John Greenway

Who was John Greenway?

John Greenway was born John Groenweg in Liverpool, England, in 1919 and died in 1991. He was a noted author, singer and scholar who focused on American folk songs of protest.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where his dissertation was on "American Folksongs of Social and Economic Protest." It was later published as American Folksongs of Protest, which was the standard work in the field for 40 years. He also studied protest folk songs in Australia. He recorded The Great American Bum and Other Hobo and Migratory Workers' Songs, and American Industrial Folksongs, both released by Riverside Records. In the 1950s he was a Professor of English at Denver University. He authored or edited 19 books, wrote hundreds of articles and reviews, and was for many years editor of the Journal of American Folklore, Southwestern Lore, and Western Folklore. Other popular works by Greenway include The Inevitable Americans and Literature Among the Primitives.

Greenway was also a collector and performer of songs in the talking blues genre. In 1958 he released the album Talking Blues, a collection of 15 songs which he had recorded and annotated.