Alan Taylor’s book American Colonies: The Settling of North America, although a quarter of a century old, is as fresh and readable today as it was the day it came off the presses. It covers the history of (mostly) North America from, roughly, 13,000 B.C. until shortly after the American Revolution in 1776. I’ve always thought my education and further reading thereafter provided me with a pretty good picture of our country’s history and development. However, after reading (and enjoying) this lengthy and detailed account, I’ve realized that my prior education in American History was largely focused on Euro-centric colonization, with particular emphasis on those pioneers who originated in England, France, and Spain. The actions, interactions, and reactions of those immigrants who began to populate the Americas about 15,000 years ago receive little or no thoughtful recognition in what we consider to be our history. 

The earliest Americans arrived in the Western Hemisphere around 15,000 B.C. by crossing the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska, the only way such people could travel, given the lack of ocean travelling to last another 13,000 or so years. These inhabitants gradually multiplied and spread across both Americas, living off the land in small, nomadic bands. Over the next millenia, they spread across North and South America in small bands who lived off the land, cultivated the forests, and made war with other such bands. They lived in what was, until quite recently, considered to be a completely “primitive” existence. Actually, these “Indian” groups lived in harmony with nature and their environment. They hunted for food, learned to plant edible plants, and fought battles against other bands of their near relatives, who spread across North and South America. Taylor estimates that the population of North America at the time Europe discovered it to have been about 8.4 million, but this estimate is considered low by some scholars. 

Meanwhile, colonizers from Spain “discovered” what are now known as the Caribbean Islands, establishing sugar plantations on the many islands, while enslaving the native populations to the deathly work as slaves. They brought with them western weapons and diseases as well as seeing the indigenous populations to be primitive and even non-human. 

As ship building and navigational tools became increasingly sophisticated. Europeans from Spain, France, and England explored along the Eastern coasts. They slowly advanced west across what became the fourteen original European colonies,  encountering various tribes of what have now become known as “Indians,” although the various bands differed in organization, diet, and a variety of languages. 

The western migration of European interests grew as Western Europe began to lust after the furs and mineral riches to be found in North and South America. During this period they battled the indigenous population, winning most encounters because of the advantages metal weapons and gunpowder gave them. Meanwhile, distinctive cultural differences emerged, largely because of the different opportunities to grow plants and the availability of local game for food. Small farms were established and independent villages slowly emerged. Opportunities for independence emerged as Europeneons started small villages and learned to live off the land. 

Tribal Map of North America c. 1500

As I read this book, I came to realize how eurocentric and narrow my education in American history had been, and the way my attitudes toward the primacy of European immigrants to America destructive the growing supremacy of European culture into the Americas had been to the native population.. My own learning, emphasizing the importance of the development from Pennsylvania north to New England, truly represented a small bit of the understanding that a larger and lengthier telling would have offered. 

Filled with deep and thoughtful approaches to the important contributions and tragedies of African slavery and Indian destruction, both by the Europeans skill with metal weapons and their spreading of diseases which neither indigenous group had acquired added both depth and understanding to the country we were at our birth at the end of the 18th century and have become during the nearly 300 years since.

I highly recommend Alan Taylor’s exploration of American Colonies: The Settling of North America to anyone interested in widening and deepening their vision and understanding about the beginning of who we are and who we have become. 

I read American Colonies in a paperbound edition I bought through https://www.thriftbooks.com/ a used book outlet that I highly recommend. 

Old-Time Conversations by Craig R. Evans - Book Review

Craig R. Evans grew up in a solidly mid-western family surrounded by a striving father and a musical mother. Still a teenager, he had belonged to bands while, at the same time going off to attend college and begin a "career" in business. His great awakening came, when, at the age of 50, he was fortunate enough to be fired. It was then, with the good fortune to be able to choose his next direction, he returned to the old-time music that had sustained his musical and personal development when he was younger. 

Since my experience with country music and festivals lies mostly in bluegrass, rather than old-time music, I thought I should listen to and watch some to become more familiar with the genre, not only from its history and personalities, but from the feel and sound of listening to the music. I thank YouTube and Craig Evans’ work of recording and posting a lot of performances. The forward to Old-Time Conversations, by Clare Milliner served as a welcoming invitation to read further and learn more about this early genre of American music serving as a precursor for bluegrass and other forms. The music has stayed alive for those who revel in the roots of American music, played on porches, in living rooms, and at festivals for a large community of those who value traditional, indigenous American music.

