News from the Music Industry

Designed as a textbook primer, Ronald D. Cohen’s Folk Music. The Basics offers a brief history of American and British folk music. Cohen’s prose is simple and straightforward, and the book progresses chronologically, concentrating on specific periods of time (”The Fifties,” for instance). Beginning in the 19th century, Folk Music traces the growth in interest of roots music by collectors, scholars and musicians to the present day. Cohen’s book, then, attempts to fill a current publishing gap by offering a concise history of folk music that is easy to read and contemporary.