Download or read book Foggy Mountain Troubadour written by Penny Parsons and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2016-05-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his trademark mandolin style and unequaled tenor harmonies, Curly Seckler has carved out a seventy-seven-year career in bluegrass and country music. His foundational work in Flatt and Scruggs's Foggy Mountain Boys secured him a place in bluegrass history, while his role in The Nashville Grass made him an essential part of the music's triumphant 1970s revival. Written in close collaboration with Mr. Seckler and those who know him, Foggy Mountain Troubadour is the first full-length biography of an American original. Penny Parsons follows a journey from North Carolina schoolhouses to the Grand Ole Opry stage and the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, from boarding houses to radio studios and traveling five to a car on two-lane roads to make the next show. Throughout, she captures the warm humor, hard choices, and vivid details of a brilliant artist's life as he criss-crosses a nation and a century making music.

Download or read book Bluegrass Bluesman written by Josh Graves and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pivotal member of the hugely successful bluegrass band Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, Dobro pioneer Josh Graves (1927-2006) was a living link between bluegrass music and the blues. In Bluegrass Bluesman, this influential performer shares the story of his lifelong career in music. In lively anecdotes, Graves describes his upbringing in East Tennessee and the climate in which bluegrass music emerged during the 1940s. Deeply influenced by the blues, he adapted Earl Scruggs's revolutionary banjo style to the Dobro resonator slide guitar and gave the Foggy Mountain Boys their distinctive sound. Graves' accounts of daily life on the road through the 1950s and 1960s reveal the band's dedication to musical excellence, Scruggs' leadership, and an often grueling life on the road. He also comments on his later career when he played in Lester Flatt's Nashville Grass and the Earl Scruggs Revue and collaborated with the likes of Boz Scaggs, Charlie McCoy, Kenny Baker, Eddie Adcock, Jesse McReynolds, Marty Stuart, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, and his three musical sons. A colorful storyteller, Graves brings to life the world of an American troubadour and the mountain culture that he never left behind. Born in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, Josh Graves (1927-2006) is universally acknowledged as the father of the bluegrass Dobro. In 1997 he was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame.

Download or read book Dwight Diller written by Lewis M. Stern and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dwight Hamilton Diller is a musician from West Virginia devoted to traditional Appalachian fiddle and banjo music, and a seminary-trained minister steeped in local Christian traditions. For the past 40 years, he has worked to preserve archaic fiddle and banjo tunes, teaching his percussive, primitively rhythmic style to small groups in marathon banjo workshops. This book tells of Diller's life and music, his personal challenges and his decades of teaching an elusive musical form.

Download or read book Earl Scruggs and Foggy Mountain Breakdown written by Thomas Goldsmith and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recorded in 1949, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" changed the face of American music. Earl Scruggs's instrumental essentially transformed the folk culture that came before it while helping to energize bluegrass's entry into the mainstream in the 1960s. The song has become a gateway to bluegrass for musicians and fans alike as well as a happily inescapable track in film and television. Thomas Goldsmith explores the origins and influence of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" against the backdrop of Scruggs's legendary career. Interviews with Scruggs, his wife Louise, disciple Bela Fleck, and sidemen like Curly Seckler, Mac Wiseman, and Jerry Douglas shed light on topics like Scruggs's musical evolution and his working relationship with Bill Monroe. As Goldsmith shows, the captivating sound of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" helped bring back the banjo from obscurity and distinguished the low-key Scruggs as a principal figure in American acoustic music.Passionate and long overdue, Earl Scruggs and Foggy Mountain Breakdown takes readers on an ear-opening journey into two minutes and forty-three seconds of heaven.

