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On Highway 61 - Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom (Paperback)
Loot Price: R463
Discovery Miles 4 630
You Save: R44
(9%)
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On Highway 61 - Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom (Paperback)
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List price R507
Loot Price R463
Discovery Miles 4 630
You Save R44 (9%)
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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On Highway 61 explores the historical context of the significant
social dissent that was central to the cultural genesis of the
sixties. The book is going to search for the deeper roots of
American cultural and musical evolution for the past 150 years by
studying what the Western European culture learned from African
American culture in a historical progression that reaches from the
minstrel era to Bob Dylan.The book begins with America's first
great social critic, Henry David Thoreau, and his fundamental
source of social philosophy:---his profound commitment to freedom,
to abolitionism and to African-American culture. Continuing with
Mark Twain, through whom we can observe the rise of minstrelsy,
which he embraced, and his subversive satirical masterpiece
Huckleberry Finn. While familiar, the book places them into a newly
articulated historical reference that shines new light and reveals
a progression that is much greater than the sum of its individual
parts.As the first post-Civil War generation of black Americans
came of age, they introduced into the national culture a trio of
musical forms ragtime, blues, and jazz that would, with their
derivations, dominate popular music to this day. Ragtime introduced
syncopation and become the cutting edge of the modern 20th century
with popular dances. The blues would combine with syncopation and
improvisation and create jazz. Maturing at the hands of Louis
Armstrong, it would soon attract a cluster of young white musicians
who came to be known as the Austin High Gang, who fell in love with
black music and were inspired to play it themselves. In the
process, they developed a liberating respect for the diversity of
their city and country, which they did not see as exotic, but
rather as art. It was not long before these young white rebels were
the masters of American pop music  big band Swing.As Bop succeeded
Swing, and Rhythm and Blues followed, each had white followers like
the Beat writers and the first young rock and rollers. Even popular
white genres like the country music of Jimmy Rodgers and the Carter
Family reflected significant black influence. In fact, the
theoretical separation of American music by race is not accurate.
This biracial fusion achieved an apotheosis in the early work of
Bob Dylan, born and raised at the northern end of the same
Mississippi River and Highway 61 that had been the birthplace of
much of the black music he would study.As the book reveals, the
connection that began with Thoreau and continued for over 100 years
was a cultural evolution where, at first individuals, and then
larger portions of society, absorbed the culture of those at the
absolute bottom of the power structure, the slaves and their
descendants, and realized that they themselves were not
free.Musicians mentioned in the book are as follows:Henry David
ThoreauMark TwainMinstrel ShowsUncle Tom's CabinFisk Jubilee
SingersScott JoplinW.C. HandyBessie SmithMa RaineyCharlie
PattonLouis ArmstrongBuddy BoldenJelly Roll MortonSidney
BechetMamie SmithKing OliverBillie HolidayW.E.B. Du BoisJack
JohnsonRobert JohnsonOriginal Dixieland Jazz BandHoagy
CarmichaelBix BeiderbeckeMezz MezzrowAustin High GangPaul
WhitemanCarl Van VechtenZora Neale HurstonLangston HughesDuke
EllingtonCount BasieBenny GoodmanThomas DorseyJohn HammondJohn
LomaxAlan LomaxLead BellyJimmie RodgersWoody GuthrieMississippi
John HurtCharlie ParkerDizzy GillespieWillie  The Lion" SmithLouis
JordanMuddy WatersHowlin WolfWillie DixonJohn Lee HookerThelonious
MonkJohn ColtraneMiles DavisJack KerouacPete SeegerBill HaleyElvis
PresleyChuck BerryRay CharlesLavern BakerAhmet ErtegunJerry
WexlerBob DylanJoan BaezPaul ButterfieldMike Bloomfield
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