The folk genre has origins dating back to the 19th century, which in many ways is mirrored in many popular genres in modern music genres. To simplify, popular music is simply "ballads and songs composed and transmitted vocally, without being written down." Although what we distinguish as "folk" today is stylistically very different from what "folk" was in the 19th century, in its basic form it still maintains the same standards and concepts, describing simpler times. Through vigorous research, it is difficult to overlook the history and development of Southern popular music and how this can help understand the importance of observing and expanding the dynamics of Southern race relations. Both racial associations and Southern composition are replicas of the social construction of the rural South. In the physically separated South, black-and-white melodic backgrounds exhibit the same deviations and junctures that have historically characterized black-and-white relationships. This is not an emotional analysis; but is instead a socially ancient examination of regional popular culture that focuses on the collaboration between two important features of that culture; race and music. The growth of American popular music as a popular commodity is a process that corresponds to the historical and cultural expansion of American society. In the formation of this commodity, two great currents, the British and the African, converged together over a period of two centuries. Alan Lomax, one of the most important iconic historians of folk music, observed that the union of these various elements produced a cultural product that is "more British than anything to be discovered in Britain". Southern music is a noteworthy measure of folk customs; in man... middle of paper... nica scale twisting the guitar strings to achieve tones that expressed their feelings. These "bent notes" developed into a regular feature of the blues, and response patterns were intricately woven into the vocal arrangements of black music, both transcendent and secular. Yet another Africanism that deserves attention is the widespread use of the "falsetto scream" "falsetto leap" in which the singing was raised an octave "usually in". the preceding syllable of a word, at the conclusion of a line". It is commonly understood that this mannerism was preserved in the field shouts and work songs of the slavery era and found its way into early blues form. Some researchers have suggested the "blue yodelling" marketed by Jimmie Rodgers and his many followers may have been a deliberate blend of Swiss yodelling and African falsetto leaping.