Cecil Sharp
Cecil James Sharp (22 November 1859 – 23 June 1924) was an English-born folk song collector, musician and composer. He was a key leader of the folk-song revival in England as a collector, archivist, teacher and promoter. 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.
Based on his study of surviving rural folk dances as well as written sources, he collected, curated and popularized the latent practices of English country dance and Morris dancing. In 1911, he co-founded the English Folk Dance Society (which was later merged into the English Folk Dance and Song Society).
Sharp's legacy survives in the folk music and dances that he helped preserve, some of which are still performed today. Many of the most popular musicians of the British Folk Revival of the 1960s, for example, used songs collected by Sharp in their music and understood his contribution.Conversely, Sharp has been criticised by historians for the manner in which is racist and sexist attitudes influenced his works, noting that he refused to collect folk music from people of colour. Sharp has also been criticised for downplaying the role of female and ethnic Scottish creators in the history of folk music.
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