The Mudcat Café is an online discussion group and song and tune

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

, which also includes many other features relating to

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

History

The website was originally founded in October 1996 as a

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

-oriented discussion site. It was named after a

Mississippi Delta The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yazo ...

region catfish, capable of living in ''

muddy waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of moder ...

'', known locally as a ''mudcat''. This region was the birthplace of the American

Delta Blues Delta blues is one of the earliest-known styles of blues. It originated in the Mississippi Delta and is regarded as a regional variant of country blues. Guitar and harmonica are its dominant instruments; slide guitar is a hallmark of the s ...

style. ''Mudcat Café'' later transitioned from a blues music forum to a folk music forum. The website incorporated the ''Digital Tradition'' song database after the database lost its original home. Max D. Spiegel, the website's founder, is still its administrator as of 2023.

Content

Membership is free and the site is run by volunteers.

Forum

The discussion group (the Forum) is divided into music-related and non-music-related topics: *The music-related section hosts lively discussions on

American folk music The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ''roots music''. Many traditional songs have been sung ...

British folk music Throughout the history of the British Isles, the land that is now the United Kingdom has been a major music producer, drawing inspiration from church music and traditional folk music, using instruments from England, Scotland, Northern Irelan ...

and that of many other cultures, origins and lyrics of songs, folklore and related information. Information is provided and maintained on a large number of folk clubs,

folk festival A folk festival celebrates traditional folk crafts and folk music. This list includes folk festivals worldwide, except those with only a partial focus on folk music or arts. Folk festivals may also feature folk dance or ethnic foods. Handicra ...

s, music sessions and dances around the world. Requests for origins, lyrics and chords of songs are answered here. Many performing artists also contribute to the discussions from time to time. *The non-music section contains discussion on everything unrelated to music.

Digital Tradition song database

Mudcat hosts both a web-based and a downloadable version of the ''Digital Tradition'' song database (also known as ''DigiTrad'' or ''DT''). It was started in 1988 by pooling the song collections of Dennis Cook and Susan Friedman in electronic form, using askSam format. The song database is updated on a regular basis by members ("Mudcatters") and now contains the words to over 9,000

folk songs Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has be ...

, many with an accompanying

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...

file and links to further information. The downloadable version was last updated in 2002 and is available in MS-DOS askSam format. Versions were previously available for Mac and Windows.

Resources

The Links section of the site provides links to "Festivals and Venues", "Instruments", "Lyrics, Sheet Music & Tabs", "Performers and Composers", among other subjects dealing with folk music and blues. The Mudcat Songbook on the site presents

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

recordings of songs written and recorded by Mudcatters.

Events

Mudgatherings

Mudcatters in different countries meet up regularly at "mudgatherings".

Mudcat Worldwide Singaround

Mudcat began a regular online event known as the Mudcat Worldwide Singaround in June 2020.

References

External links

The Mudcat Café

The Folkopedia Project
* Cited i

in ''Voices, The Journal of New York Folklore'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Mudcat Cafe Online music and lyrics databases Folk music publications Folk music organizations