Title: Folk Music in Overdrive: A Primer on Traditional Country and Bluegrass Artists. The Charles K. Wolfe Music Series. By Ivan M. Tribe
Abstract: While recent books from Patrick Huber, Diane Pecknold, and others have rendered great insight into the relationships between labor, gender, race, and the crafting of mid-twentieth-century southern vernacular musical genres, critical scholarship on the tradition known as "bluegrass" remains relatively sparse. This omission is surprising, given the genre's national profile, elevated through its rapid post-World War II dissemination beyond the hollers, hills, and piedmont regions of Kentucky, Appalachia, and the Carolinas, and amplified through mid-century television shows such as The Beverly Hillbillies and The Andy Griffith Show. Fans of the genre, however, continue to routinely devour biographical treatments of individual performers. Ivan M. Tribe provides, in Folk Music in Overdrive, hagiographical profiles of thirty-nine musicians who toiled on circuits and bluegrass festival stages in various regions throughout the United States from the mid- to late twentieth century. Since 1973, Tribe sporadically published earlier versions of these essays in enthusiast periodicals such as Bluegrass Unlimited and Old Time Music. He organized his biographical vignettes within five sections, with monikers that betray the organization of string band labor along with the familial ties that often bind bluegrass troupes: "Leaders, Solo Singers, and Composers"; "Sidemen"; "Husband-Wife Duets"; "Brother Duets"; and "Families and Groups." His subjects occasionally include known commercial artists such as Charlie Monroe, or Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, but he typically focuses on lesser-known acts or supporting musicians such as George Krise and Red Rector.
Publication Year: 2019
Publication Date: 2019-12-09
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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