Choice 评论

Malone's compelling lectures, a revision of the "pure sources" myth, promise to be part of a larger study of country music and the working class. An important scholar with respect for his topic, Malone documents in the South's "multi-ethnic" musical origins evidence of "unconscious eclecticism and cultural pluralism." The often romantic and sentimental images of country life, mountaineers, and cowboys are derived from a larger American public's attraction to a "mythical past." Coverage of the lectures is indicated by their titles: "Southern Rural Music in the Nineteenth Century" (before radio and recording), "Popular Culture and the Music of the South" (with an insightful look at Will Hays), and "Mountaineers and Cowboys" (a study of the origins of many of the surviving, mixed images in country and cowboy music today). Twenty-four pages of "good-reading" notes precede a useful index. Malone points to work still to be done in commercial and artistic links, 19th-century sources, and the debate over ethnic "purity" and (that flabby word) "multiculturalism." Fine reading for both general and academic readers at all levels; a model of good scholarship; well written. Recommended for all collections along with Malone's Country Music USA (CH, Dec'85) and Southern Music: American Music (CH, May'80). D. Gordon; Christopher Newport University