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Blake Shelton (Amazing Americans: Country Music Stars)
by Jim GigliottiBlake Shelton is a country music superstar. In this fascinating introduction, young readers will learn about Blake's childhood in Oklahoma and how he achieved his dream of becoming a country music icon. Each 24-page book in this series of introductory biographies features controlled text with age-appropriate vocabulary and simple sentence construction.
Blast from the Past (Star Power)
by Catherine HapkaIs Samantha who she says she is? While on tour in Switzerland, Star meets a girl named Samantha. Sam explains that she and Star went to kindergarten together before Sam's family moved away to Europe. Star doesn't really remember Sam, but Sam seems to have lots of fond memories of Star's parents, and that's a topic Star never gets tired of discussing. Soon Star and Sam are virtually inseparable. But Mike and Mags are suspicious of Star's friend's motives. Is Sam really a blast from Star's past, or is she after something more than memories?
Blended Beats (Band Together)
by Keith WainAfter a disappointing gig, Zeedee is inspired. She’s ready to add a new mood to their sound. Hopefully the other band members will agree!
Blind Joe Death's America: John Fahey, the Blues, and Writing White Discontent
by George HendersonFor over sixty years, American guitarist John Fahey (1939–2001) has been a storied figure, first within the folk and blues revival of the long 1960s, later for fans of alternative music. Mythologizing himself as Blind Joe Death, Fahey crudely parodied white middle-class fascination with African American blues, including his own. In this book, George Henderson mines Fahey's parallel careers as essayist, notorious liner note stylist, musicologist, and fabulist for the first time. These vocations, inspired originally by Cold War educators' injunction to creatively express rather than suppress feelings, took utterly idiosyncratic and prescient turns.Fahey voraciously consumed ideas: in the classroom, the counterculture, the civil rights struggle, the new left; through his study of philosophy, folklore, African American blues; and through his experience with psychoanalysis and southern paternalism. From these, he produced a profoundly and unexpectedly refracted vision of America. To read Fahey is to vicariously experience devastating critical energies and self-soothing uncertainty, passions emerging from a singular location—the place where lone, white rebel sentiment must regard the rebellion of others. Henderson shows the nuance, contradictions, and sometimes brilliance of Fahey's words that, though they were never sung to a tune, accompanied his music.
Blind but Now I See: The Biography of Music Legend Doc Watson
by Kent Gustavson<P>From the day Doc Watson stepped off the bus in New York City, the North Carolina music legend changed the world forever. His influence has been recognised by presidents and by the heroes of modern music. This is the first comprehensive biography of Doc Watson, with never before released details about the American guitar icons life. <P>This book includes new interviews with popular musicians: Ben Harper, Michelle Shocked, Warren Haynes, Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, Tom Paxton, Maria Muldaur, John Cohen, Mike Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Abigail Washburn, Ketch Secor, Marty Stuart, Norman Blake, Tony Rice, Pat Donohue, Peter Rowan, Si Kahn, Tommy Emmanuel, Tony Trischka, Greg Brown, Guy Clark, Don Rigsby, David Grisman, Alice Gerrard, Alan O Bryant, Edgar Meyer, Guy Davis, Jack Lawrence, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, Jean Ritchie, Jerry Douglas, Jonathan Byrd, Larry Long, Paddy Moloney, and many more. . .
Blixa Bargeld and Einstürzende Neubauten: 'Evading do-re-mi' (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series)
by Jennifer ShryaneAt the end of his life, Pierre Schaeffer commented that his musical and sound experiments had attempted to go beyond 'do-re-mi'. This had a direct bearing on Einstürzende Neubauten's musical philosophy and work, with the musicians always striving to extend the boundaries of music in sound, instrumentation and purpose. The group are one of the few examples of 'rock-based' artists who have been able to sustain a breadth and depth of work in a variety of media over a number of years while remaining experimental and open to development. Jennifer Shryane provides a much-needed analysis of the group's important place in popular/experimental music history. She illustrates their innovations with found- and self-constructed instrumentation, their Artaudian performance strategies and textual concerns, as well as their methods of independence. Einstürzende Neubauten have also made a consistent and unique contribution to the development of the independent German Language Contemporary Music scene, which although often acknowledged as influential, is still rarely examined.
