Overview

Wide-ranging, irreverent and humorous, packed with fascinating and sometimes tragic details on lands and people who are rarely heard from. Princes Amongst Men is the only book to provide an overview of Gypsy music across the Balkans, documenting remarkable artistry in former Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria. It is also the only travelogue available through terrain many consider to be Europe's 'Badlands', covering ghettoes and villages, railways and motorways, weddings and funerals, festivals and dive bars. No other writer has emulated the spirit of Jack Kerouac on the Balkan roads, in search of adventure, artistry and romance. This updated and expanded new edition transforms Cartwright's original 2005 text including fresh interviews, further travel writing and the latest updates on music making and society across the Balkans.

Full Product Details

9780857306203

Table of Contents

Reviews

Get on board for a wild road trip with the best soundtrack ever -- Cerys Matthews Cartwright's portmanteau overflows with juicy vignettes, dry wit and sharp insights. He reports with expertise and candour and shares stories which are both fascinating and thrilling. Essential reading -- Dave Randall, author of Sound System: The Political Power Of Music A classic book by my favourite expert on Balkan music; a must for the shelves of any music buff -- Joe Boyd The best book yet written about the Gypsies. Tough, entertaining, informative and refreshingly free of the bullshit outsiders often bring to the subject. A real achievement -- Professor Ian Hancock Princes Amongst Men is the real deal. Books about music and life on the road simply don't come any better -- Charlie Musselwhite

Get on board for a wild road trip with the best soundtrack ever -- Cerys Matthews Cartwright's portmanteau overflows with juicy vignettes, dry wit and sharp insights. He reports with expertise and candour and shares stories which are both fascinating and thrilling. Essential reading -- Dave Randall, author of Sound System: The Political Power Of Music No one writes about Balkan music with the insight and joy that Cartwright does. I am from and of the Balkans and, reading Cartwright on the music of my homeland, ensures I learn so much -- Amira Medunjanin A classic book by my favourite expert on Balkan music; a must for the shelves of any music buff -- Joe Boyd The best book yet written about the Gypsies. Tough, entertaining, informative and refreshingly free of the bullshit outsiders often bring to the subject. A real achievement -- Professor Ian Hancock

Get on board for a wild road trip with the best soundtrack ever -- Cerys Matthews A classic book by my favourite expert on Balkan music; a must for the shelves of any music buff -- Joe Boyd The best book yet written about the Gypsies. Tough, entertaining, informative and refreshingly free of the bullshit outsiders often bring to the subject. A real achievement -- Professor Ian Hancock Cartwright's soulful, exuberant writing is the perfect match for his soulful, exuberant subject. Princes Amongst Men is vital reading for lovers of Romani - or any - music -- Rosie Schaap author of The Slow Road North: How I Found Peace in an Improbable Country A revelation... A perennial portrait of some of the great personalities of Roma music. Through them, Cartwright shows how music-making really is soul-making. Tracing the long journey of the Roma through migration, Holocaust, forced sedentarisation and the discrimination and racism of the settled ones, he tells of how Roma music art still runs like an underground pulse through a devitalised Europe. In doing so, Cartwright has written an ode to the last of the free. An eye-opening and memory-awakening book that puts the unjustly marginalised genius of the Balkan Gypsies where it belongs - at the heart of the European experience -- Kapka Kassabova author of The Balkan Quartet

Get on board for a wild road trip with the best soundtrack ever -- Cerys Matthews A classic book by my favourite expert on Balkan music; a must for the shelves of any music buff -- Joe Boyd The best book yet written about the Gypsies. Tough, entertaining, informative and refreshingly free of the bullshit outsiders often bring to the subject. A real achievement -- Professor Ian Hancock Cartwright gets to the root of ""roots"" music. He explores the rhythms and sounds beyond the commercialised and compromised music that most of us have access to. Here the Gypsy contribution to human culture is front and centre. You'll understand not only its deep and powerful sources, but how it's also become integral to music we've taken for granted. Gypsy soul is human soul, but with its own unique magic -- Luis J Rodriguez, former Los Angeles Poet Laureate and author of Always Running In Princes Amongst Men Cartwright moves across a Europe almost nobody knows - its post-Communist concrete wastelands and edge-town estates - searching for a feeling that can be found in the exiled, long-memoried, ecstatic, defiant musics of the Roma. Here, in muddy fields and wedding halls, deep into beery nights, is something raw and rapturous, keening and visceral. Here is Gypsy soul. And here is a classic travelogue for the ages -- Sukhdev Sandhu

Get on board for a wild road trip with the best soundtrack ever -- Cerys Matthews A classic book by my favourite expert on Balkan music; a must for the shelves of any music buff -- Joe Boyd Cartwright is a true original amongst music writers, and reading Princes Amongst Men is a unique experience. Thrilling, moving, graceful, visceral, you can almost taste the words, hear the sounds, feel like a fellow traveller in this quest for stories, music and song -- Angeline Morrison, singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Cartwright's portmanteau overflows with juicy vignettes, dry wit and sharp insights. He reports with expertise and candour and shares stories which are both fascinating and thrilling. Essential reading -- Dave Randall, author of Sound System: The Political Power Of Music No one writes about Balkan music with the insight and joy that Cartwright does. I am from and of the Balkans and, reading Cartwright on the music of my homeland, ensures I learn so much -- Amira Medunjanin

Author Information

Garth Cartwright is an award winning journalist and author. As a teen Garth was inspired to write on (and promote) Kiwi punk bands, thus a career in words/music beckoned by the age of 21 he was New Zealand's foremost music and visual arts journalist. Leaving in 1990 to explore the US, he purchased a rusty Buick Skylark for $500, hit the road and, in some ways, has never stopped. Since 1991 he has lived and worked in London. He regularly contributes to the Guardian and FinancialTimes andis the author of seven nonfiction books, while his Substack has an international readership. A passion for sharing musical enthusiasms has never dimmed from 2005- 2022 he hosted a monthly Balkan/folk music night in Brixton. When not writing or travelling, Garth likes to collect records and DJ.

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