Customer Reviews

When We Were Good: The Folk Revival

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I approached this book with high hopes, and found myself sorely disappointed. It had gotten such great press when it came out -- with big write-ups in the "New York Times" and elsewhere -- but frankly, I found the style and grammar so convoluted that I could hardly understand it. Cantwell's overly-academic prose is so dense and thicketed that halfway through I realized I had absolutely no idea what his book was about. Something about the American folk revival... but what exactly was he trying to say? Cantwell, a former '60s folkie who teaches American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, applies a nearly impenetrable acadamese to his history(?)/analysis(?)/deconstruction(?) of the folk revival, but seems unable to rise above the terminology and crowded syntax he's adopted. His writing has a piled-on, house-of-cards style, full of incredible run-on sentences and needless verbal transpositions that make practically every sentence, paragraph and chapter difficult to follow. In short: arrrrrrgh!!! The most frustrating aspect is the boggling lack of narrative skills: Cantwell sets out to tell stories and convey experiences, but inevitably gets balled up in unreasonably convoluted, digressive rhetoric. Maybe I'm just a big dummy and can't understand all that smart-feller, egghead stuff... or maybe this guy needs a more forceful editor.

I agree with some of the other reviewers that this is not a speed read, but it's not because of academic jargon, of which there is very little. Cantwell is fond of long, twisty sentences, many of which I had to read twice, but it was worth the effort. If the prose is complex, it's because there are plenty of meaty, complex ideas behind it.

Reading this book set my brain on fire. Cantwell makes lots of non-obvious but convincing connections between the folk song revival of the 1960s and:
* The IWW of the 1930s
* Summer camps in the northeast US in the 1950s
* The McCarthy witch hunts
* The growing power of consumer culture
and much, much more.

This is a very political book, and unashamedly so. Cantwell relates popular culture to economics and history with powerful arguments that show how the lessons of the Great Depression of the 1930s were deliberately distorted and finally lost through the efforts of the military industrial complex that needed to perpetuate itself after World War II.

He describes the longing of the 60s folk generation for authenticity, justice, and national identity with great sympathy. I was there, and it all rang true for me. And Cantwell was there too--his description of the effect that Pete Seeger had on his life is especially moving, and gives the book a personal depth that enriches the entire narrative.

This is the best book about music I've ever read that Greil Marcus didn't write. If you liked INVISIBLE REPUBLIC or LIPSTICK TRACES, I think you'll really go for this one.

Cantwell is an academician but sometimes even scholars can put together a fascinating book. The music we call "Folk" music more or less surfaced in the folk revival of the late 50s and early 60s but what was its prehistory and how did "Folk" music come to be what it is perceived to be today? In a music inherently archival and conservative, why is it generally aligned with the left end of the political spectrum when it gets political? Why is a solo singer with a guitar a "folk" musician but a solo piano player not?

Cantwell traces the music and events that led to the Folk Revival from the first commercialization of non-academic music (minstrel shows, for example) through its contacts with Broadway and concert singing (Paul Robeson, John Jacob Niles, etc.) through and its affiliation with communists, campers, beatniks and folklorists. The writing is dense and Cantwell doesn't always provide clear enough landmarks to help you follow his arguments, but his conception of the complexities that lay behind the folk revival is remarkable.

This book is way over the heads of both the editorial and customer reviewers. (But then when has any reviewer for Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, or Kirkus ever really comprehended the book they review?) These reviews (and their small number) again confirm the basic rule of the arts: The better your work, the smaller your audience. (See my comment attached to one of the above reviews.)

Cantwell's insights are extremely valuable in the on-going evaluation of this area of America's cultural expression. Informed opinions are the best we can do in the study of the artifacts of the human experience in America. Cantwell's ideas have come to permeate,and dominate, the criticism of this long overlooked and misunderstood area of American music. His essay on Harry Smith is a revelation.