Blon (edición pack con: Eternamente | Hemisferios)
by Pablo Pérez Rueda (Blon)Descubre los dos primeros poemarios de Blon, ahora reunidos en este exclusivo pack. Eternamente es una declaración de intenciones, un intento de carta de amor incombustible a las cosas que, sin remedio, se acaban; a la persona que quieres que esté, aun corriendo el riesgo de que un día se marche. "Lo que creemos juntos no durará siempre, todo se acaba, pero seguirá en el recuerdo eternamente". Hemisferios, sin embargo, se centra en mostrar las distintas miradas, las caleidoscópicas visiones que los seres humanos tenemos de la realidad y que, sorprendentemente, llegan a viajar de un extremo al otro, desde la oscuridad a la luz o viceversa, descubriéndonos que la verdad depende del ojo desde el que se mira. Este estuche reúne los dos poemarios de Pablo Pérez Rueda, más conocido como Blon, una de las voces más importantes del rap, el freestyle y también de la poesía actual. Sus versos se mueven entre lo cotidiano y lo emocional, con un toque filosófico y social que apela a la actualidad y a nuestro mundo más inmediato. Están repletos de emoción y talento, trascendiendo el ritmo urbano de su música para convertirse en algo distinto y original: pura poesía.
Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story
by Barry MazorThe definitive biography of the Everly Brothers, one of the greatest and most influential acts in popular music history, based on dozens of exclusive and archival interviews, as well as long-lost global reporting In between the Elvis years and the rise of the Beatles, there was no bigger act than The Everly Brothers. From 1957-1962, they were among the highest selling pop acts in the U.S. In that time, they developed their own brand of rock &‘n' roll and gentle pop balladry that leaned heavily on older, close harmony styles of country music singing. &“Wake Up, Little Susie,&” &“All I Have to Do Is Dream,&” &“Cathy&’s Clown,&” &“Let it Be Me,&” — their hits were legion and their sweet and sour Appalachian-style harmonies influenced everyone from The Beatles to Simon and Garfunkel to the Beach Boys to Crosby, Stills, and Nash. The Everly Brothers—Don and Phil—are inducted members of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame, and progenitors of the hybrid Americana roots music format. Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story is the first biography that&’s focused on the dramatic, complicated relationship of these two famous and strikingly talented brothers, and explores how the evolution of their relationship played out in the much- loved music they created—through some sixty years of performing. Their story is the story of American music, from their rural Kentucky origins to massive international fame, falling out of fashion in the wake of the rise of rock bands and singer-songwriters, and their many comebacks. Blood Harmony is a fitting ode to the brothers who made a huge impact on the modern music scene, celebrating how their creative "blood harmony" evolved to become an entry point into country music for millions around the world.
