312 pages / 6.00 x 9.00 inches / 17 halftones, 1 map
History / United States - Southern History | Music
Ben Wynne is professor of history at the University of North Georgia and the author of In Tune: Charley Patton, Jimmie Rodgers, and the Roots of American Music.
“With this admirable and instructive book, Wynne (history, Univ. of North Georgia) adds to and enriches the literature dedicated to these musicians by juxtaposing their lives as contemporary Mississippians growing up within 100 miles of one another. . . . Highly recommended. All readers.”—CHOICE
“Wynne is to be commended for his passionate, detailed research in an important area of American music history. His well-conceived narrative and vivid portrayal of these two musicians brings dignity and value to their music and a better understanding of the complexity of race and class in the early-twentieth-century American South. Anyone interested in the roots of American popular music will find this book a valuable addition to their personal library.”—Journal of Southern History
“A gripping examination of how the work of Patton, Rodgers and others of the era would come to define so much of popular music in the decades to come.”—Bob Mehr, Memphis Commercial Appeal
“Ben Wynne’s broad and engaging In Tune is a study of two giants of American popular music. . . . In Tune lays out the complex terrain of American music, exposing the many contradictions present in our understanding of its history. Wynne’s bold comparison of the lives and music of Charley Patton and Jimmie Rodgers reminds us of the need to view music as resolutely embedded within broader social and institutional currents.”—Notes
“Wynne’s In Tune: Charley Patton, Jimmie Rodgers, and the Roots of American Music demonstrates that the right-place-right-time scenario preserved their innovative and exemplary skill for the ages.”—Jackson Clarion-Ledger
“It’s to author Ben Wynne’s credit that I now think differently upon the relationship between these two musical pioneers—after all, nothing is as simple as it first appears.”—Rhythms
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