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Books > Music > Folk music
Klezmer is a continually evolving musical tradition that grows out
of Eastern European Jewish culture, and its changes reflect Jews'
interaction with other groups as well as their shifting relations
to their own history. But what happens when, in the klezmer spirit,
the performances that go into the making of Jewishness come into
contact with those that build different forms of cultural identity?
Jonathan Freedman argues that key terms central to the Jewish
experience in America, notions like "the immigrant," the "ethnic,"
and even the "model minority," have worked and continue to
intertwine the Jewish-American with the experiences, histories, and
imaginative productions of other groups: Latinos, Asians, African
Americans, and gays and lesbians, among others.
Freedman traces the twists and turns taken by these various
relationships in a number of imaginative arenas: the white-black
crossover between jazz and klezmer and its unexpected consequences
in Philip Roth's "The Human Stain"; the relationship between
Jewishness and queer identity in Tony Kushner's "Angels in
America"; contemporary fictions about crypto-Jews in Cuba and the
Mexican-American borderland; the connection between Jews and
Christian apocalyptic narratives, especially the best-selling "Left
Behind" series; the centuries-old cross-referencing of Jewish and
Asian American identities; the stories of "new immigrants" spun by
contemporary writers like Bharathi Mukherjee, Gish Jen, Lan
Samantha Chang, and Gary Shteyngart; and the revisionary relation
of these authors to classic Jewish American immigrant narratives by
the likes of Henry Roth, Bernard Malamud, and Saul Bellow. By
interrogating the fraught andmultidimensional uses to which Jews,
Judaism, and Jewishness have been put in shaping the nature and
properties of other categories of identity and experience, Freedman
offers a richer understanding of racial, ethnic, and sexual
categories in America and of the ethnoracial complexities facing
the United States in the twenty-first century.
A No Depression Most Memorable Music Book of 2022 Roland White's
long career has taken him from membership in Bill Monroe's Blue
Grass Boys and Lester Flatt's Nashville Grass to success with his
own Roland White Band. A master of the mandolin and acclaimed
multi-instrumentalist, White has mentored a host of bluegrass
musicians and inspired countless others. Bob Black draws on
extensive interviews with White and his peers and friends to
provide the first in-depth biography of the pioneering bluegrass
figure. Born into a musical family, White found early success with
the Kentucky Colonels during the 1960s folk revival. The many stops
and collaborations that marked White's subsequent musical journey
trace the history of modern bluegrass. But Black also delves into
the seldom-told tale of White's life as a working musician, one who
endured professional and music industry ups-and-downs to become a
legendary artist and beloved teacher. An entertaining merger of
memories and music history, Mandolin Man tells the overdue story of
a bluegrass icon and his times.
American folk musicians Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal, once musical
partners, have had careers which are at once conservative and
innovative, imbuing the best of folk traditions with their own
powerful style. In The Unbroken Circle, Fred Metting challenges the
musical labels that often bind artists as he explores the
inspirational sources behind these two men. Cooder was influenced
by ragtime-blues, bottleneck gospel blues, Norteno music, as well
as epic folk ballads. Mahal surrounded himself with Afro-Caribbean
music, Chicago blues and Hawaiian music. Both of these artists
created a collage from these sources, resisting categories and
always driving for the emotional center of the musical experience.
Metting traces the parallels between the two, in their careers and
their musical backgrounds. He demonstrates how American music
transcends classification, finding definition in its very fluidity.
The result of a study such as this is not only a respect for the
earlier musical sources, but also a desire to continue the
tradition of adaptation and change. The Unbroken Circle is a book
well-suited for music students, American folklorists, and fans of
the musicians profiled.