Blood in the Tracks: The Minnesota Musicians behind Dylan's Masterpiece
by Rick Shefchik Paul MetsaThe story of the Minneapolis musicians who were unexpectedly summoned to re-record half of the songs on Bob Dylan's most acclaimed album When Bob Dylan recorded Blood on the Tracks in New York in September 1974, it was a great album. But it was not the album now ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the ten best of all time. &“When something&’s not right, it&’s wrong,&” as Dylan puts it in &“You&’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go&”—and something about that original recording led him to a studio in his native Minnesota to re-record five songs, including &“Idiot Wind&” and &“Tangled Up in Blue.&” Six Minnesota musicians participated in that two-night recording session at Sound 80, bringing their unique sound to some of Dylan&’s best-known songs—only to have their names left off the album and their contribution unacknowledged for more than forty years. This book tells the story of those two nights in Minneapolis, introduces the musicians who gave the album so much of its ultimate form and sound, and describes their decades-long fight for recognition. Blood in the Tracks takes readers behind the scenes with these &“mystery&” Minnesota musicians: twenty-one-year-old mandolin virtuoso Peter Ostroushko; drummer Bill Berg and bass player Billy Peterson, the house rhythm section at Sound 80; progressive rock keyboardist Gregg Inhofer; guitarist Chris Weber, who owned The Podium guitar shop in Dinkytown; and Kevin Odegard, whose own career as a singer-songwriter had paralleled Dylan&’s until he had to take a job as a railroad brakeman to make ends meet. Through in-depth interviews and assiduous research, Paul Metsa and Rick Shefchik trace the twists of fate that brought these musicians together and then set them on different paths in its wake: their musical experiences leading up to the December 1974 recording session, the divergent careers that followed, and the painstaking work required to finally obtain the official credit that they were due. A rare look at the making—or remaking—of an all-time great album, and a long overdue recognition of the musicians who made it happen, Blood in the Tracks brings to life a transformative moment in the history of rock and roll, for the first time in its true context and with its complete cast of players.
Blood: A Memoir
by Allison MoorerThe Grammy- and Academy Award- nominated singer-songwriter's haunting, lyrical memoir, sharing the story of an unthinkable act of violence and ultimate healing through artMobile, Alabama, 1986. A fourteen-year-old girl is awakened by the unmistakable sound of gunfire. On the front lawn, her father has shot and killed her mother before turning the gun on himself. Allison Moorer would grow up to be an award-winning musician, with her songs likened to "a Southern accent: eight miles an hour, deliberate, and very dangerous to underestimate" (Rolling Stone). But that moment, which forever altered her own life and that of her older sister, Shelby, has never been far from her thoughts. Now, in her journey to understand the unthinkable, to parse the unknowable, Allison uses her lyrical storytelling powers to lay bare the memories and impressions that make a family, and that tear a family apart.Blood delves into the meaning of inheritance and destiny, shame and trauma -- and how it is possible to carve out a safe place in the world despite it all. With a foreword by Allison's sister, Grammy winner Shelby Lynne, Blood reads like an intimate journal: vivid, haunting, and ultimately life-affirming.
Blowin’ the Blues Away
by Travis A. JacksonNew York City has always been a mecca in the history of jazz, and in many ways the city's jazz scene is more important now than ever before. Blowin' the Blues Away examines how jazz has thrived in New York following its popular resurgence in the 1980s. Using interviews, in-person observation, and analysis of live and recorded events, ethnomusicologist Travis A. Jackson explores both the ways in which various participants in the New York City jazz scene interpret and evaluate performance, and the criteria on which those interpretations and evaluations are based. Through the notes and words of its most accomplished performers and most ardent fans, jazz appears not simply as a musical style, but as a cultural form intimately influenced by and influential upon American concepts of race, place, and spirituality.
Bludie Harlaw: Realities, Myths, Ballads
by Ian A. OlsonIn the summer of 1411, the ageing Donald of Isla, Lord of the Isles, invaded mainland Scotland with a huge, battle-hardened army, only to be fought to a bloody standstill on the plateau of Harlaw, fifteen miles from Aberdeen, a town he had threatened to sack. One of the greatest battles in Scottish history, described by hardened mediaeval chroniclers as 'atrocious', 'Reid Harlaw' left some 3,000 dead and wounded. Dismissed by Scott as a 'Celt v. Saxon' power struggle, it has faded from historical memory, other than in the north-east of Scotland. Written records in Latin, Scots, Gaelic and English are presented in their original form, and with transcriptions and translations. Two major ballads are analysed, one contemporary, and one fabricated over 350 years later - which is still sung. Lowland views dominate, because of the loss and destruction of Highland records, notably those of the Lords of the Isles themselves. The histories themselves fall into two groups - those written at or around the time, and those composed some 300 years later.These later accounts form the basis of most modern descriptions of the battle, but they tend to be romantic and highly imaginative, creating noble order where chaos once existed.
