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Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song

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At one point in "Chasing The Rising Sun", author Ted Anthony references "The Wizard of Oz". Considering the journey he himself undertakes to find the source of the song "House of the Rising Sun", the reference could not be more appropriate. Like Dorothy on her own quest for home, Mr. Anthony ranges far and wide to places he never knew existed, he encounters interesting characters along the way and he discovers that the journey has changed him as a person.

"Chasing The Rising Sun" is about much more than the search for a classic song's genesis. It's about the making of modern American values and culture. It's an examination of who we are as a people and how we got here. And it's a look at how we tell our stories now and throughout our history.

Sprinkled with humor, history and pathos, "Chasing The Rising Sun" not only brought Ted Anthony to new places. It just may do the same for you. Sure, "there's no place like home". But what has that home become?

On the most basic level, this is a book about a song that all of us know. And it tells that story beautifully - of Georgia Turner, the Kentucky hill woman sang it around her house in the 1930s, of the cranky New Yorker who recorded her singing it, and of the many musicians who did their own versions. But it's also a look at how culture spreads, and one man's journey to follow that culture. It's a wonderful book. The section when the author meet's Turner's children - and plays her recording for them for the first time - is absolutely riveting.

This book "Chasing The Rising Sun: Journey Of An American Song", authored by Ted Anthony, has really moved me in a mighty way. I started playing bluegrass/folk music in 1962, when I was in college in Eastern Pennsylvania. I know it is one of the first songs I tried to learn to play after I started playing guitar, mandolin, etc. The minor sounds of it were mysterious and alluring. And when I finally got it, I was thrilled. Most of the "folkie" bands of the period had their own version of HOTRS, and I guess Joan Baez's version was my favorite. So when I saw this book I knew I wanted it, just to take me back to the "good ole days". It did that and much more. It took me on a journey with the author and his lovely wife. It took me right along with them to Tennessee, Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia, New Orleans, and many other locations, in search of the song's origins and carriers. Mr. Anthony did this in a sometimes humerous, sometimes educational, and always in a way that made me want to see where we and the song were going next. I couldn't put it down, and it made me feel I was right there meeting and talking with the artists and the mountain people who sent this mysterious song on it's journey from Appalachia to the world. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves to go along with the author to discover what lies along the way.

There is a book on Amazon
"Chasing the Rising Sun"
And it's been enriching for many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one

Anthony is the Author
he was a midnight oil burner
He drove around and researched hard
to tell the story of Georgia Turner

the only thing the reader needs
is Ted Anthony's book
He takes you with him on his journey
and permits you to take a look

------ organ solo ------

Oh mother, tell your children,
to do what I have done,
be touched by the characters the author meets
In "Chasing the Rising Sun"

The observations are profound
The variations of the song fascinating
There are so many great aspects of this book
I found myself vacillating

There is a book on Amazon
"Chasing the Rising Sun"
And it's been enriching for many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one

Some things in life are truly iconic. They carry down through the centuries because they embody an essential lesson about the frailty of life, the fallibility of humanity, and the consequences of making the wrong choices. "House of the Rising Sun" is an old folksong that no one knows the original author of. It goes back to at least the 19th Century, and might even have been written in the early 18th Century. It has carried down through the ages and been covered by hundreds of performers in a variety of genres because it, like other universal icons, changes every life it touches. Contrary to some biased and unfounded disinformation spread by the drummer of the British band, "The Animals", "House of the Rising Sun" is also a uniquely American folksong originating in the still only semi-civilized mountain communities of the Deep South.

Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song is a masterpiece study of this song and its impact on American culture. No one, and I do mean absolutely no one, uses this level of scholarship in today's world. The book covers the earliest appearances of the song, the evolution of the song, the various theories about the origins of the song, and the archeaological survey of the obscure, "Rising Sun Hotel" (built around 1800, destroyed in a fire in 1822) that could very easily have been the original inspiration for the song.

The story of "The House of the Rising Sun" is the story of America. The song embodies our puritanical spirit, our inherent fallibility, and our continuing hope that the next generation will learn from our mistakes. The evolution of the song begins in those hazy, uncertain decades following the birth of our nation, arriving deeply modified but still ringing true in the nightclubs and honky tonks of today's America. I can promise you one thing, somewhere in America tonight some cover band in a seedy honky tonk is playing "The House of the Rising Sun", someone is singing it at a upscale karaoke bar, and someone new to guitar is slowly mastering it.

Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song is the story of a song. That song is the story of us.

I bought this book because I went to high school with the author and thought it would be cool to have it around the house to show people. HOWEVER, after I started reading it, (this sounds so cliche), I could not put it down. I felt like I was on the journey with the author and I didn't want it to end. His descriptions of the people he met and the places he visited were vivid enough to make me feel like I was there too. I do not listen to music the same way as I did before I read this book. I now realize there may be an incredible history behind the songs I'm singing along to. I had to download The Animals version of "The Rising Sun" from itunes to have it handy throughout reading. I have a whole new appreciation for that song which I have always loved. I highly recommend "Chasing the Rising Sun" to anybody, music lover or not, and not just because I went to high school with the author, but because any reader will thoroughly enjoy this "chase".

Author Ted Anthony admits cheerfully at one point in recounting his pursuit of a song that the chase became an obsession for him. It is one that a reader can easily fall victim to also, listening to Anthony describe the search for his personal Holy Grail.

Where did "House of the Rising Sun" come from? England? Appalachia? From an imaginary place Anthony terms "The Village"? Perhaps it takes one to raise a really memorable song.

In his fascinating, world-wide search, Anthony meets about as many people as you could imagine, all different, but with one similarity: All of them have performed the song, or know someone who did, or collected recordings of people who did, or were transfixed by it just as Ted Anthony was.

This book originated as a lengthy feature story Anthony wrote for the Associated Press, his employer, in 2000. I was still a newspaper man in those days, and in 39 and one-half years of reporting, I never read a feature story as fascinating, detailed or inspiring. I'm glad that Anthony expanded the feature to full-length book form. It was obviously too good to stop relating the story of his quest with just a feature. If one is determined to have an obsession, I can't think of a better object than "House of the Rising Sun."

Ted Anthony's tireless chase for one simple answer soon becomes our chase, too. He's driving the words, but we're riding shotgun, so stay awake because it's a fascinating trip narrated for our pleasure by Anthony's perceptive views of the cultural scenery.

He effortlessly detours to times long gone and often to places barely on the map, and it's the rich, often-wrinkled characters we meet along the way who make all the switchbacks so worthwhile. They are the sometimes-successful, sometimes-desperate, but always-colorful folks and folk songs that in some way hitched their own rides on "House of the Rising Sun."

You can almost hear Joe Brussard in his basement of old 78s. Stop just a moment to meet Paul "Frank Sumatra" Meskill. And, go ahead, shed a tear as Georgia Turner's family finally hears their mother's teen-age voice from so long ago. Don't go, tell us more.

It's the details of the journey, theirs and ours, that really count, of course, and even before Anthony calls it "our song," we already know it is. Where to next?

Ted Anthony, a journalist and foreign correspondent with the Associated Press, has crafted the story of the song "House of the Rising Sun" as carefully and as artfully as did the original songwriter. He weaves his own personal relationship with the tune, revealing a clear eye for detail in his travelogue of discovery, and in the process produces an insightful portrait of the song and its interesting and entertaining role in American pop culture history. This book is a fine read for anyone interested in well-crafted creative non-fiction that is as artful -- and tuneful -- as its All-American subject matter.