In 2015 University Press of Mississippi published Mississippi
Fiddle Tunes and Songs from the 1930s by Harry Bolick and Stephen
T. Austin to critical acclaim and commercial success. Roughly half
of Mississippi's rich, old-time fiddle tradition was documented in
that volume and Harry Bolick has spent the intervening years
working on this book, its sequel. Beginning with Tony Russell's
original mid-1970s fieldwork as a reference, and later working with
Russell, Bolick located and transcribed all of the Mississippi 78
rpm string band recordings. Some of the recording artists like the
Leake County Revelers, Hoyt Ming and His Pep Steppers, and Narmour
& Smith had been well known in the state. Others, like the
Collier Trio, were obscure. This collecting work was followed by
many field trips to Mississippi searching for and locating the
children and grandchildren of the musicians. Previously unheard
recordings and stories, unseen photographs and discoveries of
nearly unknown local fiddlers, such as Jabe Dillon, John Gatwood,
Claude Kennedy, and Homer Grice, followed. The results are now
available in this second, companion volume, Fiddle Tunes from
Mississippi: Commercial and Informal Recordings, 1920-2018. Two
hundred and seventy musical examples supplement the biographies and
photographs of the thirty-five artists documented here. Music comes
from commercial recordings and small pressings of 78 rpm, 45 rpm,
and LP records; collectors' field recordings; and the musicians'
own home tape and disc recordings. Taken together, these two
volumes represent a delightfully comprehensive survey of
Mississippi's fiddle tunes.
Tigers of a Different Stripe takes readers inside the unique world
of merengue tipico, a traditional music of the Dominican Republic.
While in most genres of Caribbean music women usually participate
as dancers or vocalists, in merengue tipico they are more often
instrumentalists and even bandleaders something nearly unheard of
in the macho Caribbean music scene. Examining this cultural
phenomenon, Sydney Hutchinson offers an unexpected and fascinating
account of gender in Dominican art and life. Drawing on over a
decade of fieldwork in the Dominican Republic and New York among
musicians, fans, and patrons of merengue tipico not to mention her
own experiences as a female instrumentalist Hutchinson details a
complex nexus of class, race, and artistic tradition that unsettles
the typical binary between the masculine and feminine. She sketches
the portrait of the classic male figure of the tiguere, a dandified
but sexually aggressive and street-smart "tiger," and she shows how
female musicians have developed a feminine counterpart: the
tiguera, an assertive, sensual, and respected female figure who
looks like a woman but often plays and even sings like a man.
Through these musical figures and studies of both straight and
queer performers, she unveils rich ambiguities in gender
construction in the Dominican Republic and the long history of a
unique form of Caribbean feminism.
THE TOP FIVE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A BOOK OF THE YEAR ROUGH
TRADE, THE TIMES, ROLLING STONE, CLASH, MOJO, UNCUT The memoir of
international music icon Richard Thompson, co-founder of the
legendary folk rock group Fairport Convention. 'I encourage
everyone to read this wonderful book.' ELVIS COSTELLO 'Thompson
could be said to be an English Dylan - only in some ways he's even
better than that.' GUARDIAN Richard Thompson came of age during an
extraordinary moment in 1960s Britain - as music began to reflect a
great cultural awakening, the guitarist and songwriter co-founded
Fairport Convention, ushering in the era of folk rock. An intimate
memoir of personal discovery and creative intensity, Beeswing
vividly captures the life of an international music icon in a world
on the cusp of change 'Gripping . . . A quiet joy of a memoir.'
GUARDIAN 'Thompson writes exceptionally well . . . If you love
music in all its myriad forms, you'll love this book.' NEW YORK
JOURNAL OF BOOKS 'An intimate, revealing tome, Beeswing is the
voice of a figure at the heart of the British counter-culture.'
CLASH 'Perceptive, lyrical, amiable and seemingly effortless . . .
required reading.' CAUGHT BY THE RIVER
A new edition of a work equally useful to the student of music and
the lover of music.
Attended by tens of thousands of people each August, it's the
longest continually running folk festival in America. These pages
capture 55 years of its beloved, creatively charged atmosphere.
Over 800 photos from 1962 to today feature the more than 825
performers and bands who have taken the stage, including Jackson
Browne, Roseanne Cash, Judy Collins, Ani DiFranco, Steve Earle,
Arlo Guthrie, Janis Ian, Odetta, the Tuva Throat Singers, and Doc
Watson. Enjoy stories of how the festival began, and the unusual
and unique experiences that seem to transpire only at Festival.
Revisit traditions like the creatively-constructed campground
compounds, the Dulcimer Grove hammocks and kids' activities, and
the origins of the "Smiling Banjo" logo. Whether you are a regular
or haven't visited yet, learn why so many say of the Fest, "This is
my home."