Blue Grass Boy: The Story of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass Music
by Barb RosenstockLearn about the creation of the unique American music called bluegrass through the story of Bill Monroe.Bill Monroe loved many things: playing music, his big family, and his home in the bluegrass state of Kentucky. Even though his eyes were crossed and didn't work right, Bill's ears worked hard, picking out all sorts of sounds around his treasured home: rushing streams, wailing winds, and sundown jamborees with his family. Through heartache and hard times, Bill held on to these sounds that reminded him of home. Award-winning author Barb Rosenstock and illustrator Edwin Fotheringham beautifully capture the ups and downs of Bill Monroe's musical journey, and how his deep Kentucky roots helped him create a unique form of American music--bluegrass. Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash and Jerry Garcia all credit Bill Monroe with influencing their music.
Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan
by E. Taylor AtkinsJapan's jazz community--both musicians and audience--has been begrudgingly recognized in the United States for its talent, knowledge, and level of appreciation. Underpinning this tentative admiration, however, has been a tacit agreement that, for cultural reasons, Japanese jazz "can't swing. " In Blue Nippon E. Taylor Atkins shows how, strangely, Japan's own attitude toward jazz is founded on this same ambivalence about its authenticity. Engagingly told through the voices of many musicians, Blue Nippon explores the true and legitimate nature of Japanese jazz. Atkins peers into 1920s dancehalls to examine the Japanese Jazz Age and reveal the origins of urban modernism with its new set of social mores, gender relations, and consumer practices. He shows how the interwar jazz period then became a troubling symbol of Japan's intimacy with the West--but how, even during the Pacific war, the roots of jazz had taken hold too deeply for the "total jazz ban" that some nationalists desired. While the allied occupation was a setback in the search for an indigenous jazz sound, Japanese musicians again sought American validation. Atkins closes out his cultural history with an examination of the contemporary jazz scene that rose up out of Japan's spectacular economic prominence in the 1960s and 1970s but then leveled off by the 1990s, as tensions over authenticity and identity persisted. With its depiction of jazz as a transforming global phenomenon, Blue Nippon will make enjoyable reading not only for jazz fans worldwide but also for ethnomusicologists, and students of cultural studies, Asian studies, and modernism.
Blue Notes: Jazz, Literature, and Loneliness
by Sam V. ReeseJazz can be uplifting, stimulating, sensual, and spiritual. Yet when writers turn to this form of music, they almost always imagine it in terms of loneliness. In Blue Notes: Jazz, Literature, and Loneliness, Sam V. H. Reese investigates literary representations of jazz and the cultural narratives often associated with it, noting how they have, in turn, shaped readers’ judgments and assumptions about the music. This illuminating critical study contemplates the relationship between jazz and literature from a perspective that musicians themselves regularly call upon to characterize their performances: that of the conversation. Reese traces the tradition of literary appropriations of jazz, both as subject matter and as aesthetic structure, in order to show how writers turn to this genre of music as an avenue for exploring aspects of human loneliness. In turn, jazz musicians have often looked to literature—sometimes obliquely, sometimes centrally—for inspiration. Reese devotes particular attention to how several revolutionary jazz artists used the written word as a way to express, in concrete terms, something their music could only allude to or affectively evoke. By analyzing these exchanges between music and literature, Blue Notes refines and expands the cultural meaning of being alone, stressing how loneliness can create beauty, empathy, and understanding. Reese analyzes a body of prose writings that includes Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and midcentury short fiction by James Baldwin, Julio Cortázar, Langston Hughes, and Eudora Welty. Alongside this vibrant tradition of jazz literature, Reese considers the autobiographies of Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus, as well as works by a range of contemporary writers including Geoff Dyer, Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Zadie Smith. Throughout, Blue Notes offers original perspectives on the disparate ways in which writers acknowledge the expansive side of loneliness, reimagining solitude through narratives of connected isolation.
