The Bluegrass Reader (Music in American Life) (Hardcover)

by Thomas Goldsmith (Editor) "People often think about bluegrass music as an ancient style, something that men and women played on Appalachian porches long years ago before electricity came..." (more)
Key Phrases: word bluegrass, hillbilly ranch, bluegrass performance, Bill Monroe, Bluegrass Unlimited, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"With its strong selection of articles from a wide range of sources, The Bluegrass Reader makes a significant and much-needed contribution to the literature on bluegrass. Anyone with an interest in the music is bound to find it both enjoyable and indispensable." -- Jon Weisberger, contributing editor to No Depression and the International Bluegrass Music Association's Print Media Person of the Year, 2000

Product Description
Like rock n' roll, bluegrass exploded out of a post-World War II atmosphere in which more Americans opened their ears to more different kinds of music than ever before. All around the country, musicians were searching for new sounds and approaches: country blues went fully electric in Chicago, bebop boiled over as jazz hit the hippest notes yet and country music followed Hank Williams into new, sexier, harder-hitting territory. The developments in bluegrass proved every bit as galvanic.

In The Bluegrass Reader, Thomas Goldsmith joins his insights as a journalist with a lifetime of experience in bluegrass to capture the full story of this dynamic and beloved music. Inspired by the question "What articles about bluegrass would you want to have with you on a desert island?" he assembled a delicious, fun-to-read collection that brings together a wide range of the very best in bluegrass writing.

Goldsmith's judicious selections include a fascinating combination of older, more obscure, and previously unavailable publications with pieces that are classics in the history of writing about bluegrass: Alan Lomax in Esquire, Mayne Smith's groundbreaking dissertation, Ralph Rinzler's Sing Out piece on Bill Monroe, and Mike Seeger's Folkways liner notes. The Bluegrass Reader also features writers as disparate as Marty Stuart, David Gates, and Hunter Thompson writing for magazines like The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, and the Muleskinner News.

In an age where musical trends flit by like models on a runway, bluegrass has endured changes while faithfully checking its advances against the formative years. Goldsmith follows its history through three roughly twenty-year periods: From 1939 to 1959, from 1959 to 1979, and from 1979 through the present.

Goldsmith's substantial introduction describes and traces the development of the music from its origins in Anglo-American folk tradition, overlaid with African American influences, to the breakout popularity of Ralph Stanley, Alison Krauss, and the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. He introduces each selection offering a wealth of additional information, making The Bluegrass Reader both enjoyable and invaluable for new fans of the music as well as for its lifetime devotees.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (April 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252029143
• ISBN-13: 978-0252029141
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #886,368 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Purty entertainin', even without no pictures, November 13, 2004

By	Kevin Cook "Darlin' Boy" (McDonough, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A few years ago, a certain tenacious fan (yours truly), trying to get an interview with Mitch Jayne of The Dillards, managed to irritate him to the point that he stormed, "Bluegrass people are not readers!" This comprehensive anthology, compiled from a surprising variety of sources by journalist Thomas Goldsmith (the International Bluegrass Music Association's 2004 Print Media Personality of the Year), would seem to prove otherwise. Collecting "particularly strong, influential, and representative writing about bluegrass" from books, magazines and liner notes, "The Bluegrass Reader," like Neil V. Rosenberg's definitive "Bluegrass - A History," is a book with limitless appeal for the growing legion of hard-core bluegrass aficionados who revel in dissecting and debating every facet of the music, no matter how trivial. (For those eggheads, the totally frivolous article "Is There a Link between Bluegrass Musicianship and Sexuality?" is recommended.) There is scholarly fodder aplenty, but the book is more fun when it captures bluegrass stars behaving badly. For instance, in "So You Don't Like the Way We Do It (or Damn Your Tape Recorder)" from a 1967 issue of "Bluegrass Unlimited," John Duffey of the Country Gentlemen seems to have a bug up his bum as he burns more bridges than Sherman defending his playing style. Then there's the guilty pleasure of Jimmy Martin's wildly profane attack on Ricky Skaggs at the Grand Ole Opry in a controversial piece originally from "The Oxford American" (and later expanded into a skimpy book) by Tom Piazza. And in "Rolling Stone," bluegrass darling Alison Krauss indelicately declares she "just about crapped myself" after hearing a really good Merle Haggard tune. Browsers of "The Bluegrass Reader" will be rewarded by a treasure trove of facts and opinionated insights, some of which may sting. David Gates, for example, profiling Ralph Stanley in "The New Yorker," observes, "Good bluegrass...is sweet and sad, wild and sexy. Mediocre bluegrass...is among the most wearisome music on the planet." Ouch!