Get in Line Brother - Singleton Street

Craig Evans, the author of Old-Time Conversations, rediscovered old-time music and the community that keeps it alive at age of fifty, in a deeply personal experience at a difficult time of his life. He quickly equates this soul-saving experience with the community that keeps old-time alive and thriving. He then takes us into his life more deeply in the opening chapters. Evans locates himself as a son of late nineteenth century farming and small town culture by beginning with his own origin story. He also weaves one of the many strands leading to what has become known as old-time music into musical tradition that provides the base for modern American folk, country, bluegrass and old-time music. This is a neat trick for a musical tradition as deep and widespread as American music. Evans explores the ways in which community affects groups, especially in the case of the music they treasure. At age 50, Evans, rediscovering his instruments at home under his bed, seemingly untouched during his business career, sought out a teacher and found Dwight Diller, to be the first of his many mentors. Writing in a highly personal style, he draws the reader into the old-time community in the way he, years before had also discovered it. 

Evans allows himself to be a scholar, a participant, a portrayer (through his videos and documentary films) and a chronicler of his own life as the book continues. A man of almost endless curiosity and energy, he describes the worlds he discovers and the life he enters, while chronicling it in ways that make the old-time world exciting to his readers as well as himself. His writing is filled with energy, enthusiasm, and insight. I found that reading it drove me to explore through the large variety of old-time music to be found on YouTube, which led me towards slower reading and greater insight. “Making the world a better and happier place….” lies as the basis of the builders, performers, and historians introduced in this book. Happily, the book itself accomplishes the same goals, as well as pricking the imagination of readers eager to learn about, and perhaps join, this often discounted world of traditional music. The fact that Evans is an articulate writer as well as an established musician only make for a richer reading experience.  

After the lengthy, and necessary, introductory session, during which Evans places himself in time, interests, family, education, and experiences which led him to enter business, and later to decide to become a professional musician, the book is divided into three major sections: Instrument Builders, Performers and Teachers, and Historian and Authors. Using this design, he proposes to develop a route for coming to understand the nature of Old-Time music as well as its enduring influence and the broader country music world. Portions of these conversations are also available in a series of videos available in DVD format or online as “Old Time Conversations.” I found that combining reading the book with watching the conversations was interesting, but time-consuming. The written editions appear to be more comprehensive, while the videos provide a good sense the nature of music, the personalities of the subjects, and the participant/observer posture of the author. 

As each interview progresses, Evans delves into themes and approaches that comes to dominate the insight of the particular musician. In a sense, the questions are good enough to force the subject into deep and thoughtful self-discovery. However, each builder has a unique approach to building the instruments, engaging the instrument, the history, and the builder in highly interesting idiosyncratic fashions. The same is true in the "Performers and Teachers." and "Historians and Authors" sections.  Many were also people who didn’t easily fit into traditional academic settings, who had to find their way to music and making, playing, or teaching about music and musical instruments. As I read this book, I turned to YouTube to listen to at least one song of each person included in the book. This helped me to add perspective to the written narrative, leading me to greater appreciation of their styles, sounds, and contributions to old-time music. It also turned “reading” a book into a multi-media experience, each portion serving to enrich the other.

Many of the musicians in this book took old time homemade music played around the living room or campfire, organizing it to provide a performance quality music for wider consumption . In a sense, they were transitional people from “folk” music to professional performers, while helping create a readiness for wider circulation among festival goers and record buyers. Scholars, like the author Craig R. Evans, or a performer such as Dom Flemons and David Holt, with formal musical training served to accomplish this transition as well as many others. Meanwhile, collectors and performers rescued early recordings, handing down traditional forms and sounds contributing to wider audiences. The most powerful influence, however, remains the music made in homes and at festivals by those who love, support, and perform the music.

Clifftop Highlights Reel 2023

Clifftop is officially known as The Appalachian String Band Music Festival, and is held annually near the New River Gorge in West Virginia. In a sense, the entire book has been heading to this festival, which brings devotees from around the world to make, share, and enjoy Old-Time Music. Thanks to Craig Evans, you can experience a sense of what goes on there from hitting the link above. The link will get you there, or Google Craig’s name and Clifftop to get the list of highlight films, which are among the many joys he’s shared with fans and others interested in gaining a clearer picture of Old-Time music. Of course, the best way to learn and to become a member of this world-wide community is to find a group near you, pick up an instrument, and join the fun. 

Craig R. Evans

Craig R. Evans is a filmmaker, author, and musician documenting today's North American traditional music community. He brings a rare combination of fan, performer, researcher, and writer together to weave this fine book about the community that comes together under the rubric of Old-Time Country. It's available through all the usual sources. I received the book as a complimentary copy for the purposes of writing a review. 

 

.