Blue Rhythm Fantasy: Big Band Jazz Arranging in the Swing Era
by John WriggleBehind the iconic jazz orchestras, vocalists, and stage productions of the Swing Era lay the talents of popular music's unsung heroes: the arrangers. John Wriggle takes you behind the scenes of New York City's vibrant entertainment industry of the 1930s and 1940s to uncover the lives and work of jazz arrangers, both black and white, who left an indelible mark on American music and culture. Blue Rhythm Fantasy traces the extraordinary career of arranger Chappie Willet--a collaborator of Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, and many others--to revisit legendary Swing Era venues and performers from Harlem to Times Square. Wriggle's insightful music analyses of big band arranging techniques explore representations of cultural modernism, discourses on art and commercialism, conceptions of race and cultural identity, music industry marketing strategies, and stage entertainment variety genres. Drawing on archives, obscure recordings, untapped sources in the African American press, and interviews with participants, Blue Rhythm Fantasy is a long-overdue study of the arranger during this dynamic era of American music history.
Blue Ridge Billy
by Lois LenskiA young boy dreams of music and sunshine in the Great Smoky Mountains As far as Billy is concerned, there's no sight more beautiful than the sun setting over the Blue Ridge Mountains. When the day is done, he sneaks away from his work to watch the sun go down. If his father knew, he would call Billy lazy, but Mama would understand. She knows life in the mountains is hard and that there's no point in living if a person can't take time to appreciate what he has. Billy dreams of the day when he can pick up his fiddle and sing the folk songs of his people. Until then, he will be content with the sun. This beautifully written novel tells a story of simple fun and irresistible pleasures in 1 of the most beautiful regions in the United States.
Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina
by Steve Kruger Fred C. FussellThe music and dance traditions of North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains are legendary. Residents continue a musical heritage that stretches back many generations. In this lively guidebook, noted folklorist Fred C. Fussell puts readers on the trail to discover the many sites in western North Carolina where this unique musical legacy thrives. Organized by region and county, Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina welcomes readers into the rich worlds of bluegrass, old-time, gospel, and string band music, as well as clogging, flatfooting, and other forms of traditional dance. The book, a project of the North Carolina Arts Council and its partner, the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, features a CD with more than 20 songs by musicians profiled in the book, historic recordings of the region's most influential musicians spanning nine decades--available for the first time here--and songs based on true stories of love, crime, and tragedy set in the North Carolina mountains. Includes:* driving directions* maps* venue contact information * color photographs and profiles of prominent mountain musicians* informative sidebars on musicians and performance styles* a CD with 20 music tracks
Blue Smoke: The Recorded Journey of Big Bill Broonzy
by Roger HouseA contemporary of blues greats Blind Blake, Tampa Red, and Papa Charlie Jackson, Chicago blues artist William "Big Bill" Broonzy influenced an array of postwar musicians, including Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim, and J. B. Lenoir. In Blue Smoke, Roger House tells the extraordinary story of "Big Bill," a working-class bluesman whose circumstances offer a window into the dramatic social transformations faced by African Americans during the first half of the twentieth century. One in a family of twenty-one children and reared by sharecropper parents in Mississippi, Broonzy seemed destined to stay on the land. He moved to Arkansas to work as a sharecropper, preacher, and fiddle player, but the army drafted him during World War I. After his service abroad, Broonzy, like thousands of other black soldiers, returned to the racism and bleak economic prospects of the Jim Crow South and chose to move North to seek new opportunities. After learning to play the guitar, he performed at neighborhood parties in Chicago and in 1927 attracted the attention of Paramount Records, which released his first single, "House Rent Stomp," backed by "Big Bill's Blues." Over the following decades, Broonzy toured the United States and Europe. He released dozens of records but was never quite successful enough to give up working as a manual laborer. Many of his songs reflect this experience as a blue-collar worker, articulating the struggles, determination, and optimism of the urban black working class. Before his death in 1958, Broonzy finally achieved crossover success as a key player in the folk revival movement led by Pete Seeger and Alan Lomax, and as a blues ambassador to British musicians such as Lonnie Donegan and Eric Clapton. Weaving Broonzy's recordings, writings, and interviews into a compelling narrative of his life, Blue Smoke offers a comprehensive portrait of an artist recognized today as one of the most prolific and influential working-class blues musicians of the era.