Download or read book Politics as Sound written by Shayna L. Maskell and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncompromising and innovative, hardcore punk in Washington, DC, birthed a new sound and nurtured a vibrant subculture aimed at a specific segment of the city's youth. Shayna L. Maskell explores DC's hardcore scene during its short but storied peak. Led by bands like Bad Brains and Minor Threat, hardcore in the nation's capital unleashed music as angry and loud as it was fast and minimalistic. Maskell examines the music's aesthetics and the unique impact of DC's sociopolitical realities on the sound and the scene that emerged. As she shows, aspects of the music's structure merged with how bands performed it to put across distinctive representations of race, class, and gender. But those representations could be as complicated and contradictory as they were explicit. A fascinating analysis of a punk rock hotbed, Politics as Sound tells the story of how a generation created music that produced--and resisted--politics and power.

Download or read book Mandolin Man written by Bob Black and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Unbinding Gentility written by Candace Bailey and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2022 Hearing southern women in the pauses of history Southern women of all classes, races, and walks of life practiced music during and after the Civil War. Candace L. Bailey examines the history of southern women through the lens of these musical pursuits, uncovering the ways that music's transmission, education, circulation, and repertory help us understand its meaning in the women's culture of the time. Bailey pays particular attention to the space between music as an ideal accomplishment—part of how people expected women to perform gentility—and a real practice—what women actually did. At the same time, her ethnographic reading of binder’s volumes, letters and diaries, and a wealth of other archival material informs new and vital interpretations of women’s place in southern culture. A fascinating collective portrait of women's artistic and personal lives, Unbinding Gentility challenges entrenched assumptions about nineteenth century music and the experiences of the southern women who made it.

Download or read book Unsettled Scores written by Sally Bick and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2019-12-20 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hollywood careers of Aaron Copland and Hanns Eisler brought the composers and their high art sensibility into direct conflict with the premier producer of America's potent mass culture. Drawn by Hollywood's potential to reach—and edify—the public, Copland and Eisler expertly wove sophisticated musical ideas into Hollywood and, each in their own distinctive way, left an indelible mark on movie history. Sally Bick's dual study of Copland and Eisler pairs interpretations of their writings on film composing with a close examination of their first Hollywood projects: Copland's music for Of Mice and Men and Eisler's score for Hangmen Also Die! Bick illuminates the different ways the composers treated a film score as means of expressing their political ideas on society, capitalism, and the human condition. She also delves into Copland's and Eisler's often conflicted attempts to adapt their music to fit Hollywood's commercial demands, an enterprise that took place even as they wrote hostile critiques of the film industry.

Download or read book I d Fight the World written by Peter La Chapelle and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-09-11 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “educational, interesting, and very easy to read” history of the bond between country music and politics in America (Harry Reid). Long before the United States had presidents from the world of movies and reality TV, we had scores of politicians with connections to country music. In I’d Fight the World, Peter La Chapelle traces the deep bonds between country music and politics, from the nineteenth-century rise of fiddler-politicians to more recent figures like Pappy O’Daniel, Roy Acuff, and Rob Quist. These performers and politicians both rode and resisted cultural waves: some advocated for the poor and dispossessed, and others voiced religious and racial anger, but they all walked the line between exploiting their celebrity and righteously taking on the world. La Chapelle vividly shows how country music campaigners have profoundly influenced the American political landscape. Praise for I’d Fight the World “Thoroughly researched and insightful, I’d Fight the World exposes the political themes embedded in country music of all stripes, as well as the sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant, always shrewd employment of this music by politicians. La Chapelle reveals a political legacy in country music that today’s audiences have an obligation to confront.” —Jocelyn Neal, author of Country Music: A Cultural and Stylistic History “In this well-written and expansive book, La Chapelle narrates a national history of politics and country music, from nineteenth-century populism to post–World War II conservatism. I’d Fight the World demonstrates how both political and cultural history can shine light upon each other, creating a rich tapestry of scholarship.” —David Gilbert, author of The Product of Our Souls “Lively and informative. . . . This book will surprise those who have preconceived notions about country music and Southern politicians, and their longstanding connection.” —Library Journal “A deeply researched examination of the ways that country and old-time music have been coopted into political life. . . . La Chapelle traces the not especially healthy relationship between country music and populism. . . . La Chapelle’s exhaustive examination of his subject uncovers many untold stories and raises interesting questions about whether country music has yet truly reckoned with its political past.” —Times Literary Supplement

