Nostalgia package for the ``silent generation'' of Eisenhower, a generation that today evidently thinks it was in no way silent. Novelist/journalist Wakefield (Returning, 1988, etc.) arrived in Manhattan as a Columbia student from Indianapolis and was, he tells us, unprepared for the astounding freedom of anonymity that the Upper West Side granted him and for the family feelings he later met with among Greenwich Village bohemians. Younger readers may find these and other memories distant from their own putative needs and, at times, even Wakefield is distant from himself, placing facts from the Sixties back into the Fifties or twice attributing Gordon Jenkins's ghastly musical mÇlange ``Manhattan Towers'' to Stan Kenton or misquoting Allen Ginsberg's ``America.'' Even so, Wakefield talks with his many friends still alive from the Fifties and gets their take on the era. His interviewees include Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Murray Kempton, Helen Weaver, Joyce Glassman Johnson, Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne, Calvin Trillin, Gay and Nan Talese, and many others. For himself, he defines the era nicely with, ``Maybe the Village of my generation went from the time Dylan Thomas came to the White Horse [the famed Village tavern where Thomas drank his last drink] to the time Bob Dylan showed up [at the White Horse] that night in 1961 wearing his floppy hat.'' The liveliest passages here survey jazz joints and players; the explosion of On the Road in 1957 and Wakefield's buttoned-down antipathy to it; changes in sexual mores as the pessary showed up; Esquire's creative breakthrough with New Journalism; and the slime- crawl of McCarthyism over Manhattan liberals. Batches of local color refresh those who lived through a lost age, or what Kempton calls ``an age of lead,'' now become ``an age of gold.'' (Photos—24 pages of b&w—not seen.)
Pub Date: May 21, 1992
ISBN: 0-395-51320-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1992
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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