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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
what about the music?,
By Emmett Miller (Burton, WA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: That Half-Barbaric Twang: THE BANJO IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE (Music in American Life) (Paperback)
The author does an excellent job of outlining the social history of the banjo in America, but in the end this is a merely academic critique of banjo culture(s), which she skewers like dead butterflies in a case. It's not clear if the author likes banjo music or even listened to much of it. The author is critical of both those who would describe banjo music as "that half-barbaric twang" as well as anyone who actually plays the darned thing. The author's elitism and ivory tower perspective can be forgiven because of the many interesting historical details she provides. It will take another person, probably someone without a PhD, to reassemble the details in a meaningful way for those of us who simply love the sound and the music for what it is.
9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not for Banjo Lovers!,
By
This review is from: That Half-Barbaric Twang: THE BANJO IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE (Music in American Life) (Paperback)
This book reads as if it were written to fulfill a thesis requirement, and not out of love for the banjo. The author only touches on banjo technique and music, instead she prefers to base her arguments on iconography. I gave it two stars since it provides some interesting perspectives on race relations in the U.S., but it severely falls short for anyone who loves banjo music and the instrument itself.
13 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Book one on the Banjo, Great book on American Culture,
By Tony Thomas (SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: That Half-Barbaric Twang: THE BANJO IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE (Music in American Life) (Paperback)
This is one of the best books on the nature of cultural perception and the wars between reality and the stereotypes of the dominant culture, as well as the relationship between capitalism and culture, race and capitalism in America, as well of class race and style. This book belongs in every home.Linn deals with the social image of the banjo from its African and African American origins, to minstrelry's role in popularizing this instrument as well as the conflicts between the racism of minstrelry and the explosion of an instrument suited to popularize African American music. She continues by charting the now-forgetten age of the classic banjo from post civil war period until the first decade of this century, when manufacturers and teachers tried to elavate the five string instrument from its working class and African American roots, to becoming a polite and priviledged possession for the rich. She then charts the evolyution of the instrument and its image into the jazz age with the various 4 string banjos. Finally she deals with the images in the culture created by the persistence of the instrument in appalachia and its revival in the folk scene of the 1950s through today. This is a gross summary of a subtle, well written book, that provides pictures about how stereotypes and misinformation based on the racial and class conflicts of society both cloud our knowledge of the real culture and constitutes part of it.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
AT THE SOIREE MUSICALE in the spacious home of Mrs. Lippincott, we find the banjo in the heart of late nineteenth-century bourgeois society. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
many banjoists, banjo journals, elevated banjo, banjo tournament, boy with the banjo, short thumb string, minstrel banjoists, professional minstrelsy, banjo tradition, black banjo player, banjo manufacturers, banjo clubs, bluegrass banjoists, folk banjo, modern banjo, minstrel theater, sentimental ethos, sentimental idiom, banjo makers, banjo lesson, tenor banjo, mandolin clubs, bluegrass players, folk music revival, black imagery Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, United States, Van Eps, North Carolina, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Brown University, World War, Charlie Poole, Civil War, Pete Seeger, Smithsonian Institution, Earl Scruggs, Old South, Library of Congress, African Americans, Archives Center, The Crescendo, The Banjo Lesson, Stephen Foster, Harper's Magazine, Horace Weston, James Reese Europe, University of Illinois Press, Alfred Farland, Bascom Lamar Lunsford New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
AT THE SOIREE MUSICALE in the spacious home of Mrs. Lippincott, we find the banjo in the heart of late nineteenth-century bourgeois society. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
many banjoists, banjo journals, elevated banjo, banjo tournament, boy with the banjo, short thumb string, minstrel banjoists, professional minstrelsy, banjo tradition, black banjo player, banjo manufacturers, banjo clubs, bluegrass banjoists, folk banjo, modern banjo, minstrel theater, sentimental ethos, sentimental idiom, banjo makers, banjo lesson, tenor banjo, mandolin clubs, bluegrass players, folk music revival, black imagery Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, United States, Van Eps, North Carolina, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Brown University, World War, Charlie Poole, Civil War, Pete Seeger, Smithsonian Institution, Earl Scruggs, Old South, Library of Congress, African Americans, Archives Center, The Crescendo, The Banjo Lesson, Stephen Foster, Harper's Magazine, Horace Weston, James Reese Europe, University of Illinois Press, Alfred Farland, Bascom Lamar Lunsford New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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53
books
cite this book:
See all 53 books citing this book
- No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920 by T. J. Jackson Lears on 6 pages
- Folk-Songs of the Southern United States (Folk-Songs Du Midi Des Etats-Unis) by Josiah Henry Combs on 4 pages
- Bluegrass Breakdown: THE MAKING OF THE OLD SOUTHERN SOUND (Music in American Life) by Robert Cantwell on 4 pages
- Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (Penguin Classics) by Joel Chandler Harris on page 43, page 44, and page 127
- Stars of Country Music by Bill Maline on page 157, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 100 books this book cites
- America's Instrument: The Banjo in the Ninteenth Century by Philip F. Gura in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Complete Book of Irish & Celtic 5-String Banjo by Tom Hanway in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- "MAXIMUM CLARITY" AND OTHER WRITINGS ON MUSIC by Ben Johnston in Back Matter
- The Bill Monroe Reader (Music in American Life) by Tom Ewing in Back Matter
- The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin American Music on the United States by John Storm Roberts in Back Matter
See all 53 books citing this book
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