I once thought that Cowboy songs and Country and Western songs were typical American folk music. However, that history is a bit more complicated. That is also because America does not have a homogeneous composition of its population: What is folk in this case?.
Through colonization and immigration, North America has become a melting pot of folk music where the music of the original inhabitants, the Indians, virtually disappeared or was absorbed into the predominant forms.
The settlers initially brought their own folk music. Thus, North American folk music acquired English, Irish and Scottish roots and in Canada French origins. With later waves of immigration, including the forced influx of slaves, each group imported its own music. They mixed with each other, creating all sorts of regional forms.
In this section you will find a small selection arrangements of songs with English and Irish origins.