Elijah Wald
Personal Information
Description
Elijah Wald started playing guitar in the 1960s after seeing his first Pete Seeger concert at age seven. At seventeen, he went to New York to study with Dave Van Ronk, then spent most of the next dozen years hitchhiking and performing all over North America and Europe, as well as much of Asia and Africa, including several months studying with the Congolese guitar masters Jean-Bosco Mwenda and Edouard Masengo in eastern Zaire and lecturing for the United States Information Service in India and Central Africa. He also recorded two albums: Songster, Fingerpicker, Shirtmaker and Street Corner Cowboys. In the early 1980s, Elijah began writing for the Boston Globe, and was in charge of the newspaper’s “world music” coverage for most of the 1990s, as well as contributing articles to various other newspapers and magazines. His books include Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues, Josh White: Society Blues, Global Minstrels: Voices of World Music, Dave Van Ronk's memoir The Mayor of MacDougal Street, River of Song: Music Along the Mississippi, which accompanied the PBS series of the same name, and Narcocorrido, a survey of the modern Mexican ballads of drug smuggling and social issues. His latest book is How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ’n’ Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music. He has won a Grammy Award for his album notes to The Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Box, for which he was also nominated as a producer, and his books have won many awards, including an ASCAP-Deems Taylor award and an honorable mention for the American Musicological Society’s Otto Kinkeldey award. In the last few years, Elijah has been teaching off and on at the University of California Los Angeles, performing music when possible, and contributing occasional pieces to the Los Angeles Times, along with various other writing projects and speaking engagements. (from [Wald's press info page])
Books
Riding with strangers
This fascinating tale of the author's cross-country hitchhiking journey is a captivating look into the pleasures and challenges of the open road. As the miles roll by he meets businessmen, missionaries, conspiracy theorists, and truck drivers from all ages and ethnicities who are eager to open their car doors to a wandering stranger. This memoir uncovers the hidden reality that the United States remains hospitable, quirky, and as ready as ever to offer help to a curious traveler. Demonstrating how hitchhiking can be the ultimate in adventure travel—a thrilling exploration of both people and scenery—this guide also serves as a hitchhiker's reference, sharing the history behind this communal form of travel while touching on roadside lore and philosophy.
Global Minstrels
Global Minstrels: The World of World Music introduces today's leading performers from around the world. From urban nightclubbers dancing to salsa to suburbanites relaxing with Cuban and Brazilian melodies, to the host of pop and rock stars who have added international flavors to their music, "world" sounds have become part of the basic fabric of American life. At the same time, in every American city, immigrants have used musical gatherings as a way to bring their communities together. Including conversations with dozens of artists from five continents, Global Minstrels explores the breadth of the world music experience through the voices of the musicians themselves. In the process, it gives a unique view of the interactions of a globalizing society and introduces readers to some of the most fascinating and thoughtful artists working on the current scene.Profiled artists include Ladysmith Black Mambazo; King Sunny Ade, The Mighty Sparrow, Reuben Blades, Los Tigres del Norte, Gilberto Gil, Dick Gaughan, Alan Stivell, The Master Musicians of Jajouka, The Gipsy Kings, Ali Akbar Khan, Ravi Shankar, and many more.Global Minstrels will strongly appeal to the world music audience, from academic ethnomusicologists to general listeners who enjoy this new, vibrant musical style.
Escaping the Delta
Robert Johnson's story presents a fascinating paradox: Why did this genius of the Delta blues excite so little interest when his records were first released in the 1930s? And how did this brilliant but obscure musician come to be hailed long after his death as the most important artist in early blues and a founding father of rock 'n' roll? Elijah Wald provides the first thorough examination of Johnson's work and makes it the centerpiece for a fresh look at the entire history of the blues. He traces the music's rural folk roots but focuses on its evolution as a hot, hip African-American pop style, placing the great blues stars in their proper place as innovative popular artists during one of the most exciting periods in American music. He then goes on to explore how the image of the blues was reshaped by a world of generally white fans, with very different standards and dreams. The result is a view of the blues from the inside, based not only on recordings but also on the recollections of the musicians themselves, the African-American press, and original research. Wald presents previously unpublished studies of what people on Delta plantations were actually listening to during the blues era, showing the larger world in which Johnson's music was conceived. What emerges is a new respect and appreciation for the creators of what many consider to be America's deepest and most influential music. Wald also discusses how later fans formed a new view of the blues as haunting Delta folklore. While trying to separate fantasy from reality, he accepts that neither the simple history nor the romantic legend is the whole story. Each has its own fascinating history, and it is these twin histories that inform this book.
Josh White
"In this biography, Elijah Wald traces White's journey from a childhood leading blind singers on the streets of Greenville, South Carolina, to the heights of Manhattan cafe society. He explores the complexities of White's music, his struggles with discrimination and stereotypes, his political involvements, and his sometimes raucous personal life."--BOOK JACKET.
The blues
An introduction to the music style blues. Historical overview, with outlooks at jazz and country&western.