Discovering Tony Rice by Bill Amatneek - Book Review

When you open "Discovering Tony Rice” by Bill Amatneek, don’t expect a detailed account of the man and his life. Rather, you should step into the world Tony inhabited and changed, sit back and enjoy the ride. Written through the experiences of many musicians who played with Tony over the years, elaborately illustrated, and filled with insights, you’ll come away with a more clear understanding of the man who helped enrich and change acoustic string music while providing insights that no other piece I’ve seen has ever done as well. Those of you who were lucky enough to be in the concert hall at IBMA the day Tony, who had not spoken publicly in years, spoke his farewell words, shortly before his death, will never forget that moment. This book is filled with such  moments. 

Amatneek has relied on interviews from a range of people who played a part in Tony Rice’s life and legend. He manages to create a rational narrative as he moves from one interview to the next, tying together each segment to produce a coherent  narrative, while always keeping the narrative clean and clear. Many of the voices (Mark Schatz, Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and many more) are well known to all acoustic music fans, while others are names that many people won’t recognize. The interviews seem to be transcribed from recording, creating a unique voice for each one.  Meanwhile, the transitions are clear, helping to find the roots of a man who remained an enigma to many of his best friends as well as his biggest fans right through to the end.

Jerry Douglas’ interview is particularly interesting and moving because he shows the anger and hurt Tony caused his friends because he was unwilling or unable to face the demons of drugs, depression, and physical limitations that made him unable to continue to play or sing. People tried to get him to find help, but he refused to do so. Tony was, according to Douglas, tortured by mental illness. His account of Tony’s last telephone call to him is simply heartbreaking, no matter how you might have known or heard about Tony Rice. 

As I was reading the book, I was driven to YouTube to see and hear Tony Rice in his element. In his index, Amatneek provide QR codes to show Tony Rice performances with a variety of bands. Scanning the QR codes allows the reader (listener) to experience the music, bringing him alive, at least through his music. The QR codes might have been even more powerful if they had been scattered through the text at appropriate places, but the reader can still unearth Rice’s music, and perhaps some elements of his character through these video clips.

 Amatneek makes a good argument that much of Tony Rice’s behavioral patterns were those of children of alcoholics. They have difficulty retaining relationships, easily fall under the influence of alcohol and drugs themselves, and have difficulty developing and retaining close relationships. None of the musicians who Bill Amatneek interviewed provide evidence that Tony didn’t fit that pattern. Nevertheless, the interviews themselves provide insight into Tony and, to a certain extent, to the viewpoints the musicians themselves were able to bring to their insight into Tony’s internal issues. They all, however, spoke in volumes about his musicianship, which they agreed was beyond that met by any previous guitar players, or any of those who have followed in Rice’s footsteps.

Tony Rice at IBMA Hall of Fame Award - 2013

Photo by Ted Lehmann

The layout of the book, at first, seems somewhat confusing, but becomes coherent and sensible as a readable and clear narrative. By choosing to allow the interviews to include long direct quotations, Amatneek lets Tony’s friends and band-mates talk for themselves, creating a more informal and personal presentation from a number of viewpoints. Perhaps he sacrifices coherence and accuracy for immediacy, however, the text reflects the aura of the era in which these musicians created their own legends and lives.

Bill Amatneek is widely published in a variety of music oriented outlets. Furthermore, he played with Tony Rice in many different bands through the ages. His writing is both personal and professional, yielding a persuasive portrait of a troubled genius through the many high and low periods of his life. The book has an unusual layout that grew on my as I read it. It reflects many of the challenges and difficulties Tony himself must have grappled with. You can order Discovering Tony Rice as an autographed hardback, hardback, or in a paper back format through Vineyard Press.

The Soul of America by Jon Meacham

The painting, Rainy Day on Fifth Avenue, 1916 by Childe Hassam captures the faith, risk, hope for the future, and the challenges which have faced our country ever since its foundation. There has almost never been a time when the delicate balance of interests represented by our diversity of populations, size of our land-mass, degree of independence, and the challenge of our founding as a democratic, representative republic has not existed.

We're living through an era of division along social, ethnic, racial, age, and technological, and more lines than most of us can imagine. And we find it scary! We imagine that we're in worse shape than our country has ever before seen, filled with complex issues most of us cannot see our way through. Into this era of fear and sense of lost direction, comes Jon Meacham's 2018 book, The Soul of America: The Battle For Our Better Angels, available from all your favorite outlets. 

Meacham's narrative focuses on the leadership of often flawed but effective terms of U.S. Presidents, faced with seemingly intractable problems that threaten the continued effectiveness of our system. He presents both Democratic and Republican presidents who respond with both inspiration and, sometimes, subtle political  maneuvering and at others blunt exercises of Presidential power. He looks at presidents whose behavior does not deal easily with their reputations (the intractable racism of Woodrow Wilson, who was once seen as one of the four great presidents, but is now nearly forgotten, for instance.) He also points out how history often is made by having the right person in the right place at the right time Abraham Lincoln provides a great example. In each era he describes, the future of our Republic often is questioned, yet we survived, adjusted, and often triumphed. As I read this highly readable book, I found that I gained increased insight into the strengths, weaknesses, and difficulties encountered by the great, and not-so-great, as they navigated the issues raised and the difficulties involved in building and maintaining a democracy. 

