I recently got into into a discussion regarding "Traditional" Blues..My point being a Traditional song is one in which author is unknown and song has been passed down over the years...I was saying Born Under A Bad Sign or Spoonful would not be traditional songs -- but is their a "Traditional" genre that goes beyond this. And also, would you call Bob Dylan songs traditional folk?

Well, I guess you could call "Greensleeves" traditional folk music. Or maybe not. I wouldn't call Dylan's songs traditional folk, simply because tradition implies being handed down from one generation to another, or at least, using something annually, like the tradition of singing songs at Christmas time. Maybe traditional blues would be the early blues singers, and instrumentalists, like Buddy Guy and the like. Interesting topic.

I would definitely not call Bob Dylan "Traditional Folk". "Traditional" means that the creator is unknown, it has been handed down over time. You could say that some modern artists write in the traditional style. (though I wouldn't really put Bob in that group, either) When Richard Thompson first left Fairport Convention, much of what he was writing was in a traditional style - you couldn't really tell by listening whether it was a new song, or hundreds of years old. Another good example of a modern artist writing in the traditional style is Stan Rogers' "Barrett's Privateers".
In the Blues genre, which is somewhat newer, there has historically been a lot of borrowing, building on an earlier song, etc. You *might* get away with calling a Blues song "Tradiational" even if the original artist were known, but certainly not if the song was less than, oh, 80 years old.

Buddy Guy is too modern of an artist to be called traditional blues. Most of his output over the years is electric. Traditional blues is more in reference to the first generation blues artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charlie Patton, Son House, and Skip James. All of them recorded in the late 1920s-early 1930s period and are considered "country" blues singers/musicians. Robert Johnson came along a few years after them. Artists in this day and time including Taj Mahal, Keb' 'Mo, and Chris Thomas King have all recorded blues music in the "older" vein. Buddy Guy recorded a Skip James cover on his 2003 CD of acoustic material "Blues Singer".

Shows you what I know! Thanks for the info. Yeah, I guess Stevie Ray Vaughn ain't traditional either then, huh?

Nope. Anyone playing electric couldn't be traditional. If you are SRV fan, I hope you have checked out Albert King...in my opinion the greatest electric blues guitarist ever. He;s the gut SVR got a lot of his stuff from, as did Clapton.

Dino

For US traditional folk, I think of Woody Guthrie or pre-dating him, the old-timey country from Appalachia.

Traditional blues evolved from African-American spiriituals. Early recorded artists here would include Memphis Minnie and W.C Handy.

For some really great trad folk & blues, as well as jazz & gospel, hunt down Joe Bussard's cd of such music from his collection of 78s. His site is under construction now but he offers collections of this music on tapes. Great stuff.

I'm very familiar with Joe Bussard. That man has one of the best collections of old rare 78 RPMs from lots of genres. On the planet. Memphis Minnie was also a traditional blues artist and a fine guitar player. W.C. Handy was a bandleader, who wrote his first published blues song "Memphis Blues" in 1912 and his most famous song "St. Louis Blues" in 1914. Handy had orignally called "Memphis Blues", "Mr. Crump" in 1909, since he had written it for the then Memphis,TN. mayoral candidate Edward Crump. The first blues song ever recorded was "Crazy Blues" by Mamie Smith for Okeh Records in 1920. I have a 78 copy of it in my collection. It was written by Perry Bradford.

Surely Folk and Blues are both traditional and contemporary. They both come from the experiences and times of their composition and are evolving all the time.

I must admit that I do prefer Folk, especially from Celtic roots and if you want to be purist you can argue that this music and Shanty music are more traditional by reason of their age and origin.

dakjones, I'm more into blues, and not any expert on folk music. (I'm not calling myself an expert on blues, even though I have studied the music with relish for years). When it comes to blues, artists like Buddy Guy, or B.B. King, or Lonnie Brooks, are classified as modern blues. Contemporary blues makes me think of artists like the late Z.Z. Hill, Denise LaSalle, and Chick Willis. They play and sing blues, as well as a blues/soul hybrid. John Lee Hooker kind of transcended any definitions, since he recorded "traditional" blues with an acoustic guitar, as he recorded a wealth of electric blues. Straddling the fence perhaps. As far as folk music, I've always thought that it and early hillbilly music were in some ways related.

American folk, which you might think of as hillbilly music, has a very strong connection to older European folk music. Settlers brought their muisc with them, and then adapted it to fit their new lives, often directly reusing melodies.
You might be interested in David Wilkie, and his "Cowboy Celtic" which traces the European roots of traditional cowboy tunes.

Lemmy I bow to your knowledge of the blues but what you say is a good example of how the music has evolved through interpretation of differant people.
I'm not sure what hillbilly music is (but I have seen Deliverance) but Celtic music is so diverse from the Northumbrian Pipes and fiddle of Kathryn Tickell, the traditional songs of Kate Rusby, the more recent sound of Clannad and Enya crossing over to Richard Wood and Natalie Macmaster who mix folk of Canadian tradition and Celtic/Irish origin.

By hillbilly are you referring to bluegrass? Check out The Dillards.

For anyone who might want to check out indie folk (or sometimes called "New Folk" or "Expieremental Folk"), I can recommend some artists:

*Iron & Wine
*Sufjan Stevens
*Woven Hand
*any Will Oldham/Bonnie 'Prince' Billy album or side-project
*Mountain Goats
*Devendra Banhart (I've heard his style labeled "freak folk" and that might be right)
*Joanna Newsom (somewhat expieremental)
*Josephine Foster
*Jolie Holland (bordering on alt/country and old-timey music)
*M. Ward (also uses old-timey music styles)
*Vashti Bunyan (she recorded a folk album back in 1970, disappeared from the music biz and then released a magnificent follow-up cd in 2005, definately worth checking out both albums).

I'm not going to really debate anything here,but if you find a website or some other route of info that lists song titles for early blues performers,you'd be amazed just how far back alot of songs go.For instance skimming Leadbelly's catolog, I found that he did the songs "Midnight Special" and "Gallows Pole",along with the somber,"Where Did You Sleep Last Night",Leadbelly was doing this in the 20's and 30's,I believe,and he quite possibly picked them up from someone else along his way.Many of these songs were first probably heard at small gatherings,sitting on the porch of some little dwelling by some folks we'll never know,after a tough day of work.