Customer Reviews

Our Own Sweet Sounds: A Celebration of Popular Music in Arkansas

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Now in an expanded and updated second edition including approximately seventy new artists, some of whom became famous after 1996, Our Own Sweet Sounds: A Celebration Of Popular Music In Arkansas by Robert Cochran (Professor of English, Chair of American Studies, and Director of the Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies at the University of Arkansas) provides the reader with an illustrated portrait of the Arkansas community as manifested in celebrated diversity of song. Black-and-white photographs illustrate this enjoyable overview of musical contributions that carried Arkansas' unique flavor and character to the public. An extensive index allows for the quick and easy lookup of individual composers in this fluid chronicle of Arkansas music history.

I had the pleasure of being invited to speak to Bob Cochran's University of Arkanasas students about Rice Miller AKA Sonny Boy Williamson.As a Northerner (Philadelphia, Pennsylania and Seattle. Washington) working on
Sonny Boy's biography by doing oral history collection from his friends, relatives, fellow musicians and neighbors.
Arkansas is essentially two states divided from the upper NE corner (near Memphis) to the SE (near Texarkana). The upper left corner is Appalachia and lower right corner the Arkansas delta which is connected to the northern plain of Louisiana and the SE Corner is a triangular extension of the Mississippi delta.
These are two very different regions. To oversimplify, the delta was dominated by Helena, Arkansas effectively "Arkansas' seaport" in a landlocked state. An urban area with a large black population Helena offered independent employment at Chrysler, a piano factor, and, of course, the port. Blacks could live a life outside of the white community if they did so carefully within the rules. That was mostly not true of the Mississippi delta which had larger plantations. Helena was the home of KFFA, the home of King Biscuit Time, Sonny Boy Williamson II's base for his highly influential radio show. The Helena area was a home to Robert Johnon, Robert Lockwood Jr., Robert Nighthawk, Louis Jordan and many other bluesmen. If you wanted to take the boat to Mississippi, Mr. Jenkins would take you. His son Harold became Conway Twitty. Dale Hawkins got his first drink from Sonny Boy. Levon Helm, the sole American member of The Band allegedly learn to play drums with the drums in KFFA's King Biscuit Time studio. It was a town brimming with music. In Robert Jr.'s words, "If it's good, it was here first."
Cochran's book is a good introduction to both sides of Arkansas.

This is a nicely put together, informative book which discusses the entire range of the musical heritage of Arkansas. It focuses on the state's major music contributions: blues and country music. It contains chapters that go through the history of music in the state and a number of feature profiles on famous Arkansas musicians. The book was produced in conjunction with an exhibit at an Arkansas museum. That exhibit is no longer in place, but another informative exhibit on Arkansas music is now on display at the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, Arkansas.

It was impossible for me to get into this book. I ended up checking a book out at my local library to write a book review.