People accustomed to Meacham's television guest appearances will recognize his upbeat personality and positive viewpoints expressed about individuals and situations. He radiates confidence in positive outcomes, as does this book, without ever sounding heedless of the real challenges these men face. Despite my own gloominess about our current level of anger, division, and violence, reading Meacham increased my confidence that we will emerge a stronger and better nation.

Jon Meacham

John Meacham is a visiting professor of History at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, TN. He graduated with honors from The University of the South, after which he embarked on a long and successful career as a newspaper and magazine writer as will as a prolific writer of historical works. He has won the Pulitzer Prize as well as numerous other awards and recognitions. He is also a frequent guest on television programs, interpreting history in context delivered with warm good humor. I highly recommend this book to history and politics buffs. It's highly readable and filled with insight and wisdom. I bought John Meacham's The Soul of America in a trade paperback edition from ThriftBooks.com. As usual, the book arrived in a timely fashion and in very good condition. 

June - A Documentary Life of June Carter Cash

June Carter Cash

June, a documentary film now available for streaming on Paramount+, strikes all the right notes. It allows fans who only knew June Carter Cash as Johnny Cash's wife, to understand and revel in the career she built in country music before she married him.  June provided him with an anchor and a fully committed love, helping him build his career as became one of the most recognized and successful  artists in country music history. 

The Carter Family at Bristol Sessions

June Carter was country music royalty. The Carter Family lived in the rolling hills of southern Virginia, where their father, A.P. Carter farmed while spending most of his time trekking off to collect songs in the nearby mountains. The Carter Family, A.P, his wife Sara, and his sister-in-law Maybelle travelled south to Bristol TN/VA to participate in the first recordings of country music, made by Ralph Peer in 1929. The next generations of Carters emerged as Sara, along with her daughters Anita, June, and Helen emerged and continued to perform and record, while staying anchored in Mace's Springs, VA.  (We visited the Carter Fold fifteen years ago, finding Carter descendants continuing the Carter Family legacy of acoustic music and country dancing. It felt like a genuine pilgrimage.)

The Carter Sisters - It's My Lazy Day

When June Carter met Johnny Cash, she already had two daughters, was currently married, and a Grand Ol' Opry star in her own right. They fell in love (or perhaps "exploded into" would be a better term), and were soon inseparable. The rest is still more music history. Fortunately, there seem to have been movie cameras around both June and Johnny from early in their careers, and the Opry kept excellent records of its performers. Thus, the film is also visually stunning and moves along quite quickly. Lots of interviews with big and lesser known people along with their children permit a well-balanced and nuanced view. 

June Carter Cash & Johnny Cash - Jackson

We didn't realize how much of Johnny Cash's musical life had impacted us during our musical journey, or how important June Carter Cash was to both the history of country music and the success of Johnny Cash. June subordinated her own ambitions and talents to care for Cash, even deep in his years of drug addiction. When he joined The Highwaymen, she practically disappeared, sidelined while keeping him propped up and able to perform, creating a whole new career. We laughed, cried, and thoroughly enjoyed this marvelous documentary film. 

June is currently streaming on Paramount+. It runs for an hour and thirty-eight minutes, and seems too short, leaving the viewer wishing to see more about the family and their surroundings. It's well worth your time!

Sing Me Back Home: Southern Roots and Country Music by Bill C. Malone

 Bill C. Malone, a name unknown to many people who are performers or fans of country music is the man who virtually invented a body of research and experience which has helped to define and broaden various kinds of music referred to as Country. Without his thoughtful scholarship informed by his rural roots in East Texas, country music would be less widely distributed and understood. His book, Sing Me Back Home: Southern Roots and Country Music, published in 2017, contains sixteen meticulously annotated essays exploring the roots, spread, influences, and importance of Country Music, not only in music, but in the wider American musical culture.  

Born in East Texas near Tyler (where we lived for three years while I taught at what was then Texas Eastern University and is now The University of Texas at Tyler) Malone grew up on a hard-scrabble cotton farm, where his first interest in music was sparked by his father’s bring a battery operated radio into the home in the mid-1930’s. Soon, his inexpensive first guitar was given to him as a gift. Malone, showed an interest in the music he heard, and later, as a student at the University of Texas at Austin, widened his interest into his studies and his research. Encouraged by his faculty advisor, he wrote his doctoral dissertation at UT on country music. It was published as the still-in-print book Country Music U.S.A.

