Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster And The Rise Of American Popular Culture
by Ken Emerson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ken EmersonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-08-22
ISBN: 0306808528
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780306808524
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster And The Rise Of American Popular Culture
Book Review: Dull? Hardly!
Summary: 5 Stars
Though I could not have imagined reading and enjoying a book about the composer of O'Susanna and Old Kentucky Home, I've read this book twice and I could not disagree more with the reviewer who commented that Emerson "goes on for page after page" about what Foster did, said and when. It is after all a biography. And in fact there is much more going on in Ken Emerson`s narrative that what SF did and said, as the title clearly indicates: the rise of American popular culture. Ken Emerson explores the world of music around Foster. The polite music of the parlor, the raucous humor of the traveling show and the bizarre contradiction of black-face and minstrelsy (with considerable insight into that particular chapter of our nation's cultural history).
Emerson's ability to bring this world to life, to unthread its tangled history, show Foster's singular contribution and how this melting pot of music and performance led straight to ragtime, jazz, Vaudeville, Elvis and the Rolling Stones, and do it all with clear headed analysis and more than a little humor ("Ice Cream and the Annihilation of Space and Time!") makes this book a delight and an eye opening read. A critical reader will take issue with some of his analyses of particular songs and probably his thoughts on the development of the music. Good! It's the kind of book that should generate debate of those points. But if you have ever wondered how the odd lyrics to Oh Susanna came about and what they might mean, you will certainly enjoy reading Emerson's take on it.
If the story falls flat to some ears it is probably because of the plodding years of Stephen Foster's slow decline. The exciting wave of change inspired by the industrial revolution had passed, changes that sped the transmission of music made Foster a part of past while living in the future his music (or perhaps his attempt to make a living at it) helped to create. It was a future that included the rather dull business of music where there had been precious little business before Stephen Foster and so much after him. Though even in this sad late phase the book sheds light on how that business itself developed (it is after all the engine of the pop music that followed) and also sheds light on the shifting popular taste of the time. Again we see an age so different and yet so much like our own.
Emerson's sources are well documented. If you're inclined to read more into this history, you could do worse than start here. The chapters are short, readable in a sitting. His prose style is anything but flat. If his observations on the connection to or parallels to contemporary culture are a bit obvious, keeping that window to the future open is part of the point of the book. It's the window we look through, backward to Stephen Foster.
Summary of Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster And The Rise Of American Popular Culture
Stephen Foster (1826–1864) was America's first great songwriter and the first to earn his living solely through his music. He composed some 200 songs, including such classics as "Oh! Susanna,? “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," "Old Folks at Home (Way down upon the Swanee River),? and "Camptown Races (Doo-dah! Doo-dah!).? He virtually invented popular music as we recognize it to this day, yet he died at age thirty-seven, a forgotten and nearly penniless alcoholic on the Bowery. The author reveals Foster's contradictory life while disclosing how the dynamics of nineteenth-century industrialization, westward expansion, the Gold Rush, slavery, and the Civil War infused his music, and how that music influenced popular culture.
Ken Emerson's thickly textured narrative features an affectionate examination of American music's diverse strands as well as a perceptive portrait of the nation's first great songwriter. Stephen Foster (1826-64) was born in Pittsburgh and visited the South only briefly, yet songs like "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Oh! Susanna" drew on black Southern culture to create a uniquely American form of popular music. The author is clear-sighted about the complex blend of racism and genuine compassion that infused Foster's "blackface" compositions.
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