Overview
Life Flows on in Endless Song explores American folk songs as a frame for the American experience. Robert V. Wells discusses how folk songs emerged from particular historical circumstances and evolved as they migrated from one region to another. Crafting a thematic map of four centuries of American history, Wells investigates how songs embody shifting attitudes toward the institution of the family, war and religion, work and the labor movement, transportation in America, and slavery and Jim Crow. He also considers modern folk heroes Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. Featuring a selective discography of key recordings, this book offers an accessible model for using folk songs as a richly evocative reflection of the American past.
Full Product Details
Author: Robert V. Wells
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Imprint: University of Illinois Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.50cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.313kg
ISBN: 9780252076503
ISBN 10: 0252076508
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 29 July 2009
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.
Reviews
A historian with a deep interest in and knowledge of folk music, Wells provides interesting insights about folk songs' potential to make American social history more accessible to students and general readers. Norm Cohen, author of Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong
Life Flows on in Endless Song is full of examples that enrich our understanding of the aggregate forces that have transformed America since the colonial era. --The Journal of American History The best, most up-to-date survey of this topic in print, this is a book for those interested in the intersection of music/song and historical events and figures. Recommended. --Choice Wells beautifully explains why some songs have continually touched the American psyche for far longer than these states have been a nation. --The Journal of Southern History Those who consider folk song at its best to be the purest form of social history will thoroughly enjoy this book. --Virginia Quarterly Review A lovely read with fascinating origin tales of many songs readers will delight in remembering. --Journal of Social History A muscular, detailed, well researched, stylish and celebratory history of folk music from early America to the 20th Century, with side trips into Britain when necessary to illustrate a point or track a song's lineage. --Sing Out!
Author Information
Robert V. Wells is the Chauncey H. Winters Professor of History and Social Sciences at Union College in Schenectady, New York, and the author of Facing the ""King of Terrors"": Death and Society in an American Community, 1750-1990 and other works.