World-class luthier and renowned guitarist Wayne Henderson calls
Albert Hash "a real folk hero." A virtuoso fiddler from the Blue
Ridge, Hash built more than 300 fiddles in his lifetime, recorded
numerous times with a variety of bands and inspired countless
instrument makers and musicians in the mountains of rural Southwest
Virginia near the North Carolina border. His biography is the story
of a resourceful, humble man who dedicated his life to his art,
community and Appalachian musical heritage.
'Shirley is a time traveller, a conduit for essential human aches,
one of the greatest artists who ever lived' Stewart Lee 'Without
doubt one of England's greatest cultural treasures' Billy Bragg In
America Over the Water, celebrated English folksinger Shirley
Collins offers an affecting account of her year-long stint as
assistant to legendary musical historian and folklorist Alan Lomax.
Together, they travelled to Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama,
Mississippi, Arkansas and Georgia, discovering Mississippi Fred
McDowell and many others, in their tireless work to uncover the
traditional music of America's heartland. Blending the personal
story of Shirley Collins' relationship with Lomax and offering a
unique first-hand account of a country on the brink of the civil
rights era, America Over the Water cuts right to the heart of the
blues in a fascinating account of Collins' and Lomax's
ground-breaking journey across the southern states of the USA to
record the music that started it all. Originally published over
fifteen years ago, this definitive edition includes a new
introduction by Shirley Collins.
A memoir from one of Britain's legendary singers, folklorists, and
music historians. A legendary singer, folklorist, and music
historian, Shirley Collins has been an integral part of the
folk-music revival for more than sixty years. In her new memoir,
All in the Downs, Collins tells the story of that lifelong
relationship with English folksong-a dedication to artistic
integrity that has guided her through the triumphs and tragedies of
her life. All in the Downs combines elements of memoir-from her
working-class origins in wartime Hastings to the bright lights of
the 1950s folk revival in London-alongside reflections on the role
traditional music and the English landscape have played in shaping
her vision. From formative field recordings made with Alan Lomax in
the United States to the "crowning glories" recorded with her
sister Dolly on the Sussex Downs, she writes of the obstacles that
led to her withdrawal from the spotlight and the redemption of a
new artistic flourishing that continues today with her unexpected
return to recording in 2016. Through it all, Shirley Collins has
been guided and supported by three vital and inseparable loves:
traditional English song, the people and landscape of her native
Sussex, and an unwavering sense of artistic integrity. All in the
Downs pays tribute to these passions, and in doing so, illustrates
a way of life as old as England, that has all but vanished from
this land. Generously illustrated with rare archival material.
Cape Town’s public cultures can only be fully appreciated through a
recognition of its deep and diverse soundscape. We have to listen
to what has made and makes a city. The ear is an integral part of
the ‘research tools’ one needs to get a sense of any city. We have
to listen to the sounds that made and make the expansive ‘mother
city’. One of its various constituent parts is the sound of the
singing men and their choirs (or “teams” as they are called) in
preparation for the longstanding annual Malay choral competitions.
The lyrics from the various repertoires they perform are hardly
ever written down. […] There are texts of the hallowed ‘Dutch
songs’ but these do not circulate easily and widely. Researchers
dream of finding lyrics from decades ago, not to mention a few
generations ago – back to the early 19th century. This work by
Denis Constant Martin and Armelle Gaulier provides us with a very
useful selection of these songs. More than that, it is a critical
sociological reflection of the place of these songs and their
performers in the context that have given rise to them and sustains
their relevance. It is a necessary work and is a very important
scholarly intervention about a rather neglected aspect of the
history and present production of music in the city, collaborations
increasingly fair, sustainable and mutually beneficial.
A musical genre forever outside the lines With a claim on artists
from Jimmie Rodgers to Jason Isbell, Americana can be hard to
define, but you know it when you hear it. John Milward's
Americanaland is filled with the enduring performers and vivid
stories that are at the heart of Americana. At base a hybrid of
rock and country, Americana is also infused with folk, blues,
R&B, bluegrass, and other types of roots music. Performers like
Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, and Gram Parsons used these
ingredients to create influential music that took well-established
genres down exciting new roads. The name Americana was coined in
the 1990s to describe similarly inclined artists like Emmylou
Harris, Steve Earle, and Wilco. Today, Brandi Carlile and I'm With
Her are among the musicians carrying the genre into the
twenty-first century. Essential and engaging, Americanaland
chronicles the evolution and resonance of this ever-changing
amalgam of American music. Margie Greve's hand-embroidered color
portraits offer a portfolio of the pioneers and contemporary
practitioners of Americana.
