Product Description

A companion to the major Smithsonian Institution series for public television and radio, River of Song explores the breadth and depth of American music at the close of the twentieth century--through narrative, photography, and the words of the musicians themselves.

Over the course of five years, recording and interviewing more than five hundred musicians in the communities where they live and perform, John Junkerman, Elijah Wald, and the River of Song team surveyed the length of the Mississippi River and found along its muddy banks an America where music is not merely a carefully packaged commodity but an exhilaratingly diverse and thriving part of the culture. Near the icy headwaters in Minnesota, Ojibwe drummers perform at a powwow, and the power trio Babes in Toyland serve up their brand of riot-grrrl punk. In Iowa, songwriter John Hartford navigates the river. In Moline, Illinois, a Mexican band blends traditional rhythms with Latino rap; in Memphis, Rufus Thomas, Ann Peebles, and the Memphis Horns carry on the Southern fusion; in New Orleans, Henry Butler radiates the 88s, while the Soul Rebels carry the brass band swinging into the twenty-first century. There is folk music here, and basement-band rock; newly transplanted Laotian melodies and the music of last century's French settlers; zydeco and Cajun music, country, gospel, blues, and soul. River of Song captures, often in the artists' own words, what the music means to them: its place as a part of tradition, but also as a living, glorious fact in their world.

Complemented by a gallery of vibrant images, this extraordinary journey brings us the many voices that flow together even now to make the joyful noise of the best American music--the streams that join to make one great river of song.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #611985 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The companion to a PBS documentary miniseries, this unique odyssey plunges deep into the grassroots heart of musical America. Wald, who writes on music for the Boston Globe, and Junkerman, a documentary filmmaker, spent months traveling from the Mississippi's headwaters in northern Minnesota south to the Delta, recording live performances, mingling with musicians, listening to the jazz, blues, rock, gospel, country and bluegrass emanating from 10 states. While FM devotees will recognize some of the acts profiled?Twin Cities band Soul Asylum, gospel choir Sounds of Blackness, New Orleans soul queen Irma Thomas, legendary blues singer Fontella Bass?most of the voices represent what folksinger (and PBS series narrator) Ani DiFranco in her preface to the book aptly calls the "ever-present undercurrent of organically generated music" percolating beneath the mainstream of pop culture. There's something here for almost every taste, be it punk rock, Ojibwe Indian powwow songs, traditional Laotion Hmong tunes, blues sessions in Memphis, hip-hop brass band fusion in New Orleans or a Mexican-American band in Illinois playing everything from traditional corridos to the "Hava Nagilah." Like the river itself, the book rolls along easily from an annual polka fest in Wisconsin to a zydeco dance hall in Louisiana leaping between commentary, interview segments, memorable lyrics, reminiscences and photographs. Showcasing the richness, vitality, energy and variety of music seldom?if ever?heard on top-40 radio stations, this captivating survey will coax readers to watch the PBS miniseries, which starts in January, and to seek out the accompanying CD soundtrack. (Jan.) FYI: Smithsonian Folkways will release the CD companion to the miniseries in this month.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
River of Song is the companion volume to a PBS TV documentary series that explores the variety of music found along the Mississippi River. Numerous diverse artists and styles are profiled: the rock group Babes in Toyland, blues artist John Koerner, and the gospel group Sounds of Blackness, as well as a teacher of Hmong music. As the text passes through Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri, readers encounter other styles ranging from polka to jazz to rhythm and blues. The journey ends with the musical riches of Louisiana, including zydeco, jazz, street musicians, hip-hop, brass bands, and Spanish Isle?os. The book contains lengthy transcriptions of interviews with musicians, some song lyrics, and a discography. It is not very effective, however, at describing the music itself, settling for ambiguous adjectives like "flowing and comfortable." Consequently, it is of little research value and is only recommended for libraries with a commitment to providing TV tie-ins.?Michael Colby, Univ. of California, Davis
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Wald and Junkerman take a languid historical voyage down the Mississippi and through some of the most fertile fields of American music. They alternate biographical vignettes of and stories told by the musicians they encountered, such as banjo-playing songwriter John Hartford as he piloted the riverboat Twilight; the Mississippi Mass Choir at its home church in Jackson; one Geno Delafose at the historic Opelousas, Louisiana, zydeco club, Slim's Y-Ki-Ki--and Irma Thomas ("The Soul Queen of New Orleans"); bluesman Little Milton (back home in Greenville, Mississippi); Iowa City folk deity Greg Brown (of Prairie Home Companion fame); Rufus Thomas, who waxed the first hit for Memphis' renowned Sun Records ("back when . . . Elvis was an unknown") and who sketches the musical history of Beale Street. And they are not all! Wald and Junkerman's writing is deft, but the musicians' stories, which make the book, are all the better for being spun in their own words. This book is a real find for American music hounds. Mike Tribby