Sing Me Back Home: Southern Roots and Country Music, published in 2017, is a collection of serious, well documented essays previously published in scholarly journals or delivered as speeches to university audiences. Despite his academic excellence, Malone’s country roots and essential decency shine through on every page. Examined in its overall focus, lies Malone’s highly knowledgeable awareness of the deep variety and wide-reaching roots of what has become known as country music. He looks carefully at the roots from which much of the music sprang, discovering more complexity and nuance than most fans attribute to their own version of the sources and nature of their preferred version of country. 

In his chapter on Bill Monroe, for instance, he looks at the lonely boy who picked up a mandolin, as well as the young man who followed his brother to the industrial Midwest. He was influenced by all the musical strands he encountered as well as bringing his own personality and strength towards developing the basis of what others came to call bluegrass music. He finds the same diversity in early country music, discusses the influences of going to war, the wide dispersal growing from radio and, later television, on the development of country music. He examines how jazz, pop, the movement of rural people to the cities, and other factors make country music and bluegrass variants on the same tree trunk. He particularly examines how various ethnic and cultural communities in America have contributed to the music. Purity is not what you find, but, perhaps, a greater understanding of much of what makes America great emerges.

If you’re interested in a book that helps you solidify your personal conception of what country music really is, this book may not be your best choice. If, on the other hand, you think you can benefit from getting a more eclectic understanding of how common people from America’s rural roots became one of the most powerful and influential musical formats in contemporary life around the world, this book will thrill you. 

I bought Sing Me Back Home: Southern Roots and Country Music as a used book from ThriftBooks.com in a hardback edition. The book is published by the University of Oklahoma Press and is widely available

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders & the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

The plight and treatment of Native Americans in this country cannot be overemphasized as we become more aware and sensitive to the way they have been treated throughout our history. Killers of the Flower Moon stands out, at least partly because it has provided both the title and the source for a hugely popular movie, just released for streaming on Apple+. However, the book was a best-seller, listed as one of the top ten nonfiction books of 2017. Author David Grann, spent a number of years digging into the story of exploitation, murder, government disinterest, and simple graft which allowed this too typical rape of a people and the land during the first quarter of the twentieth century.

The Osage people were settled on a barren piece of unwanted territory in Osage County, Oklahoma, the largest county in the state, with Tulsa anchoring it at the southeast corner. It was sandy, dry, and unwanted until oil was discovered underneath it in 1897. The Osage people owned the mineral rights underneath land, making them, for a while, some of the richest people in the world. Soon, a number of white entrepreneurs and politicians realized the could gain control of the oil money only by marrying some of the women on the reservation. This led to a period, between 1917 and 1925 of local and imported men marrying Native people. Soon, a strange increase in the death rate of these Indian wives and the increased riches of the men, who gained control of much of the oil, began to occur. 

When called upon to investigate what was happening in Osage County, J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI was just at the point of organizing his agents as a national police force and creating the FBI myth for integrity and efficiency that lasted for nearly eighty years. He had little time and less inclination to seriously investigate the situation. Moreover, there were numerous investigation of the deaths and trials, all featuring extensive corruption, the the increasing exploitation of these not well educated or sophisticated people. 

The story, told by David Grann, brings the characters and the setting to life. Furthermore, his deep dives into archives long gathering dust in the State Library and other depositories lay waiting to be carefully collated, read, and interpreted. While the Osage people knew much of the history, they were not able to become good advocates in their own interests. As he digs through the various archives he uncovered, the horror of the treatment the Osage people received becomes increasingly horrifying to Grann and to his reader. This is a story you should read to shed additional light on the story before seeing the film. 

David Grann

David Grann is an award winning writer whose works have received best-selling status. Several of his books have been New York Times best-sellers, and he was a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. I bought the book and read it on my Kindle reader. 

The Innovators by Walter Isaacson

The seemingly ubiquitous biographer, scholar, university president, think-tank director, CNN chief, and editor of Time Magazine, Walter Isaacson, wrote The Innovators way back in 2014, which looks like a lifetime in the history of the development of computers. Nevertheless, with the exception of scanty attention paid to the development of artificial intelligence, this volume presents a lively and comprehensive picture of the development of calculating machines that have become indispensable in the modern world. Author of at least twenty volumes during the last thirty years, Isaacson has focused on the "great man (or woman)" theory of human progress, always writing about the people behind the ideas while making the ideas cogent for the thoughtful reader.

