Most Americans are proud of having a distinct, other-than-American ancestry that blends easily with a basic political and cultural allegiance to the United States. This section deals with those ethnic musics that have had a major influence upon our entire culture [see Identity, Diversity, and Interaction, p. 504].
Although colonial America was divided among several European powers, the first major immigrations were from the British Isles. They extended from the seventeenth-century Atlantic coast settlements...