Josh White: Society Blues

by Elijah Wald

Overview

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138149878
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/17/2016
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Elijah Wald wrote on music for the Boston Globe for fifteen years and is coauthor of Mississippi: River of Song. He performs regularly as a singer and guitarist.

Table of Contents

1: Southern Exposure 1914–1921; 2: Homeless and Hungry Blues 1921–1930; 3: Things about Coming my Way 1930–1936; 4: John Henry 1936–1939; 5: Raise A Ruckus (1940); 6: Marching Down Freedom's Road (1941); 7: Partnerships: Leadbelly and Libby Holman 1941–1943; 8: Cafe Society 1943–1945; 9: The House I Live in; 10: Apples, Peaches, and cherries 1946–1947; 11: Travels, Whiskey, and Women; 12: Broadway Hollywood, and Beyond 1947–1950; 13: Un-American Activities 1950; 14: Strange Fruit; 15: Across the Atlantic 1951; 16: You Know Baby 1952–1953; 17: Josh at Midnight 1954–1958; 18: Folk Revival; 19: House of the Rising Sun 1958–1963; 20: Goin' Down Slow 1963–1969; Epilogue

What People are Saying About This

Millie Rahn

Josh White's career made a major—and often overlooked or trivialized—contribution to the folk music revivals of the twentieth century. Elijah Wald's work addresses the serious lack of a full-length biography of this important figure.

Dave Van Ronk

Wald's well written and deeply researched biography of Josh White is the best book on American music I've read in years (and I've read a lot of them). Anyone interested in the development of our popular music can't afford to miss it.

Ronald D. Cohen

This is an outstanding contribution to scholarship, presenting a fascinating, broad-based, complex understanding of a seminal musical figure. The scope and detailed information will appeal to a scholarly audience, while the style and subject matter—popular music and twentieth-century politics, society, and racial issues—will appeal to a larger public.

Pete Seeger

I learned things about Josh White from this detailed biography that I never knew. Elijah Wald has done a fine job. This is a more complete and fair book than I would have believed possible.

Editorial Reviews

Author/musician Wald presents a sympathetic yet balanced biography of pop-blues-folk star Josh White (1914-69). The rise to fame of the Piedmont blues stylist is clearly charted, starting with his childhood in the segregated South, where as a preteen he landed a job leading blind bluesmen from town to town, through his work with folk archivist Alan Lomax and legendary producer John Hammond, who marketed White's smooth, socially conscious blues to a crossover audience that included Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, to his career tailspin during the Red Scare. By interviewing dozens of White's family members and friends and combing through secondary accounts, Wald uncovers a complex subject--a poor Southern bluesman who relied upon a smooth style and sex appeal for success, an ardent Civil Rights advocate who at the hint of trouble abandoned the Left to save his career, and a devoted family man who had multiple affairs. Dorothy S. Siegel's The Glory Road: The Story of Josh White (1982) is out of print, making Wald's the only available portrait of an intriguing American artist. Fortunately, it is complete, well written, and in-depth. Highly recommended.--Dave Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

"Society Blues incorporates a skillful and thought-provoking critique of the ideological presuppositions that guide the promotion of authenticity. Wald achieves this goal by sticking to the details of White's career, not generalizing about its implications, yet the point comes across with clarity and conviction."—David Sanjek, American Studies

"[An] affectionate, careful biography."—The Washington Post

"This is an outstanding contribution to scholarship, presenting a fascinating, broad-based, complex understanding of a seminal musical figure. The scope and detailed information will appeal to a scholarly audience, while the style and subject matter—popular music and twentieth-century politics, society, and racial issues—will appeal to a larger public."—Ronald D. Cohen, Indiana University, Northwest

"Josh White's career made a major—and often overlooked or trivialized—contribution to the folk music revivals of the twentieth century. Elijah Wald's work addresses the serious lack of a full-length biography of this important figure."—Millie Rahn, folklorist

"Wald's well written and deeply researched biography of Josh White is the best book on American music I've read in years (and I've read a lot of them). Anyone interested in the development of our popular music can't afford to miss it."—Dave Van Ronk

"I learned things about Josh White from this detailed biography that I never knew. Elijah Wald has done a fine job. This is a more complete and fair book than I would have believed possible."—Pete Seeger

From the Publisher

[An] affectionate, careful biography.

The Washington Post

Society Blues incorporates a skillful and thought-provoking critique of the ideological presuppositions that guide the promotion of authenticity. Wald achieves this goal by sticking to the details of White's career, not generalizing about its implications, yet the point comes across with clarity and conviction.

American Studies - David Sanjek