The story begins with Ada Byron (Lord Byron's only legitimate child) who became Ada Lovelace, and whose reputation remains bright in the world of applied mathematics, who saw the possibilities of Babbage's counting machine for more advanced applications. She is so important in the development of the idea of computers, that at least one major modern computer system was named after her. From mechanical devices, the computer industry developed as a variety of mechanical and then electronic devices made their appearance. Each idea, from  learning to program machines to produce answers, electric wires to transistors, to microchips, and more required reliance on past advances and the imagination to advance to the next step, as well as applications for those advances. Neither the microchip, the computer, the Internet, software, nor the World Wide Web itself was inevitable without the foregoing work or forward looking visionaries. 

Isaacson is a master of making links between advances that don't always easily emerge as inevitable advances growing in an ever widening universe of possibilities and making them coherent. Thus, the works of industrial giants like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs become necessary, but not sufficient, cogs in an ever-widening electronic universe. This is all presented in an approachable, almost friendly, writing style which makes the ideas we can't quite grasp into concepts the reader can see an appreciate without ever having any of the necessary skills to contribute to the ever expanding world of computers. 

 Isaacson takes a great person approach to the development of the ideas needed to culminate with the cyber world in which we're currently living, while also emphasizing the fact that great advances in nearly all areas of advance rely upon cooperation and collaboration between innovators, organizers, and entrepreneurs. Often great ideas in seeing the implications of an advance or in doing the math require someone to make the connections. It takes a different sort of personality to turn the resultant innovation into a salable product, making it possible for consumers to understand that they have a need it might fulfill. Thus, he emphasizes conjunction of brilliant ideas, useful applications, and finished products.

 Radio Shack TRS-80

 I have one, perhaps, personal quibble with the account of innovators who made computers available to the masses. Isaacson left out the role of Radio Shack and their TRS-80 home computer. Released in 1977, this home computer was the first computer I owned and where I began my learning curve. I got it from my mother and, later, sold it to a friend, so it did mighty work, back when so many of  us were learning to function in the cyber world...I never did learn to be a programmer, but I sure have worked any number of computers to the death over the years. 

Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson is a widely  known and widely read writer/administrator/television personality, and political advisor who has published numerous fine biographies. He's always readable!

I bought my copy of The Innovators in a bookstore as a remaindered book. 

The Pioneers - David McCoullough

Pulitzer Prize winning writer David McCullough could always be relied upon to tell a terrific story while presenting the reader with a good read. With eleven major titles to his credit, he managed to pick up a couple of Pultizer Prizes, a National Book Award, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He also narrated some of Ken Burns' PBS historical series, and kept busy with freelance writing. McCullough was a great writer who kept his readers' attention with lively prose that keeps the reader with him to the end. The Pioneers, published in 2019, two years before his death at age 89, showed he had lost none of his narrative skill. 

The Pioneers opens in Massachusetts around the end of the Revolutionary War, in June of 1787. The book focuses on the lives of Manasseh Cutler pastor of the First Congregational Church in Ipswich and Rufus Putnam, who fought with Washington during the Revolution, who began to look westward.  They helped lead the move westward from New England at a time when, having won The Revolution, the United States suddenly found itself as a country hugging its Atlantic coastline and having won control of millions of acres west of the original states, most of which was unexplored wilderness as far as they were concerned. He managed to commit Congress and President Washington to support a trip West with Revolutionary War General Rufus Putnam. The land they were headed for was the vast Ohio valley, west of Pennsylvania and across the Muskingum River, hundreds of thousands of acres of vast, mature woodlands inhabited only by a variety of Indian tribes. Forty-eight men set off for the Ohio River in the Winter of 1788.

Along the way, the first company encountered rough or nonexistent roads, cold winter hardships, and dense wilderness that none of them had ever encountered before. They had to break a trail across western Pennsylvania, cutting their way through deep forests and building rafts to cross rivers or to use them for transportation. Overcoming great hardships, the men reached the Marietta River separating western Pennsylvania from the Ohio Territory, built rafts to travel down-river, and chose to settle near what became Marietta, OH. They found the land filled with huge trees that had never heard the sound of an axe, as well as plenty of game for food. These men were determined to maintain Ohio as a non-slave territory, as the issues leading to the Civil War were already lively concerns. On their next trip West, they were joined by family members and more people seeking land and riches. 

Soon they were able to establish a ship-building center based on the availability of large timber. Women came to join their spouses, and both shipping and trade on the rivers flourished. The rest of the book contains lively descriptions of the development of communities, the building of churches, and, possibly the most important,  the establishment of schools and colleges in an area previously devoid of any formal education. As the Ohio territory grew in population and wealth, many of the heroes of the American Revolution came there to visit, and newer political figures came to marvel at the areas progress and promise. 

