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 "Click for larger image")
Life Flows On in Endless Song
Folk Songs and American History
Robert V. Wells
Cloth978-0-252-03455-8
$65.00
Paper978-0-252-07650-3
$25.00
| Pub Date: | |
| Pages: | 272 pages |
| Dimensions: | 6 x 9 in. |
| Illustrations: | 1 table |
An engaging survey of what folk songs tell us about the American past
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.
"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
"A fabulous book with wide appeal. Wells opens up contemporary folk songs to provide fascinating glimpses of daily life and everyday responses to historical events."--Scott Reynolds Nelson, author of Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend
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.
Series:
Music in American Life
Subjects:
Music / Folklore / History, Am.: 20th C.
