly, who performed both rural Southern blues and more sophisticated fusion. Leadbelly’s story and others were documented by the Lomax family of folk musician scholars. The spread of polka across the world suggests that there is a place for folk music within world music, contradicting claims that the idea of world music encourages homogenization.