Fall ‘07
Southern Cultures volume 13, number 3: MUSIC
(with a free CD)
Front Porch
by Harry L. Watson
"It's hard to point to another region with so much musical variety and so much music with world-wide appeal."
Interview Pete Seeger, San Francisco, 1989
with William R. Ferris and Michael K. Honey
"I first started learning about the world, and there was a place called the South. It was a distant, romantic place, like the Far West or the islands of the Caribbean."
Essays
The First Century of Blues
One Hundred Years of Hearing and Interpreting the Music and the Musicians
by R. A. Lawson
"In 1961 Bob Koester, a producer with Chicago-based Delmark Records, made an amazing discovery. Sleepy John Estes, a bluesman who had achieved fame on the race record labels during the interwar years, was found to be still alive and residing on the outskirts of the small western Tennessee town of Brownsville."
Elvis Presley and the Politics of Popular Memory
by Michael T. Bertrand
"'A Lonely Life Ends on Elvis Presley Boulevard,' blared the headline of a late-summer special edition of the Memphis Press-Scimitar. 'The King is Dead.'"
The Color of Music
Social Boundaries and Stereotypes in Southwest Louisiana French Music
by Sara Le Menestrel
"One Cajun woman who grew up in the 1960s was convinced that the AM/FM options on her radio referred to the distinction between American Music and French Music."
Extra! Chicago Defender Race Records Ads Show South from Afar
by Mark Dolan
"Lavishly illustrated ads told of broken love affairs, loneliness, violence, and jail, in concert with travel to and from the South--by train and boat, on foot and in memory."
Features
Mason-Dixon Lines Living with Ballads: Sidna Allen
poetry by Elizabeth Hadaway
"He mounted to the bar
with a pistol in his hand
and he sent Judge Massie
to the Promised Land. . ."
Upbeat Down South The Million-Dollar Mandolin
Bluegrass Music’s Finest Relic Finally Finds a Home
by Randy Rudder
"Bill Monroe had seen a lot of troubles in his days, but nothing could have prepared him for this. When he entered his home, he found his 1923 Gibson F-5 mandolin, built by craftsman Lloyd Loar, smashed into several pieces, a fireplace poker lying nearby."
Not Forgotten Alan Lomax: The Long Journey
by William R. Ferris
"Stories about Alan Lomax and his exploits are legendary. While doing research in the Library of Congress Music Division, Lomax was sitting at a table across from a student who was reading his classic Folksongs of North America. At one point the student looked across the table asked, 'Is Alan Lomax still alive?' Lomax replied, 'Just barely.'"
About the Contributors
The Special Music Issue CD, A Place Called the South, featuring Pete Seeger, Bill Monroe, and many more of our favorite musicians, is inside the back cover, with a track list and liner notes on the page facing it.
compiled by Josh Guthman, Music Editor
