Early music

Barbara Allen - I have heard this song before since it is often used as an example of early American music.  However,  I was somewhat surprised to learn from the reading just how old it is.  I had not realized that its roots go all the way back to the 1600s in England, with its earliest documentation being in 1666.  It is a part of the British ballad tradition and had been brought to America by the early British settlers.
I had not heard this particular version before. With the use of a single, unaccompanied woman's voice it creates a very haunting atmosphere.  The repeated rise and fall of the melodic line can become quite hypnotic after several repetitions.  The lyrics present a story of a man on his deathbed who is dying from his unrequited love for the woman of the title.  When she does finally come to see him, she is very cold towards him and he subsequently dies.  However, shortly afterwards she dies as well, and they are buried in close proximity to each other.  Subsequently, a rose grows out of his grave and briars out of hers and they entwine around each other so that they are together for eternity.
Without even having guidance from the reading, it seems clear that this is one of the direct antecedents of the country music tradition of sad songs of either unrequited love or of love once possessed but tragically lost.

Soldier's Joy - This is described in the text as part of the string band tradition branch of what eventually became what we now call country music.  Before the days of recorded music, these were the principal means of providing music for communal events such as dances and weddings.
These two versions provide some interesting contrasts: The first uses a combination of instrumental and vocal.  The melody uses a structure of A-A1-A-B and the lyrics follow a similar pattern.  The second utilizes strictly instrumental without vocals and, as the spoken introduction indicates, a lower tuning than standard (D tuning).  The song seems to be characteristic of the style often used for square dancing and the instrumentation seems to be violin (fiddle),banjo and/or guitar and bass with some sort of simple percussion backing.