A01=Benjamin Filene
Alan Lomax
Author_Benjamin Filene
Ben Botkin
blues
Bob Dylan
Carl Sandburg
Category=AVLT
Category=JBCC
Category=NHT
Cecil Sharp
Charles Seeger
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
folk music
folk revival
Francis Child
John Lomax
Lead Belly
Leonard Chess
Lester Melrose
Muddy Waters
Pete Seeger
public memory
Ralph Peer
revivalism
Richard Dorson
Robert Gordon
roots music
Willie Dixon
Woody Guthrie
Product details
- ISBN 9780807848623
- Weight: 458g
- Dimensions: 146 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 26 Jun 2000
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In American music, the notion of ""roots"" has been a powerful refrain, but just what constitutes our true musical traditions has often been a matter of debate. As Benjamin Filene reveals, a number of competing visions of America's musical past have vied for influence over the public imagination in this century. Filene builds his story around a fascinating group of characters--folklorists, record company executives, producers, radio programmers, and publicists--who acted as middlemen between folk and popular culture. These cultural brokers ""discovered"" folk musicians, recorded them, and promoted them. In the process, Filene argues, they shaped mainstream audiences' understanding of what was ""authentic"" roots music. Filene moves beyond the usual boundaries of folk music to consider a wide range of performers who drew on or were drawn into the canon of American roots music--from Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie, to Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon, to Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan. Challenging traditional accounts that would confine folk music revivalism to the 1930s and 1960s, he argues instead that the desire to preserve and popularize America's musical heritage is a powerful current that has run throughout this century's culture and continues to flow today. |Benjamin Filene examines the competing visions of America's musical past--and the cultural middlemen who shaped these visions--that have vied for influence over the public imagination in this century. This book brings to light the relationship between folk or roots music and popular culture.
Benjamin Filene is associate professor and director of public history at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