Blue's Rainy Day Music (Blue's Clues Discovery Series, Book #2)
by Ronald KiddIt's raining and Magenta comes over for a playdate. Blue wants to make a musical instrument. Can you help find the clues and learn what instrument Blue wants to make?
Blue: The Color of Noise
by Steve AokiThe music. The mix. His life."[A] passionate, introspective memoir." —Publishers Weekly"Sometimes I think my whole life can be seen through shades of blue..." —Steve AokiBlue is the remarkable story—in pictures and words—of Steve Aoki, the superstar DJ/producer who started his career as a vegan straightedge hardcore music kid hellbent on defying his millionaire father, whose unquenchable thirst to entertain—inherited from his dad, Rocky Aoki, founder of Benihana—led him to global success and two Grammy nominations. Ranked among the top ten DJs in the world today, Grammy-nominated artist, producer, label head, fashion designer, philanthropist and entrepreneur Steve Aoki is an authentic global trendsetter and tastemaker who has been instrumental in defining contemporary youth culture. Known for his outrageous stage antics (cake throwing, champagne spraying, and the ‘Aoki Jump’) and his endearing personality, Steve is also the brains behind indie record label Dim Mak, which broke acts such as The Kills, Bloc Party, and The Gossip. Dim Mak also put out the first releases by breakout EDM stars The Chainsmokers and The Bloody Beetroots, as well as the early releases for Grammy-nominated artist Iggy Azalea, in addition to EDM star Zedd and electro duo MSTRKFT. In Blue, Aoki recounts the epic highs of music festivals, clubs and pool parties around the world, as well as the lows of friendships lost to drugs and alcohol, and his relationship with his flamboyant father. Illustrated with candid photos gathered throughout his life, the book reveals how Aoki became a force of nature as an early social media adopter, helping to turn dance music into the phenomenon it is today. All this, while remaining true to his DIY punk rock principles, which value spontaneity, fun and friendship above all else—demonstrable by the countless cakes he has flung across cities worldwide.
Bluegrass Banjo For Dummies
by Bill EvansStart picking the five-string banjo like a pro with this definitive guide to bluegrass banjo! Whether you re an absolute beginner or an experienced player, Bluegrass Banjo For Dummies gets you started off the right way and is your road map for mastering today s most popular traditional and contemporary banjo picking styles. Online audio and video clips combine with the book s clear step-by-step instructions to provide the most complete and fun - banjo instruction experience available anywhere! Bluegrass banjo has never been more popular and is heard today not only in country and folk music, but in jazz, rock and country styles. Bluegrass Banjo For Dummies provides everything you need to know to play just about any kind of music on the five-string banjo by getting you started with the roll patterns essential to Scruggs style picking. You ll then add left-hand techniques such as slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs, play great sounding licks and perform classic tunes like Cripple Creek and Old Joe Clark. You ll navigate up the neck on the instrument as well as learn the essential skills you need to play with others in jam sessions and in bands. You ll even tackle contemporary banjo styles using melodic and single-string scales and picking techniques. Choose a banjo and accessories that are just right for you and your budget. Put on your fingerpicks, find your optimal hand position and start playing with the help of online audio and video. Explore the fingerboard using melodic and single-string playing styles. Accompany others in different keys with roll patterns and chord vamping techniques. Keep your banjo sounding its best with practical and easy set up tips. Bill Evans is one of the world s most popular banjo players and teachers, with over forty years of professional experience. In Bluegrass Banjo For Dummies, he shares the tips, secrets and shortcuts that have helped thousands of musicians, including many of today s top young professionals, to become great banjo players.
