Customer Reviews

Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster And The Rise Of American Popular Culture

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Though I could not have imagined reading and enjoying a book about the composer of O'Susanna and Old Kentucky Home, I've read this book twice and I could not disagree more with the reviewer who commented that Emerson "goes on for page after page" about what Foster did, said and when. It is after all a biography. In fact there is much more going on in Ken Emerson`s narrative than the serial reporting of SF did, as the title clearly indicates: the rise of American popular culture. Ken Emerson explores the world of music around Foster. The polite music of the parlor, the raucous humor of the traveling show and the bizarre contradiction of black-face and minstrelsy (with considerable insight into that particular chapter of our nation's cultural history).

Emerson has the ability to bring this world to life, to unthread its tangled history, show Foster's contribution and how this melting pot of music and performance led straight to ragtime, jazz, Elvis and the Rolling Stones (not to mention his direct and lasting contribution to folk and bluegrass). He does this with clear headed analysis and more than a little humor ("Ice Cream and the Annihilation of Space and Time!") making this book a delight and an eye opening read. A critical reader will take issue with some of his analyses of particular songs and probably his thoughts on the development of the music. Good! It's the kind of book that should generate debate of those points. But if you have ever wondered how the odd lyrics to Oh Susanna came about and what they might mean, you will certainly enjoy reading Emerson's take on it.

If the story falls flat to some ears it is probably because of the plodding years of Stephen Foster's slow decline and the lack of reliable primary and even secondary sources for the later years. The exciting wave of change inspired by the industrial revolution had passed, changes that sped the transmission of music made Foster a part of past while living in the future his music (or perhaps his attempt to make a living at it) helped to create. It was a future that included the rather dull business of music where there had been precious little business before Stephen Foster and so much after him. Though even in this sad late phase the book sheds light on how that business itself developed (it is after all the engine of the pop music that followed) and also sheds light on the shifting popular taste of the time. Again we see an age so different and yet so much like our own.

Emerson's sources are well documented. If you're inclined to read more into this history, you could do worse than start here. The chapters are short, readable in a sitting. His prose style is anything but flat. If his observations on the connection to or parallels with contemporary culture are a bit obvious, keeping that window to the future open is part of the point of the book. It's the window we look through, backward to Stephen Foster.

This is the story of Stephen Foster, who wrote so many songs in the nineteenth century that are considered American standards such as "Oh, Susanna", "Campdown Races" and "Swanee River". The book focuses on Foster as one of the first song writers to be benefited by the commercialization of music, in the guise of sheet music and copyrights. He became a well recognized figure based upon his fame as a popular music composer. Foster initially struggled to be a successful composer, then spend of good part of the rest of his life in court defending his rights and chasing "music pirates", to use a modern term. However, the book is not easy to read. The author goes on for page after page, chapter after chapter, relating how Foster did this and went there and said that and after a while it becomes a blur. Recommended only to those who really have an interest in the subject.

I recommend this book if you want lots of information on popular music in America during the 19th Century. I can't recommend it as a biography of Stephen Foster.

I was interested in the life story of Stephen Foster. Apparently, the author was more interested in the social and musical forces at play during Foster's lifetime. These are important to the story, to be sure, and the subtitle mentions them. However, it would be more honest to place Stephen Foster's name in the subtitle last, not first, as he does not occupy the center of interest in this book.

Here's what you get: Stephen Foster is born. Twenty pages about blackface minstrel show music, including lyrics, musician biographies, sales receipts. Stephen Foster goes to school. Thirty pages on how much actual African-American melody and lyric made it into the minstrel shows. Stephen Foster gets married. Forty pages on the build-up to the Civil War. It's very difficult to go back and find the pages that talk about Stephen Foster! I found out almost as much about Frederick Douglass.

This book reminded me of a long biography I read on Elvis Presley. In both books, a white musician was influenced--directly and indirectly--by the music of African Americans. For some reason, this phenomenon merits endless analysis. Again, it's an important point in both cases, but I think we do artists a disservice if we over-analyze their influences. At some point, I appreciate Stephen Foster's music for itself, as he wrote it. I credit him with crafting it, and I'd like to know more about the man, less about the century.

This is another boonie dog book review from Wolfie and Kansas. Ken Emerson's book "Doo-dah! Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture" is well-written and informative. This is a "life and times" book, rather than a narrowly focused biography. However, the times of Stephen Foster, and the social and cultural history which Emerson discusses, are, like Foster's music, generally more interesting than the sometimes racist and alcoholic Foster himself.

Our one complaint about "Doo-dah!" is the short shrift Mr. Emerson gives to one of Stephen Foster's biggest hits in 1857, a song entitled "Old Dog Tray". We would have like to have learned more about this song. Foster's minstrel songs were performed by white men in blackface. Was "Old Dog Tray" performed by humans in dogface?

If you haven't read Doo Dah, buy it today!!!! Doo Dah was the best book that I have ever read in my entire life. Unfortunately, the book is not as good as the writer is handsome, and if it was it would be on the best seller list, and I know because he is my uncle. So, show your support of American culture and buy this stupendous biography, by the Master writer, the all time best, the one and only Ken Emerson.