Initially, Fourie’s musical career in South Africa involved teaching and playing the church organ, with no particular interest in local folk traditions like boeremusiek.

[3] Over the course of her career, Jo Fourie conducted extensive fieldwork across South Africa, collecting and transcribing more than 300 boeremusiek tunes, primarily from rural areas in what was then the Northern and Western Transvaal.

Her transcriptions provided the foundation for many later studies on Afrikaner folk music and contributed to the national recognition of boeremusiek as a distinctive part of South African heritage.

Her emphasis on "authentic" boeremusiek was selective, focusing on traditional, rural forms while overlooking the evolving, hybrid versions of the genre emerging in urban areas.

This idealized vision of boeremusiek as a pure, rural expression of Afrikaner identity has been critiqued for glossing over the genre’s creole roots and its connections to other marginalized communities.

[4] In 1952, Fourie’s work reached a national audience through the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) radio program Uit die jaar vroeg ("From Years of Yore").

The orchestras chosen to perform the music, including those led by Hendrik Susan and Hansie van Loggerenberg, often introduced modern elements such as jazz rhythms and syncopation, which clashed with Fourie’s more traditional, purist approach.