Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS ix
3. Introduction 1
4. Part I Setting the Scene
5. First Writer, of Music and on Music 15
6. Blackface Minstrelsy Extends Its Twisted Roots 22
7. Shape-Note Singing and Early Country 25
8. Music in Captivity 26
9. Champion of the White Male Vernacular 28
10. Notating Spirituals 30
11. First Black Music Historian 32
12. Child Ballads and Folklore 33
13. Women Not Inventing Ethnomusicology 35
14. First Hit Songwriter, from Pop to Folk and Back Again 39
15. Novelist of Urban Pop Longings 42
16. Americana Emerges 44
17. Documenting the Story 45
18. Tin Pan Alley’s Sheet Music Biz 47
19. First Family of Folk Collecting 50
20. Proclaiming Black Modernity 52
21. Songcatching in the Mountains 54
22. Part II The Jazz Age
23. Stories for the Slicks 57
24. Remembering the First Black Star 64
25. Magazine Criticism across Popular Genres 67
26. Harlem Renaissance 69
27. Tin Pan Alley’s Standards Setter 71
28. Broadway Musical as Supertext 74
29. Father of the Blues in Print 76
30. Poet of the Blare and Racial Mountain 78
31. Blessed Immortal, Forgotten Songwriter 80
32. Tune Detective and Expert Explainer 82
33. Pop’s First History Lesson 84
34. Roots Intellectual 85
35. Jook Ethnography, Inventing Black Music Studies 87
36. What He Played Came First 90
37. Jazz’s Original Novel 94
38. Introducing Jazz Critics 95
39. Part III Midcentury Icons
40. Folk Embodiment 99
41. A Hack Story Soldiers Took to War 106
42. From Immigrant Jew to Red Hot Mama 108
43. White Negro Drug Dealer 110
44. Composer of Tone Parallels 111
45. Jazz’s Precursor as Pop and Art 114
46. Field Recording in the Library of Congress Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and “Inventor of Jazz,” 1950 118
47. Dramatizing Blackness from a Distance 120
48. Centering Vernacular Song 122
49. Writing about Records 124
50. Collective Oral History to Document Scenes 127
51. The Greatest Jazz Singer’s Star Text 129
52. Beat Generation 133
53. Borderlands Folklore and Transnational Imaginaries 136
54. New Yorker Critic of a Genre Becoming Middlebrow 141
55. Part IV Vernacular Counterculture
56. Blues Revivalists 143
57. Britpop in Fiction 151
58. Form-Exploding Indeterminacy 153
59. Science Fiction Writer Pens First Rock and Roll Novel 155
60. Pro–Jazz Scene Sociology 157
61. Reclaiming Black Music 159
62. An Endless Lit, Limited Only in Scope 162
63. Music as a Prose Master’s Jagged Grain 167
64. How to Succeed in . . . 169
65. Schmaltz and Adversity 171
66. New Journalism and Electrified Syntax 173
67. Defining a Genre 175
68. Swing’s Movers as an Alternate History of American Pop 177
69. Rock and Roll’s Greatest Hyper 182
70. Ebony’s Pioneering Critic of Black Pop as Black Power 184
71. Entertainment Journalism and the Power of Knowing 185
72. An Over-the- Top Genre’s First Reliable History 187
73. Rock Critic of the Trivially Awesome 188
74. Black Religious Fervor as the Core of Rock and Soul 190
75. Jazz Memoir of “Rotary Perception” Multiplicity 193
76. Composing a Formal History 194
77. Krazy Kat Fiction of Viral Vernaculars 196
78. Derrière Garde Prose and Residual Pop Styles American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950, 1972 198
79. Charts as a New Literature 201
80. Selling Platinum across Formats 203
81. Blues Relationships and Black Women’s Deep Songs 205
82. “Look at the World in a Rock ’n’ Roll Sense . . . What Does That Even Mean?” 207
83. Cultural Studies Brings Pop from the Hallway to the Classroom 211
84. A Life in Country for an Era of Feminism and Counterculture 214
85. Introducing Rock Critics 216
86. Patriarchal Exegete of Black Vernacular as “Equipment for Living” 219
87. Reading Pop Culture as Intellectual Obligation 221
88. Paging through Books to Make History 223
89. Historians Begin to Study Popular Music 224
90. Musicking to Overturn Hierarchy 226
91. Drool Data and Stained Panties from a Critical Noise Boy 229
92. Part V After the Revolution
93. Punk Negates Rock 231
94. The Ghostwriter behind the Music Books 240
95. Disco Negates Rock 242
96. Industry Schmoozer and Black Music Advocate Fills Public Libraries with Okay Overviews 245
97. Musicology’s Greatest Tune Chronicler 247