David McCullough

The Pioneers by David McCollough is top of the shelf history reading for anyone interested in American History, the opening of the West, the resistance to the spread of slavery, or simply a good story-teller bringing American History to life. I bought the book as a used book from ThriftBooks.com, which is one of my go-to sources for good reading at a reasonable price. 

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horowitz - Book Review

 

We all grow up in America with an image of who we are and how we got here based on visions of how America was populated and where our belief systems developed. These understandings suggest that English Protestants seeking to escape the Church of England, who came to be known as Pilgrims, first stepped onto the rocky shores of  what is now Massachusetts in 1603, establishing a strong community which grew into and spread a new nation. Little in our understandings of who we are and how this country evolved from in indigenous native populations. For instance, the Miamisburg Mound in Ohio may date from 800 BC - 100 AD.  The remains of thriving Indian cultures have been discovered in almost every part of what is now North America.   These people, perhaps, millions of what are now called Indians farmed, grew crops, herded animals, and fought wars between themselves. 

We also have been taught little about the other, earlier explorations of North America from Scandinavia, Spain, and Portugal which took place for several centuries before the Pilgrims arrived. In A Voyage Long And Strange (Henry Holt & Co., 2008) Tony Horowitz sets his readers straight in his own unique and often amusing explorations of places Europeans visited, the peoples they met when they got here, the hardships they endured within the context of how those experiences have been ignored by school history. Written in the context of his own journey in the early 21st century, Horowitz presents the history and reality as well as a strong sense of place in this enlightening and insightful book about whom we are and how we "discovered" America.

Horowitz takes the guise of an interested amateur as he follows the routes taken by Vikings arriving before the year 1000. Columbus, may have sailed the ocean blue in 1492, but he never found the North American continent during his explorations, Evidence suggests that Spanish explorers not only explored what are now the Caribbean Islands, but also crossed what is now the southern United States from Florida to the Midwest as well as Mexico and Texas, as well as sailing up the West coast of California and Oregon. At every placed they explored they found complex cultures which we grouped together as what are now known as Indians. These people lived in complex societies, practiced effective, abundant farming, and fought wars against their enemies. All this happened before explorers landed at what is now Virginia beginning in 1540, where they sought to establish permanent livelihood before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620.

Horowitz plays the role of an innocent traveler looking for evidence of about the alien (that is: European) explorers to sites in North America and Mexico, as well as the Caribbean Islands. At each site he visits, he plays the role of a naïve visitor with  little or no information about the European incursions on local places. In seeking to explore the cultures of an indigenous population and the effects of the exploration and exploitation of this continent the explorers thought of as a large land-mass separating them from the Far East. What they encountered were organized societies from hunter-gatherers to sophisticated kingdoms. 

Since most of the explorers were there to chase riches, rumored towers of gold and silver, to return to their native country and gain fame and fortune back home, they were mostly unprepared for the natives they met. Depending on the nature of the lands they found, the explorers discovered a variety of indigenous peoples that, for at least a few centuries of European exploration were lumped together as Indians who lived in tribes. Depending on the climate and resources available in various places, these people were grouped into everything from rather rich kingdoms to highly organized agricultural societies, less organized groups of people able to live off the land. They had not discovered gun powder, so were much to the mercy of their invaders. Worse still, they had never been introduced to the various diseases these explorers brought with them from Europe. They had developed no resistance to the variety of disease common in Europe. Disease, rather than military prowess, probably tipped the odds to the favor of the invaders from the east.  

As Horowitz travels, which range from Nova Scotia and Labrador to the Caribbean Islands, Mexico, and much of the The American Southwest, Jamestown, and finally to where we think our history begins, New England. In every location he visits, he finds sites destroyed by time, development, and ignorance of the cultural riches which had once dominated the continent only to be destroyed by visitors who cared not at all for these people they "discovered." Horowitz discovers places that are still preserved, descendants of the local tribes as well as people dedicated to preserving the few remaining sites as well as some serious archeology. He maintains a good humor about the contrasts between contemporary tourists and the genuine wars of conquest fought over a period of two or three hundred years in North America. 

Tony Horowitz

e

Tony Horowitz (1960-2019) published a number of books in which he created a sub-genre of the explorer social observer. "His journalism was always participatory, and he took readers along for the ride,” Joel Achenbach, a reporter for The Washington Post, said by email on Tuesday. “He climbed masts on sailing ships, rode mules, marched with Confederate re-enactors, and ventured into dive bars in the remote crossroads of America.” (NY Times Obituary, May 28, 2019) 

I purchased A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World from ThriftBooks.com, a site I highly recommend to people wishing to purchased used books which are usually in very good condition. 

