Illinois Press Book Blog

When I first began attending the annual Folk Alliance conference in 1993 I was struck by the palpable sense of closeness among the few hundred attendees. Self-conscious about my status as a stranger to the gathering, I concluded, erroneously, that everyone else knew one another well.  A few days ago I returned home from the 2008 Alliance conference, my tenth such event. I know many more Alliance members now, but the presence of over 2000 people means it’s still possible to feel lost amidst a sea of strangers. The tension between the yearning for community and the press of business that has waxed and waned through much of the organization’s history remains. Still, for anyone who tries at all, it’s always easy to talk to people at the Folk Alliance. Music is a great lubricant, and the event offers an unbelievable array of virtually nonstop music. For the first time in 15 years of fairly regular attendance, I was really struck by the number of participants in their twenties. It boosted my already strong belief that folk music, or roots music, or vernacular music, or Americana, or whatever you want to call it, is going to thrive, even as American Idol rules its television roost, and the recording industry continues it’s apparent decline. I’ve got a stack of new indie CDs to wade through, most of them made by people I hadn’t heard of just one week ago, so it’s time to start listening.

Michael F. Scully is an attorney by profession and holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He is author of the new book The Never-Ending Revival: Rounder Records and the Folk Alliance.

The building that we call home here at the Press is on the far west end of the University of Illinois campus. Inside Higher Ed illuminates why I’ll be avoiding the middle of “Campus Town” the next two days.

Four new books recently landed on my desk:

Radical Sisters: Second-Wave Feminism and Black Liberation in Washington, D.C. by Anne M. Valk (March 31, 2008)

California Polyphony: Ethnic Voices, Musical Crossroads by Mina Yang (March 31, 2008)

Follow Your Heart: Moving with the Giants of Jazz, Swing, and Rhythm and Blues by Joe Evans with Christopher Brooks (March 31, 2008)

The Never-Ending Revival: Rounder Records and the Folk Alliance by Michael F. Scully (April 14, 2008)

The future publication dates are noted above but all will be available to order in the next few weeks.

Erika Falk, author of Women for President: Media Bias in Eight Campaigns, will appear on Thom Hartmann’s Air America radio program today at 12:30 p.m. EST.

Scott McLemee has an entertaining piece on the sociology of “bookshelf etiquette” in today’s Inside Higher Ed.

“My experience (which can’t be unique) is that some books end up accumulating out of a misguided attempt to win the approval of authors already well-entrenched on my shelves. A few years back, for example, Slavoj Zizek started to insist that I had to be familiar with the work of Alain Badiou – a French poststructuralist philosopher whose work I had never heard of, let alone read. Well, OK, sure. Thanks to some busy translators, Badiou volumes started crowding in, next to all the Zizek titles.”

Maybe this, in a roundabout way, explains why I have an unread copy of Alasdair Gray’s Lanark: A Life in Four Books crowding out other aspiring applicants on my bookshelves.

So, what books sit unread on your shelf?

Katherine Adams, co-author of the new book Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign, will be interviewed today from 1:06-1:50 PM CST on WILL radio’s Afternoon Magazine.

KARK 4 News in Little Rock, Arkansas, covered Erika Falk’s recent event at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock. Watch the news piece here.  For an expanded view of Professor Falk’s presentation keep an eye on the Book TV schedule. A C-SPAN film crew recorded the event for future broadcast.

Congratulations to Joel and Ethan Coen, whose No Country for Old Men won four Oscars at last evening’s 80th Academy Awards. The brothers won Oscars for best director, best picture, and best adapted screenplay. For a postmodern analysis of these contemporary directors, pick up R. Barton Palmer’s study of the Coen brothers’ approach to filmmaking.

(Thanks to Breanne).

In These Times is featuring a new piece by Erika Falk, which was adapted from her book Women for President: Media Bias in Eight Campaigns.

“Despite striking advances over the last century in women’s social and political rights, and in attitudes about women in politics, press coverage of women candidates is not much better today than it was in 1872. The most significant consequence of this is not that, should a woman run, the press would make it less likely for her to win. Rather, the real problem is that such press coverage may make women less likely to run.”

Back in my ’80s record store clerk days I worked with someone who used to engineer recording sessions in the attic of his rented apartment.  One of the bands that he recorded in the evening and talked about the next day at work was a band “from the St. Louis area” named Uncle Tupelo.  Because these sessions were taking place in the attic of a rented apartment, I didn’t pay too much attention to his enthusiasm. Had I been paying attention, I would have witnessed the birth of what became known as the “No Depression” musical genre. ”Alt-country” is another broad-stroke phrase that has been used to describe artists like Wilco, Son Volt, and others influenced by Gram Parsons’s music with the Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers.  A champion in the growth of the genre was No Depression magazine. A respected music publication since its inception in 1995, No Depression occasionally reviewed University of Illinois Press books and was a good advertising outlet for our Music in American Life series. Recently No Depression announced that due to the current music business climate (among other reasons), it plans to cease publishing. We will miss No Depression and we hope that some “unknown angels” intercede to help keep the magazine going for another 13 years.