Elijah Wald

an alternative history of American popular music

How the Beatles destroyed rock 'n' roll

“Elijah Wald’s book reflects the many directions in which America’s music scene evolved in those extraordinary years, 1963–1970—I can’t recommend it enough.”—George Wein, founder of the Newport Folk Festival On the evening of July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan took the stage at the Newport Folk Festival backed by an electric band and roared into a blistering version of “Maggie’s Farm,” followed by his new rock single, “Like a Rolling Stone.” The audience of committed folk purists and political activists who had hailed him as their acoustic prophet reacted with a mix of shock, booing, and scattered cheers. It was the shot heard round the world—Dylan’s declaration of musical independence, the end of the folk revival, and the birth of rock as the voice of a generation—and one of the defining moments in twentieth-century music. In Dylan Goes Electric! Elijah Wald explores the cultural, political, and historical context of this seminal event. He delves deep into the folk revival and its intersections with the civil rights movement, the rise of rock, and the tensions between traditional and groundbreaking music to provide new insights into Dylan’s artistic evolution, his special affinity to blues, his complex relationship to the folk establishment and his sometime mentor Pete Seeger, and the ways he reshaped popular music forever. Breaking new ground on a story we think we know, Dylan Goes Electric! is a thoughtful, sharp appraisal of the controversial event at Newport and a nuanced, provocative analysis of why it matters.

Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties

Dylan Goes Electric!

Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk (1936-2002) was one of the founding figures of the 1960s folk revival, but he was far more than that. A pioneer of modern acoustic blues, a fine songwriter and arranger, a powerful singer, and one of the most influential guitarists of the '60s, he was also a marvelous storyteller, a peerless musical historian, and one of the most quotable figures on the Village scene. The Mayor of MacDougal Street is a first-hand account by a major player in the social and musical history of the '50s and '60s. It features encounters with young stars-to-be like Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, and Joni Mitchell, as well as older luminaries like Reverend Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, and Odetta. Colorful, hilarious, and engaging, The Mayor of MacDougal Street is a feast for anyone interested in the music, politics, and spirit of a revolutionary period in American culture

A Memoir

The Mayor of MacDougal Street

Praised as "suave, soulful, ebullient" (Tom Waits) and "a meticulous researcher, a graceful writer, and a committed contrarian" (New York Times Book Review), Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture. It is not an easy thing to pin down. As Howlin' Wolf once described it, "When you ain't got no money and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food, you've damn sure got the blues." It has been defined by lyrical structure, or as a progression of chords, or as a set of practices reflecting West African "tonal and rhythmic approaches," using a five-note "blues scale." Wald sees blues less as a style than as a broad musical tradition within a constantly evolving pop culture. He traces its roots in work and praise songs, and shows how it was transformed by such professional performers as W. C. Handy, who first popularized the blues a century ago. He follows its evolution from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith through Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix; identifies the impact of rural field recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton and others; explores the role of blues in the development of both country music and jazz; and looks at the popular rhythm and blues trends of the 1940s and 1950s, from the uptown West Coast style of T-Bone Walker to the "down home" Chicago sound of Muddy Waters. Wald brings the story up to the present, touching on the effects of blues on American poetry, and its connection to modern styles such as rap. As with all of Oxford's Very Short Introductions, The Blues tells you--with insight, clarity, and wit--everything you need to know to understand this quintessentially American musical genre.

The Blues: A Very Short Introduction

Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues

Escaping the Delta

The life of blues legend Robert Johnson becomes the centerpiece for this innovative look at what many consider to be America's deepest and most influential music genre. Pivotal are the questions surrounding why Johnson was ignored by the core black audience of his time yet now celebrated as the greatest figure in blues history. Trying to separate myth from reality, biographer Elijah Wald studies the blues from the inside -- not only examining recordings but also the recollections of the musicians themselves, the African-American press, as well as examining original research. What emerges is a new appreciation for the blues and the movement of its artists from the shadows of the 1930s Mississippi Delta to the mainstream venues frequented by today's loyal blues fans.

A comprehensive biography of singer, songwriter, and musician Josh White, who ruled the folk charts with Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, discusses the unique guitar style and tempestuous personal life of this gifted talent.

Society Blues

Josh White

This fascinating tale of the author's cross-country hitchhiking journey is a captivating look into the pleasures and challenges of the open road. As the miles roll by he meets businessmen, missionaries, conspiracy theorists, and truck drivers from all ages and ethnicities who are eager to open their car doors to a wandering stranger. This memoir uncovers the hidden reality that the United States remains hospitable, quirky, and as ready as ever to offer help to a curious traveler. Demonstrating how hitchhiking can be the ultimate in adventure travel--a thrilling exploration of both people and scenery--this guide also serves as a hitchhiker's reference, sharing the history behind this communal form of travel while touching on roadside lore and philosophy.

A Hitchhiker's Journey

Riding with Strangers

How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll is an alternative history of American music that, instead of recycling the familiar cliches of jazz and rock, looks at what people were playing, hearing and dancing to over the course of the 20th century, using a wealth of original research, curious quotations, and an irreverent fascination with the oft-despised commercial mainstream.

