Folk: A History in Twelve Songs

Folk songs are the songs of our lives. From road songs to protest songs, train songs to dust bowl poetry, fairy tales to ghost stories, lumber jack songs to slavery and incarceration songs: whatever humans experience, we find a way to express through song.

On the whole, folk songs don't have single authors or progenitors, rather they well up from the land or the road and are taken on by generation after generation. Changed by each successive performer, they survive in a state of both continuity and evolution.

In Folk, James Wade goes on twelve journeys to explore twelve folk songs and looks at how each song fits into the broader landscape of folk life and lore - and celebrates the rich non-linear nature of cultural inheritance.