Download or read book Circle of Winners written by Denise Von Glahn and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential high culture institution, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has both supported and molded American musical culture. Denise Von Glahn examines the Foundation and its immense influence from the organization’s prehistory and origins through the onset of World War II. Funded by the Guggenheim mining fortune, the Foundation took early shape from the efforts of Carroll Wilson, Frank Aydelotte, and Henry Allen Moe--three Rhodes Scholars who initially struggled to envision and implement the organization’s ambitious goals. Von Glahn also examines the career of the longtime musical advisor Thomas Whitney Surette while profiling early awardees Aaron Copland, Ruth Crawford Seeger, William Grant Still, Roger Sessions, George Antheil, and Carlos Chàvez. She examines the processes behind their selection, their values and aesthetics, and their relationships with the insiders and others who championed their work.

Download or read book Interviews with American Composers written by Barney Childs and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1972-73, Barney Childs embarked on an ambitious attempt to survey the landscape of new American concert music. He recorded freewheeling conversations with fellow composers, most of them under forty, all of them important but most not yet famous. Though unable to publish the interviews in his lifetime, Childs had gathered invaluable dialogues with the likes of Robert Ashley, Olly Wilson, Harold Budd, Christian Wolff, and others. Virginia Anderson edits the first published collection of these conversations. She pairs each interview with a contextual essay by a contemporary expert that shows how the composer's discussion with Childs fits into his life and work. Together, the interviewees cover a broad range of ideas and concerns around topics like education, notation, developments in electronic music, changing demands on performers, and tonal music. Innovative and revealing, Interviews with American Composers is an artistic and historical snapshot of American music at an important crossroads.

Download or read book George Szell s Reign written by Marcia Hansen Kraus and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2017-10-11 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Szell was the Cleveland Orchestra's towering presence for over a quarter of a century. From the boardroom to the stage, Szell's powerful personality affected every aspect of a musical institution he reshaped in his own perfectionist image. Marcia Hansen Kraus's participation in Cleveland's classical musical scene allowed her an intimate view of Szell and his achievements. As a musician herself, and married to an oboist who worked under Szell, Kraus pulls back the curtain on this storied era through fascinating interviews with orchestra musicians and patrons. Their recollections combine with Kraus's own to paint a portrait of a multifaceted individual who both earned and transcended his tyrannical reputation. If some musicians hated Szell, others loved him or at the least respected his fair-minded toughness. A great many remember playing under his difficult leadership as the high point in their lives. Filled with vivid backstage stories, George Szell's Reign reveals the human side of a great orchestra ”and how one visionary built a premier classical music institution.

Download or read book Listening to Bob Dylan written by Larry Starr and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Venerated for his lyrics, Bob Dylan in fact is a songwriting musician with a unique mastery of merging his words with music and performance. Larry Starr cuts through pretention and myth to provide a refreshingly holistic appreciation of Dylan's music. Ranging from celebrated classics to less familiar compositions, Starr invites readers to reinvigorate their listening experiences by sharing his own—sometimes approaching a song from a fresh perspective, sometimes reeling in surprise at discoveries found in well-known favorites. Starr breaks down often-overlooked aspects of the works, from Dylan's many vocal styles to his evocative harmonica playing to his choices as a composer. The result is a guide that allows listeners to follow their own passionate love of music into hearing these songs—and personal favorites—in new ways. Reader-friendly and revealing, Listening to Bob Dylan encourages hardcore fans and Dylan-curious seekers alike to rediscover the music legend.

