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Book Review:
SONGS OF AMERICA: PATRIOTISM, PROTEST, AND THE MUSIC THAT MADE A NATION by Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw.
New York: Random House, 2019. 304 pages. Numerous pictorial illustrations.This is the sort of book I have felt was sorely needed to help clarify the importance of songs in American history. It is not a dry academic textbook but rather a very readable account of songs in America's hisotry. Largely written by the eminent historian, Jon Meacham, with sidebar comments by country singer, Tim McGraw, this is book well worth reading and using in classrooms to educate students about the value of songs in their historical context.
Having many of the song texts quoted along with the descriptions is very helpful but there should also have been supplemented by recordings, perhaps by Tim McGraw and other singers, to go along with this book so that readers could actually hear many of the songs mentioned. After all, a song is both words and music.
As an American music historian and preservationist I quibble with some of the omissions.
One is the important early American patriot songwriter, William Billings of Boston, whose war song, "Chester," was one of the major hits of the American Revolution, and was sung even into the 19th century, but with a less infamatory text written by someone else. That was a major song of protest in the American Revolution. Yet Billings is not even mentioned once in this book. Also, songwriters from the 19th century who are not mentioned, like Rev. Robert Lowry, who 1866 song, "Beatiful River" (or Shall we gather at the river"), became a kind of patriotic symbol for rural people of faith and was used in countless movies.
I was pleased to see that Stephen Foster's songs from the Civil War era were mentioned rather than just focus on the familiar songs from his earlier career. Naturally, the Civil War years of the 1860s received a lot of attention as it should with familiar songs like "Dixie,""Go Down, Moses," and of course "Battle Hymn of the Republic" -- for more about that famous song -- click here.
Another quibble I have is too much emphasis on the 20th century songs -- five of the eight chapters in this book, and three chapters from the 1960s onward. Is that a fair percentage on all the songs in American history? I say no. There is so little mentioned in history books about songs from early America, especially by historians, that I wished more space was devoted to those earlier peiods.
Also, I believe too much attention is paid to political or protest songs, especially in the 1960s. While these songs like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Mississippi Goddam" are important protest songs during the turmoil and suffering of the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, there were also hit songs of a different sort in that decade that wewre not about protest. That includes the Lennon- McCartney song, "All You Need Is Love." Paul McCartney has said the Beatle songs were mostly about love and caring for someone.
Actually songs about love could be viewed as a sort of protest, like the Bacharach-David hit song, "What The World Needs Now Is Love." These songs might have been mentioned even though they were not as politicially charged as that chavinistic and boastful song,"The Ballad of the Green Berets," the No. 1 song in 1966. Not one of my favorites but it may appeal to many listeners, including Tim McGraw who called it "a great patriotic song."But what I think is most important about this book is Jon Meacham's excellent descriptions, which are always to the point and extremely well documented with numerous footnotes in the back of the book. His writing is a model of clarity and conciseness, with no excessive academic wordiness.
As stated in the opening "A Note to the Reader," the authors state this:
It's our hope that The Songs of America is the opening, not the closing, act in a conversation about the nation's diversity and complexity. For that's among the reasons we undertook the project: to inspire Americas to think more widely and more deeply about the country Abraham Lincoln called "the last best hope of earth."
It might have been more approrpiate to end this statement using the title from Walt Whitman, in his magnificent collection of poems, Leave Of Grass, and the poem he titled musically:
"I Hear America Singing."Even with my reservations about song omissions and too much emphasis on the 20th century, this is a book that every American should read to learn more about the importance of songs in our history. Then maybe people would appreciate the value of our songs.
-- by Roger Lee Hall
American Music Recordings Collection
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