Image

Oh, Didn't They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music by David Menconi - Book Review

 

While I was busy going to a local state college, getting married, and beginning a career as a teacher during much of the period in which the cultural revolution of the 1960's into which Rounder Records was created, I wasn't unaware of the musical revolution going on at the time. I played a guitar, badly, and sang folk songs, listened to many of the bands that emerged in this time, without either dropping out or really tuning in. Nevertheless, David Menconi's history of Rounder Records and the Rounder Founders (Ken Irwin, Marian Leighton Levy and Bill Nowlin)  brings back a wonderful, dangerous, and scary time dominated by the "drop out and tune in" musical and cultural vibe of the time. The book is simply a joy to read! The fact that it's written by a career newspaper writer who trod the musical beat, rather than an academician, brings an immediacy and liveliness to the book that many university press works often lack, lifting its creditability and enjoyment quotient. 

Attendees at bluegrass festivals, concerts, and conferences are well aware of at least two of the Rounder Founders, as they are known. Ken Irwin and Marion Leighton Levy can often be spotted sitting in seats, plying the hallways, joining in meetings, or talking quietly with members of both well known and not easily recognized bands. The third member of the triad, Bill Nowlin, is less often recognized, but equally responsible for the development of one of the most important labels from its earliest nascent beginning selling albums to fans at southern festivals to its sale to the Concord Music Group in 2010.

Two relatively short set-pieces provide deep insight into the context of Rounder's development and the adventuresome qualities of Ken Irwin and Marian Leighton. During a summer between college semesters, two of the Rounder founders took a risky, dangerous cross-country trip, hitch-hiking to the West Coast. This is followed up by a quite useful chapter on the development of the recording industry from the late nineteenth century wax cylinders to the growth of compact discs, with an emphasis on the development of what are now known as niche recordings. The two pieces emphasize the counter-culture roots, the risk-taking spirit, and the technological savvy that characterized the life of Rounder Records.

Obviously written with the strong backing of the Rounder Founders, the narrative describes in detail the growth and development of the three founders in the midst of the counter-culture years of the late 1960’s into the’70’s with both admiration and a strong sense of the era. Three smart, educated hippies who lived the communal ethic of the time while creating a very much capitalist record company. The combination leads to humorous as well as nostalgic responses.  Meanwhile, through years of growth, changing relationships, and unimaginable, at the time, success, Rounder Records continued to grow and thrive, hitting its first employees while increasing the size of its catalog beyond what the founders had originally imagined.

The Rounder Founders

Ken Irwin, Marion Leighton Levy & Bill Nowlin

There’s not enough space in a review to catalog the older traditional artists as well as the new and innovative ones Rounder then proceeded to record. Suffice it to say that much of the charm of this exciting and enjoyable book lies in the commitment and drive to expand while always seeking to keep their eyes on their original mission. The chapter on what became known by its album number, 0044, the first album by J.D. Crowe Crow and the New South, that altered bluegrass in serious ways as well as placing Rounder in an increasingly powerful position in the recording industry is typical of the risks the company took as well as its luck in being at the right place at the right time. 

Through the years, Rounder matured as a business and a leader in finding new artists across a broad range of genres and sub-genres while the Rounder Founders kept their original leftish perspective and collective approach to running their business. None of the above seemed to have stopped them from making ground breaking recordings, growing as an organization, signing new artists, and out-working many of their competitors. The crucial breakthrough growth point came when a warehouse worker discovered George Thorogood and the Destroyers playing an especially exciting form of rock & roll music, a genre into which Rounder had never ventured before. Other major artists signed included Alison Kraus, providing them with the leeway to continue taking risks with unknown and small niche performers. Most of the book details, with deep understanding and enough humor to keep it approachable, the journey of a small, niche record company into an industry giant. Meanwhile, the Rounder founders remained true to their values while learning to operate in a much broader universe.

Rounder Founders (more or less) Today

Ken Irwin, Marion Leighton Levy, Bill Nowlin

Other artists found or were found by the three Rounder founders as well as staff members. Because they remained true to their founding precepts while open to music that simply didn't appeal to larger, more commercial recording companies, they discovered artists who later left for seemingly greener pastures. Some came back and others continued to sell on Rounder as well as their new label. The company grew beyond anything they had imagined when they came together to record their first album. The story shows the value that people of principle bring to developing a thriving company, while keeping a close eye on the values that led them to found Rounder Records. 

David Menconi

David Menconi has put together an extensive Spotify playlist to accompany this book. For those interested in listening along to some of the featured artists and tunes, here's a link: Rounder Playlist. He worked as a reporter for the Raleigh News & Observer for 28 years. His most recent book before this, titled Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music.., published in 2020 was also reviewed in this blog. He has also written for Rolling Stone, Billboard, Spin, and the New York Times. 

I received a copy of Oh, Didn't They Ramble from the University of North Carolina Press in return for a review.