Download or read book Danz n Days written by Hettie Malcomson and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2023-05-23 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Older people negotiating dance routines, intimacy, and racialized differences provide a focal point for an ethnography of danzón in Veracruz, the Mexican city closely associated with the music-dance genre. Hettie Malcomson draws upon on-site research with semi-professional musicians and amateur dancers to reveal how danzón connects, and does not connect, to blackness, joyousness, nostalgia, ageing, and romance. Challenging pervasive utopian views of danzón, Malcomson uses the idea of ambivalence to explore the frictions and opportunities created by seemingly contrary sentiments, ideas, sensations, and impulses. Interspersed with experimental ethnographic vignettes, her account takes readers into black and mestizo elements of local identity in Veracruz, nostalgic and newer styles of music and dance, and the friendships, romances, and rivalries at the heart of regular danzón performance and its complex social world. Fine-grained and evocative, Danzón Days journeys to one of the genre’s essential cities to provide new perspectives on aging and romance and new explorations of nostalgia and ambivalence.

Download or read book Bluegrass Generation written by Neil V Rosenberg and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2018-05-10 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neil V. Rosenberg met the legendary Bill Monroe at the Brown County Jamboree. Rosenberg's subsequent experiences in Bean Blossom put his feet on the intertwined musical and scholarly paths that made him a preeminent scholar of bluegrass music. Rosenberg's memoir shines a light on the changing bluegrass scene of the early 1960s. Already a fan and aspiring musician, his appetite for banjo music quickly put him on the Jamboree stage. Rosenberg eventually played with Monroe and spent four months managing the Jamboree. Those heights gave him an eyewitness view of nothing less than bluegrass's emergence from the shadow of country music into its own distinct art form. As the likes of Bill Keith and Del McCoury played, Rosenberg watched Monroe begin to share a personal link to the music that tied audiences to its history and his life--and helped turn him into bluegrass's foundational figure. An intimate look at a transformative time, Bluegrass Generation tells the inside story of how an American musical tradition came to be.

Download or read book Music in Black American Life 1945 2020 written by and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2022-08-23 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second volume of Music in Black American Life offers research and analysis that originally appeared in the journals American Music and Black Music Research Journal, and in two book series published by the University of Illinois Press: Music in American Life, and African American Music in Global Perspective. In this collection, a group of predominately Black scholars explores a variety of topics with works that pioneered new methodologies and modes of inquiry for hearing and studying Black music. These extracts and articles examine the World War II jazz scene; look at female artists like gospel star Shirley Caesar and jazz musician-arranger Melba Liston; illuminate the South Bronx milieu that folded many forms of black expressive culture into rap; and explain Hamilton's massive success as part of the "tanning" of American culture that began when Black music entered the mainstream. Part sourcebook and part survey of historic music scholarship, Music in Black American Life, 1945–2020 collects groundbreaking work that redefines our view of Black music and its place in American music history. Contributors: Nelson George, Wayne Everett Goins, Claudrena N. Harold, Eileen M. Hayes, Loren Kajikawa, Robin D. G. Kelley, Tammy L. Kernodle, Cheryl L. Keyes, Gwendolyn Pough, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Mark Tucker, and Sherrie Tucker

Download or read book Transforming Women s Education written by Jewel A. Smith and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2019-01-30 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Female seminaries in nineteenth-century America offered middle-class women the rare privilege of training in music and the liberal arts. A music background in particular provided the foundation for a teaching career, one of the few paths open to women. Jewel A. Smith opens the doors of four female seminaries, revealing a milieu where rigorous training focused on music as an artistic pursuit rather than a social skill. Drawing on previously untapped archives, Smith charts women's musical experiences and training as well as the curricula and instruction available to them, the repertoire they mastered, and the philosophies undergirding their education. She also examines the complex tensions between the ideals of a young democracy and a deeply gendered system of education and professional advancement. An in-depth study of female seminaries as major institutions of learning, Transforming Women's Education illuminates how musical training added to women's lives and how their artistic acumen contributed to American society.