Prologue - history of a song, Tom Dooley; we are the folk - backgrounds of the revival; the new minstrelsy - Jim Crow and John Henry; ballad for Americans - the search for a people's opera; ramblin' round your city - the Almanac Singers; wasn't that a time - folk music and the Cold War; Smith's memory theater - the great folkways anthology; he shall overcome - Pete Seeger; happy campers - the children's underground; lady and the tramp - Joan Baez and Bob Dylan; nobles, patrons, patriots, reds - democracy and revivalism.
[A] detailed and well constructed history of the U.S. folksong
revival of the fifties and sixties...Cantwell carefully shows how
this folk revival, involving mostly people born in the 1930s and
1940s, began in a state of total commercialization, with the
Kingston Trio and other slick pretenders with crew-cuts, and grew
increasingly more authentic, and more creative, as the public
gained in discrimination.--Douglas Fetherling "Telegraph Journal
"
[Cantwell] effectively traces the theatrical, literary, musical and
political origins of that folk revival, from the minstrels of the
19th century to the politically engaged folk-song movement of the
Depression. The book springs vividly to life when discussing John
Lomax and his son Alan, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and above all,
Pete Seeger.--Robert C. Cottrell "San Francisco Chronicle "
[Cantwell] rewrites history with music, and vice versa. Diffusing a
perfectly sketched generic, white, middle-class, suburban, postwar
upbringing across the whole spectrum of American legend and
experience, Cantwell pours old wine into a cruet that suddenly
gleams with transparency...As he begins to trace the roles played
by his characters--those figures dancing on the surface of 'Tom
Dooley, ' or hiding in its grooves--he makes the wine new.--Greil
Marcus "Artforum "
Cantwell's account of that...era combines the personal perspective
of an informed participant with theory-laden explanations...[He]
writes with a deep love and passion for his subject, and this book
creates an engaging and often poetic picture of a folk revival that
very few people know about. It is the movement that took place
outside the limelight, growing underground through the McCarthy
era, blossoming when the Kingston Trio's version of 'Tom Dooley'
his the charts in 1957, and ending--not beginning--when Bob Dylan
and Joan Baez appeared like Adam and Eve on the stage of the
Newport Folk Festival together in 1963...Cantwell's portraits of
early folk heroes are especially memorable...There is a generosity
of spirit running through the book, directed toward those who made
the music, those who revived it for their own ends, and us, his
readers..."When We Were Good" offers a perspective on the folk
revival that could not be more relevant and timely.--Hugh
Blumenfeld "Boston Book Review
In his rich and suggestive, quirky and lyrical...study of the folk
revival of the late 1950s and early 60s, Robert Cantwell...shows
that the history of 20th-century folk music has depended on most
unlikely associations. He argues persuasively that folk music's
ability to move people, even to change their lives, comes from the
fact that it has already crossed some of the deepest divides in
American culture--race, class and region--and he invites listeners
to do the same. The real strength of "When We Were Good" lies in
the energy with which Mr. Cantwell, the author of two previous
books on folk music and folk culture, pursues and celebrates this
music's roots...Mr. Cantwell's book demonstrates beautifully that
the convenient academic categories we use to slice up American
history and culture are inadequate to grasp a cultural phenomenon
like folk music...This is a rich and rewarding book, driven by
evident passion...In this age of proliferating academic
specialization and popular pride
Robert Cantwell's amazing book analyzes the cultural forces that
culminated in that moment at Newport, when [Bob Dylan and Joan
Baez] sang with Peter, Paul and Mary; Pete Seeger; and the SNCC
Freedom Singers. But his book goes much deeper into American
culture, probing the different ways people have tried to find an
authentic American voice, distinct from high culture and
uncontaminated by the seemingly irresistible forces of the
entertainment industry...If the sixties folk song revival seems a
mild, middle-class enthusiasm for the songs of the downtrodden,
Cantwell shows it inquiring more deeply into the nature of American
democracy itself.--Jon Wiener "The Nation "
The most detailed history of [the American folk music] revival yet
undertaken...As Robert Chantwell charts brilliantly in "When We
Were Good", the process by which folk music (however defined) came
to enjoy its brief moment of ascendancy in the late 1950s and early
1960s was more circuitous and complex than most knew or for that
matter cared to know.--Geoffrey O'Brien "New York Review of Books
"
"When We Were Good" is a long-overdue account of an all too
frequently ignored period of American popular music, roughly the
seven years between the Kingston Trio's 'Tom Dooley' and Bob
Dylan's electric debut at the 1965 Newport Folk festival.
ÝA¨ detailed and well constructed history of the U.S. folksong
revival of the fifties and sixties...Cantwell carefully shows how
this folk revival, involving mostly people born in the 1930s and
1940s, began in a state of total commercialization, with the
Kingston Trio and other slick pretenders with crew-cuts, and grew
increasingly more authentic, and more creative, as the public
gained in discrimination. -- Douglas Fetherling "Telegraph
Journal"
ÝCantwell¨ effectively traces the theatrical, literary, musical and
political origins of that folk revival, from the minstrels of the
19th century to the politically engaged folk-song movement of the
Depression. The book springs vividly to life when discussing John
Lomax and his son Alan, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and above all,
Pete Seeger. -- Robert C. Cottrell "San Francisco Chronicle"
ÝCantwell¨ rewrites history with music, and vice versa. Diffusing a
perfectly sketched generic, white, middle-class, suburban, postwar
upbringing across the whole spectrum of American legend and
experience, Cantwell pours old wine into a cruet that suddenly
gleams with transparency...As he begins to trace the roles played
by his characters--those figures dancing on the surface of 'Tom
Dooley, ' or hiding in its grooves--he makes the wine new. -- Greil
Marcus "Artforum"
The most detailed history of Ýthe American folk music¨ revival yet
undertaken...As Robert Chantwell charts brilliantly in "When We
Were Good," the process by which folk music (however defined) came
to enjoy its brief moment of ascendancy in the late 1950s and early
1960s was more circuitous and complex than most knew or for that
matter cared to know. -- Geoffrey O'Brien "New York Review of
Books"
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