page_title: Cecil Sharp
section_title: In America
hierarchical_section_title: Cecil Sharp / In America
caption_attribution_description: English: Sign about Cecil Sharp and Jane Gentry in Hot Springs, NC
context_page_description: Cecil James Sharp was the founding father of the folk-song revival in England. He gathered thousands of tunes both from rural England and the Southern Appalachians region of the United States, and wrote an influential volume, English Folk Song: Some Conclusions. He also revived the extinct tradition of English country dance, based on his study of surviving rural folk dances as well as written sources; this form of dance as Sharp revived it has by now been actively maintained by enthusiast participants for over a century. Sharp promoted Morris dancing, and in 1911 founded the English Folk Dance Society.
context_section_description: During the years of the First World War, Sharp found it difficult to support himself through his customary efforts at lecturing and writing, and decided to make an extended visit to the United States.  The visit, made with his collaborator Maud Karpeles during the years 1916–1918, was a great success. Large audiences came to hear Sharp lecture about folk music, and Sharp also took the opportunity to do field work on English folk songs that had survived in the more remote regions of southern Appalachia, pursuing a line of research pioneered by Olive Dame Campbell.  Travelling through the mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, Sharp and Karpeles recorded a treasure trove of folk songs, many using the pentatonic scale and many in versions quite different from those Sharp had collected in rural England.  Generally, Sharp recorded the tunes, while Karpeles was responsible for the words.
  Sharp was greatly struck by the dignity, courtesy, and natural grace of the people who welcomed him and Karpeles in the Appalachians, and he defended their values and their way of life in print.
caption: A sign in Hot Springs, North Carolina marks where Cecil Sharp collected ballads in 1916.
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