98. Criticism’s Greatest Album Chronicler 248
99. Rock’s Frank Capra 251
100. Culture Studies/Rock Critic Twofer 252
101. A Magical Explainer of Impure Sounds 255
102. Feminist Rock Critic, Pop-Savvy Social Critic 257
103. New Deal Swing Believer Revived 259
104. Ethnomusicology and Pop, Forever Fraught 260
105. Autodidact Deviance, Modeling the Rock Generation to Come 263
106. The Rolling Stones of Rolling Stones Books 265
107. Finding the Blackface in Bluegrass 267
108. Cyberpunk Novels and Cultural Studies Futurism 269
109. Glossy Magazine Features Writer Gets History’s Second Draft 272
110. Theorizing Sound as Dress Rehearsal for the Future 274
111. Classic Rock, Mass Market Paperback Style 275
112. Love and Rockets, Signature Comic of Punk Los Angeles as Borderland Imaginary 277
113. Plays about Black American Culture Surviving the Loss of Political Will 280
114. Putting Pop in the Big Books of Music 282
115. Popular Music’s Defining Singer and Swinger 284
116. Anti-Epic Lyricizing of Black Music after Black Power 288
117. Lost Icon of Rock Criticism 290
118. Veiled Glimpses of the Songwriter Who Invented Rock and Roll as Literature 292
119. Making “Wild-Eyed Girls” a More Complex Narrative 294
120. Reporting Black Music as Art Mixed with Business 295
121. Sessions with the Evil Genius of Jazz 298
122. Part VI New Voices, New Methods
123. Literature of New World Order Americanization 303
124. Ethnic Studies of Blended Musical Identities 310
125. Ballad Novels for a Baby Boomer Appalachia 312
126. Pimply, Prole, and Putrid, but with a Surprisingly Diverse Genre Literature 314
127. How Musicology Met Cultural Studies 318
128. Idol for Academic Analysis and a Changing Public Sphere 320
129. Black Bohemian Cultural Nationalism 324
130. From Indie to Alternative Rock 326
131. Musicology on Popular Music— In Pragmatic Context 330
132. Listening, Queerly 332
133. Blackface as Stolen Vernacular 334
134. Media Studies of Girls Listening to Top 40 338
135. Ironies of a Contested Identity 339
136. Two Generations of Leading Ethnomusicologists Debate the Popular 344
137. Defining Hip-Hop as Flow, Layering, Rupture, and Postindustrial Resistance 346
138. Regendering Music Writing, with the Deadly Art of Attitude 348
139. Soundscaping References, Immersing Trauma 352
140. Sociologist Gives Country Studies a Soft-Shell Contrast to the Honky-Tonk 354
141. All That Not-Quite Jazz 355
142. Jazz Studies Conquers the Academy 357
143. Part VII Topics in Progress
144. Paradigms of Club Culture, House and Techno to Rave and EDM 363
145. Performance Studies, Minoritarian Identity, and Academic Wildness 372
146. Left of Black: Networking a New Discourse 375
147. Aerobics as Genre, Managing Emotions 377
148. Confronting Globalization 378
149. Evocations of Cultural Migration Centered on Race, Rhythm, and Eventually Sexuality 382
150. Digging Up the Pre-Recordings Creation of a Black Pop Paradigm 386
151. When Faith in Popular Sound Wavers, He’s Waiting 388
152. Codifying a Precarious but Global Academic Field 391
153. Salsa and the Mixings of Global Culture 393
154. Musicals as Pop, Nationalism, and Changing Identity 396
155. Musical Fiction and Criticism by the Greatest Used Bookstore Clerk of All Time 399
156. Poetic Ontologies of Black Musical Style 401
157. Rescuing the Afromodern Vernacular 402
158. Sound Studies and the Songs Question The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction, 2003 404
159. Dylanologist Conventions 406
160. Two Editions of a Field Evolving Faster Than a Collection Could Contain 410
161. Revisionist Bluesology and Tangled Intellectual History 412
162. Trying to Tell the Story of a Dominant Genre 416
163. Refiguring American Music— And Its Institutionalization 420
164. Country Music Scholars Pioneer Gender and Industry Analysis 423
165. Where Does Classical Music Fit In 426
166. Poptimism, 33⅓ Books, and the Struggles of Music Critics 429
167. Novelists Collegial with Indie Music 432
168. YouTube, Streaming, and the Popular Music Performance Archive 437
169. Idiosyncratic Musician Memoirs—Performer as Writer in the Era of the Artist as Brand 438
170. Acknowledgments 443
171. Works Cited 446
172. Index 513