Northern American Music

Northern American music is a regional umbrella for the traditional and roots musics of the United States and Canada, from Appalachian balladry and country blues to Cajun dance music, Tejano, Québécois fiddle traditions and the singer-songwriter line that descends from *Woody Guthrie*. The term is used by archives, festivals and reissue labels to group repertoires that share the continent's settlement history: British and French ballads, African-American blues and gospel, and Indigenous musics, all reshaped by migration and the recording industry. Its landmark recordings run from *Hank Williams* and *Lead Belly* to the Canadian folk revival of *Gordon Lightfoot* and *Buffy Sainte-Marie*.