An Alternative History of American Popular Music

How The Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll

As the fastest growing sector of the U.S. music market, world music has embedded itself in the fabric of American life. Artists such as Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon and the Talking Heads have all utilized characteristics of the "world" sound in their music, while international performers are enjoying unexpected fame in the U.S. At the same time, in an era of unprecedented immigration and globalization, people all over the world are using music as way to preserve their local and ethnic identity. Global Minstrels: Voices of World Music is an accessible introduction to international music and culture. Including conversations with dozens of artists from five continents, it explores the breadth of the world music experience through the voices of the musicians themselves. In the process, it gives a unique view of the interactions of a globalizing society and introduces readers to some of the most fascinating and thoughtful artists working on the current scene. Artists profiled include Oumou Sangare, Caetano Veloso, Ravi Shankar, Paco de Lucía, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and many more.

Voices of World Music

Global Minstrels

Ruth Hubbard

Examines the current emphasis on genetic inheritance, evaluates the dangers of genetic information as a violation of privacy, and criticizes the money being spent on genetic research.

How Genetic Information is Produced and Manipulated by Scientists, Physicians, Employers, Insurance Companies, Educators, and Law Enforcers

Exploding the Gene Myth

No existe tradiciÓn mÁs mexicana que la de los corridos, las herÓicas baladas que celebran a los de abajo -- a los fugitivos y pistoleros. Al igual que las baladas de Robin Hood o de Jesse James, los corridos han sido para los pobres una manera de enaltecer a sus hÉroes. Los corridos siguen, pero sus hÉroes han cambiado: ahora son cÉlebres los narcotraficantes. Elijah Wald cuenta la fascinante historia de esta nueva versiÓn de una vieja tradiciÓn: la de los narcocorridos. Traza el desarrollo de los corridos desde sus orÍgenes en el indÓmito Oeste hasta su mÁs reciente encarnaciÓn en la costa del mar PacÍfico, la cuna del trÁfico de drogas mexicano. Sigue su expansiÓn hasta Los Angeles, donde los corridos son la voz de la juventud actual de los barrios latinos, y hasta los estados de MichoacÁn y Guerrero, donde canciones sobre narcopistoleros coinciden con baladas sobre los guerrilleros en las montaÑas. Wald viaja a la Ciudad de MÉxico para encontrarse con el juglar viajero de la rebeliÓn zapatista, y continÚa hasta Cuernavaca para encontrarse con Teodoro Bello, el genio iletrado que se ha convertido en el compositor de mayor Éxito en la historia de MÉxico. Discursivo, vÍvido y perspicaz, Narcocorridos descubre una tradiciÓn musical llena de vitalidad mostrando de manera fascinante el lugar que ocupa el narcotrÁfico en la cultura mexicana.

Un Viaje Dentro de la Musica de Drogas, Armas, y Guerrilleros

Narcocorrido

One of the music world’s pre-eminent critics takes a fresh and much-needed look at the day Dylan “went electric” at the Newport Folk Festival, timed to coincide with the event’s fiftieth anniversary. On the evening of July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan took the stage at Newport Folk Festival, backed by an electric band, and roared into his new rock hit, Like a Rolling Stone. The audience of committed folk purists and political activists who had hailed him as their acoustic prophet reacted with a mix of shock, booing, and scattered cheers. It was the shot heard round the world—Dylan’s declaration of musical independence, the end of the folk revival, and the birth of rock as the voice of a generation—and one of the defining moments in twentieth-century music. In Dylan Goes Electric!, Elijah Wald explores the cultural, political and historical context of this seminal event that embodies the transformative decade that was the sixties. Wald delves deep into the folk revival, the rise of rock, and the tensions between traditional and groundbreaking music to provide new insights into Dylan’s artistic evolution, his special affinity to blues, his complex relationship to the folk establishment and his sometime mentor Pete Seeger, and the ways he reshaped popular music forever. Breaking new ground on a story we think we know, Dylan Goes Electric! is a thoughtful, sharp appraisal of the controversial event at Newport and a nuanced, provocative, analysis of why it matters.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Eine kleine Einführung

Der Blues

"There are no definitive histories," writes Elijah Wald, in this provocative reassessment of American popular music, "because the past keeps looking different as the present changes." Earlier musical styles sound different to us today because we hear them through the musical filter of other styles that came after them, all the way through funk and hip hop. As its blasphemous title suggests, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll rejects the conventional pieties of mainstream jazz and rock history. Rather than concentrating on those traditionally favored styles, the book traces the evolution of popular music through developing tastes, trends and technologies--including the role of records, radio, jukeboxes and television --to give a fuller, more balanced account of the broad variety of music that captivated listeners over the course of the twentieth century. Wald revisits original sources--recordings, period articles, memoirs, and interviews--to highlight how music was actually heard and experienced over the years. And in a refreshing departure from more typical histories, he focuses on the world of working musicians and ordinary listeners rather than stars and specialists. He looks for example at the evolution of jazz as dance music, and rock 'n' roll through the eyes of the screaming, twisting teenage girls who made up the bulk of its early audience. Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and the Beatles are all here, but Wald also discusses less familiar names like Paul Whiteman, Guy Lombardo, Mitch Miller, Jo Stafford, Frankie Avalon, and the Shirelles, who in some cases were far more popular than those bright stars we all know today, and who more accurately represent the mainstream of their times. Written with verve and style, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll shakes up our staid notions of music history and helps us hear American popular music with new ears.

Elijah Wald

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