It Still Moves : Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music

by Amanda Petrusich

• ISBN13: 9780865479500
• ISBN10: 086547950X
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2008-08-19
• Publisher: Faber & Faber

Summary

"Where lies the boundary between meaning and sentiment? Between memory and nostalgia? America and Americana? What is and what was? Does it move?" --Donovon Hohn,A Romance of Rust Part travelogue, part cultural criticism, part music appreciation,It Still Movesdoes for today's avant folk scene what Greil Marcus did for Dylan andThe Basement Tapes. Amanda Petrusich outlines the sounds of the new, weird Americahonoring the rich tradition of gospel, bluegrass, country, folk, and rock that feeds it, while simultaneously exploring the American character as personified in all of these genres historically. Through interviews, road stories, geographical and sociological interpretations, and detailed music criticism, Petrusich traces the rise of Americana music from its gospel origins through its new and compelling incarnations (as evidenced in bands and artists from Elvis to Iron and Wine, the Carter Family to Animal Collective, Johnny Cash to Will Oldham) and explores how the genre is adapting to the twenty-first century. Ultimately the book is an examination of all things American: guitars, cars, kids, motion, passion, enterprise, and change, in a fervent attempt to reconcile the American past with the American present, using only dusty records and highway maps as guides.

Author Biography

A staff writer at Pitchforkmedia.com and a senior contributing editor at Paste, Amanda Petrusich is the author of Pink Moon, a short book about Nick Drake's 1972 album for Continuum's 33 1/3 series.

Table of Contents

Goodbye, Babylon	p. 3
Ain't It a Pity, I'm in New York City!	p. 11
Bluesland: Beale Street, Memphis	p. 23
Young and Loose and Full of Juice: Sam Phillips, Sun Studio, and the Birth of Rock 'n' Roll	p. 33
I'm Going to Graceland	p. 53
Trail of the Hellhounds: Clarksdale's Deep Mississippi Blues	p. 61
Music City, USA: Building the Nashville Sound	p. 93
I'm Going Where There's No Depression: Alternative Country	p. 117
I-64 West: Charlottesville, Lexington, Charleston	p. 137
Country Rolls On: Minstrel Shows, Race, and the Rise of Radio	p. 147
Ain't That a Pretty Ole Mountain? Appalachia, the Carter Family, and Early Country Music	p. 155
The Little Old Country General Store from Lebanon, Tennessee: Cracker Barrel's Americana	p. 175
A Matter of Song! John Lomax, Lead Belly, Moses Asch, and Folkways Records	p. 183
Making Familiar Strange: Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music and the Birth of Smithsonian Folkways	p. 199
You Won't Find It So Hot If You Ain't Got the Do Re Mi: Woody Guthrie, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and the Folk Revival of the 1960s	p. 209
The New Weird, Hyphenated America: Indie-Folk and the Next American Revival	p. 233
Epilogue	p. 255
Selected Bibliography	p. 261
Acknowledgments	p. 265
Index	p. 213
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

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