Page "Ballad" Paragraph 12

Illustration by Arthur Rackham to Young Bekie.

European Ballads have been generally classified into three major groups: traditional, broadside and literary.

In America a distinction is drawn between ballads that are versions of European, particularly British and Irish songs, and ' native American ballads ', developed without reference to earlier songs.

A further development was the evolution of the blues ballad, which mixed the genre with Afro-American music.

For the late 19th century the music publishing industry found a market for what are often termed sentimental ballads, and these are the origin of the modern use of the term ballad to mean a slow love song.