A series of little books of short carefully graded folk tunes
beginning with the simplest passages and progressing to more
difficult leaps, rhythms, chromatics, and modulations. The later
books introduce two-part sight singing.
Cumbia is a musical form that originated in northern Colombia and
then spread throughout Latin America and wherever Latin Americans
travel and settle. It has become one of the most popular musical
genre in the Americas. Its popularity is largely due to its
stylistic flexibility. Cumbia absorbs and mixes with the local
musical styles it encounters. Known for its appeal to workers, the
music takes on different styles and meanings from place to place,
and even, as the contributors to this collection show, from person
to person. Cumbia is a different music among the working classes of
northern Mexico, Latin American immigrants in New York City, Andean
migrants to Lima, and upper-class Colombians, who now see the music
that they once disdained as a source of national prestige. The
contributors to this collection look at particular manifestations
of cumbia through their disciplinary lenses of musicology,
sociology, history, anthropology, linguistics, and literary
criticism. Taken together, their essays highlight how intersecting
forms of identity-such as nation, region, class, race, ethnicity,
and gender-are negotiated through interaction with the music.
Contributors. Cristian Alarcon, Jorge Arevalo Mateus, Leonardo
D'Amico, Hector Fernandez L'Hoeste, Alejandro L. Madrid, Kathryn
Metz, Jose Juan Olvera Gudino, Cathy Ragland, Pablo Seman, Joshua
Tucker, Matthew J. Van Hoose, Pablo Vila
*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* The brand new memoir from the Sunday
Times bestselling author of The Road Beneath My Feet. Taking 36
songs from his back catalogue, folk-punk icon Frank Turner explores
his songwriting process. Find out the stories behind the songs
forged in the hedonistic years of the mid-2000s North London scene,
the ones perfected in Nashville studios, and everything in between.
Some of these songs arrive fully-formed, as if they've always been
there, some take graft and endless reworking to find 'the one'. In
exploring them all, Turner reflects with eloquence, insight and
self-deprecating wit on exactly what it is to be a songwriter. From
love songs and break-up songs to political calls-to-arms; songs
composed alone in a hotel room or in soundcheck with the Sleeping
Souls, this brilliantly written memoir - featuring exclusive photos
of handwritten lyrics and more - is a must-have book for FT fans
and anyone curious about how to write music.
Francis James Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads,
published in ten parts from 1882 to 1898, contained the texts and
variants of 305 extant themes written down between the thirteenth
and nineteenth centuries. Unsurpassed in its presentation of texts,
this exhaustive collection devoted little attention to the ballad
music, a want that was filled by Bertrand Harris Bronson in his
four volume Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads. The present
book is an abridged, one-volume edition of that work, setting forth
music and text for proven examples of oral tradition, with a new
comprehensive introduction. Its convenient format makes readily
available to students and scholars the materials for a study of the
Child ballads as they have been preserved in the British-American
singing tradition. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton
Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again
make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished
backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the
original texts of these important books while presenting them in
durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton
Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly
heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton
University Press since its founding in 1905.
This book is a substantial and thorough musicological analysis of
Turkish folk music. It reproduces in facsimile Bartok's autograph
record of eighty seven vocal and instrumental peasant melodies of
the Yuruk Tribes, a nomadic people in southern Anatolia. Bartok's
introduction includes his annotations of the melodies, texts, and
translations and establishes a connection between Old Hungarian and
Old Turkish folk music. Begun in 1936 and completed in 1943, the
work was Bartok's last major essay. The editor, Dr. Benjamin
Suchoff, has provided an historical introduction and a chronology
of the various manuscript versions. An afterword by Kurt Reinhard
describes recent research in Turkish ethnomusicology and gives a
contemporary assessment of Bartok's field work in Turkey.
Appendices prepared by the editor include an index of themes
compiled by computer. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton
Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again
make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished
backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the
original texts of these important books while presenting them in
durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton
Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly
heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton
University Press since its founding in 1905.
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