Bluegrass Banjo For Dummies: Book + Online Video & Audio Instruction
by Bill EvansPick and roll your way through bluegrass banjo basics The banjo nearly defines the bluegrass sound, and you&’ll be playing your own favorite tunes—or maybe writing some new ones—with the help of this book. Bluegrass Banjo For Dummies is the place to start if you&’re ready to start learning banjo or upgrade your skills to play in the bluegrass style. Written by an expert musician and educator, this book makes it easy to start plucking your 5-string banjo using common bluegrass techniques. You&’ll also have access to over 100 online audio files, and 35 video lessons, so you can see and hear the techniques in practice. This book serves as your first step to becoming a bluegrass banjo player, even if you&’re completely new to playing musical instruments. Choose the right banjo, pick up the basics, learn classic banjo licks, and more—the easy way. Learn how to read banjo tablature and perform on a five-string banjo Get insight on playing as part of a bluegrass combo band Practice with classic bluegrass tunes and banjo licks Create banjo solos that will wow your audiencesThis friendly For Dummies guide is great for fledgling banjo players interested in the bluegrass style. Whether or not you already play another instrument, you&’ll pick up the banjo basics you can show off at your next local bluegrass festival.
Bluegrass Bluesman: A Memoir (Music in American Life)
by Fred Bartenstein Neil V. Rosenberg Josh GravesA pivotal member of the hugely successful bluegrass band Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, Dobro pioneer Josh Graves (1927-2006) was a living link between bluegrass music and the blues. In Bluegrass Bluesman, this influential performer shares the story of his lifelong career in music. In lively anecdotes, Graves describes his upbringing in East Tennessee and the climate in which bluegrass music emerged during the 1940s. Deeply influenced by the blues, he adapted Earl Scruggs's revolutionary banjo style to the Dobro resonator slide guitar and gave the Foggy Mountain Boys their distinctive sound. Graves' accounts of daily life on the road through the 1950s and 1960s reveal the band's dedication to musical excellence, Scruggs' leadership, and an often grueling life on the road. He also comments on his later career when he played in Lester Flatt's Nashville Grass and the Earl Scruggs Revue and collaborated with the likes of Boz Scaggs, Charlie McCoy, Kenny Baker, Eddie Adcock, Jesse McReynolds, Marty Stuart, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, and his three musical sons. A colorful storyteller, Graves brings to life the world of an American troubadour and the mountain culture that he never left behind. Born in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, Josh Graves (1927-2006) is universally acknowledged as the father of the bluegrass Dobro. In 1997 he was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame.
Bluegrass Generation: A Memoir (Music in American Life)
by Neil V RosenbergNeil V. Rosenberg met the legendary Bill Monroe at the Brown County Jamboree. Rosenberg's subsequent experiences in Bean Blossom put his feet on the intertwined musical and scholarly paths that made him a preeminent scholar of bluegrass music. Rosenberg's memoir shines a light on the changing bluegrass scene of the early 1960s. Already a fan and aspiring musician, his appetite for banjo music quickly put him on the Jamboree stage. Rosenberg eventually played with Monroe and spent four months managing the Jamboree. Those heights gave him an eyewitness view of nothing less than bluegrass's emergence from the shadow of country music into its own distinct art form. As the likes of Bill Keith and Del McCoury played, Rosenberg watched Monroe begin to share a personal link to the music that tied audiences to its history and his life--and helped turn him into bluegrass's foundational figure. An intimate look at a transformative time, Bluegrass Generation tells the inside story of how an American musical tradition came to be.