Stomp-Swerve-American-Music-1843-1924 by David Wondrich

[Charlie]

email from Mark Lamarr

If you haven't read this, it's the best music book I've read for years. It's made me desperate to hear tunes which I suspect are useless.

http://tinyurl.com/3tqr85

[Neil Foxlee]

There is an accompanying CD, from £6.85 on Amazon Marketplace:

http://tinyurl.com/5f5wjm

[NormanD]

Stomp and Swerve: American Music Gets Hot, 1843-1924: David Wondrich

I'm half through this one, and support the recommendation above. It's detailed and scholarly, well-argued, and - uncommon for many books on music - highly amusing. The author doesn't hold back on his asides and satirical comments, but manages to maintain the level of seriousness the subject deserves.

Wondrich is writing about the formative years of American popular music, the merging of black and Celtic musics into new entertainment. The Stomp is the hard, new beat; the Swerve is, amongst other things, the syncopation and the new directions. This early period has little recorded legacy, maybe just a couple of hundred wax cylinders. Yet the beat was recorded, copied, took hold, played widely, and started to move mountains.

Outside fiction you may not get many books that are a treat to read, but this certainly is.

And as an aside: I bought my copy as "good - used" from Amazon, and received an ex-library book from Virginia. The number of previous borrowings? None. Maybe some of those home truths bout ol' Dixie contained therein are too hard hitting, and piss-taking.

[Gordon Neill]

Blast! I thought my wallet was safe from this book which, at first sight, looked to be some dry history of some dry period. Unfortunately, Norman's words have prompted me to order a copy. Words like 'satirical', 'highly amusing', and 'a treat'. Blast!

Even worse, I notice from Amazon that there a compilation CD that's coming out shortly to accompany the book.

[Gordon Neill]

I've now read this and echo Norman's words of recommendation. Even people who are not much interested in these early, murky days of American music will find it a hoot of a read.

The move from minstrelsy to ragtime and then on to jazz and blues is an astonishing story and, as the author points out, has parallels in later periods when popular music continued to reinvent itself, shock the established order, and then become part of the safe established order (rock'n'roll, punk, hip-hop). Has some fascinating stories (such as the blacks who managed to break into minstrelsy by 'blacking up' just like their white competitors!) However, some of the more sensitive souls may have to look away as they read parts of the book: some of the old song titles are, by today's standards, pretty shocking.

The author does stomp out the regular beats of years and facts but he does it with such verve (swerve, if you like) that it's never less than fun and fascinating stuff. His pacy, slightly irreverent, style reminds me of Nick Tosches at his best. But, like Tosches, he also brings a wealth of knowledge and passion to the proceedings. Minor gripes: I could have done with more photographs (I'm a sucker for old photos), and less use of 'see below' when discussing some old singer or song (by the time I got to wherever 'below' was, pages later, I'd forgotten to remember).


A brilliant book but just like Mark Lamarr, "it's made me desperate to hear tunes which I suspect are useless.

[judith]

Blast! I thought my wallet was safe from this book which, at first sight, looked to be some dry history of some dry period. Unfortunately, Norman's words have prompted me to order a copy. .

Me too. And not the first time Norman has done this. Too bad he isn't getting some sort of compensation for his recommendations.

[garth cartwright]

Just finished it and can only echo the other votes of approval and think that Lamaar is good at finding the obscure - this is a GREAT book and I'd never heard of it before. And I'm a sucker for early American music. Very entertaining and highly informative.