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New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar'
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Subject: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: PoppaGator Date: 19 Nov 04 - 05:38 PM I just got this email from bobdylan.com; since it's not a site, I can't make a link, so please pardon the semi-lengthy cut-&-paste. I know nothing more about this, but am interested in your reactions, if any: About "The Rose & the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad" by Sean Wilentz and Greil Marcus: Of interest to bobdylan.com readers: a new book and accompanying CD created by Sean Wilentz, bobdylan.com's historian-in-residence, and Greil Marcus, the cultural critic and author of, among many books, "Invisible Republic" and "Mystery Train." The book is published by W.W. Norton & Company, and the CD is released on Sony/Legacy. Here's how the authors describe their book and CD: "The Rose & the Briar" and the CD of the same name grow out of a single question: what does the American ballad say about America? "There are many answers: for one, that America is a place of great stories and storytellers. For another, that the sardonic bard, the sly salesman, the hopeless fool and the heedless suitor, the charming seducer and the blank-faced killer are all of a piece: all call out to each other, and to the country at large. And more. If the ballads treated in The Rose & the Briar -which in historical time track an arc that travels from "Barbara Allen" (that song of a briar and a rose growing out of the breasts of a girl and a boy buried side by side and finally joining in a single lovers' knot), which probably first emerged in the fifteenth or sixteenth century, to "Blackwatertown," composed just last year-are any clue, they say that the country, dedicated to the proposition that liberty is real, is obsessed with death. It's the death of the actors in the ballads; it's the death of the nation itself as a field of liberty. No matter what form the ballad takes-traditional or modern, handed down or composed, national epic or local story-more than one life is always at stake. "For the book, we asked musicians (Anna Domino of Snakefarm, Rennie Sparks of the Handsome Family, David Thomas of Pere Ubu), novelists (Steve Erickson, Sharyn McCrumb, Joyce Carol Oates), visual artists (R. Crumb and Jon Langford, who is best known as a singer and guitarist in the Mekons and the Waco Brothers), and a poet (Paul Muldoon) along with critics and historians (Paul Berman, Cecil Brown, Stanley Crouch, Howard Hampton, Wendy Lesser, Dave Marsh, James Miller, Ann Powers, John Rockwell, Luc Sante, Sarah Vowell, Ed Ward and Eric Weisbard) to choose a ballad and run with it. They came back with short stories, impassioned essays, a comic strip, a collage, memoirs and manifestos, true-crime reports shifting into fantasies, love stories changing into shadow plays, work that would not hold still. "On this CD the saga of the American ballad unfolds much as the songs themselves appeared in the historical record, from classic recordings dating to the 1920s and 1930s (the Coon Creek Girls' startling version of the murder ballad "Pretty Polly," G. B. Grayson's seemingly centuries-old "Ommie Wise"), to brand-new recordings, made especially for this collection, of equally traditional tunes (John Mellencamp's ghostly "The Wreck of Old 97," Snakefarm's techno dream of "Little Maggie"), from such modern classics of the ballad form as Marty Robbins's "El Paso," Dolly Parton's "Down from Dover," Randy Newman's "Sail Away," Bob Dylan's "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts," and Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska," to the Handsome Family's recording of Paul Muldoon's "Blackwatertown." "We envisaged the book version of The Rose & the Briar as a stage. The CD is one version of the show." CD track listing: 1. Barbary Allen - Jean Ritchie 2. Pretty Polly - The Coon Creek Girls 3. Ommie Wise - G. B. Grayson 4. Little Maggie - Snakefarm 5. Frankie - Mississippi John Hurt 6. Deliah's Gone - Koerner, Ray & Glover 7. Wreck Of The Old 97 - John Mellencamp 8. Dead Man's Curve - Jan & Dean 9. Buddy Bolden's Blues (I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say) - Jelly Roll Morton 10. The Coo Coo Bird - Clarence Ashley 11. Volver, Volver - Vincente Fernandez 12. The Foggy Foggy Dew - Burl Ives 13. Black, Brown And Beige, Part IV (COME SUNDAY) - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, featuring Mahalia Jackson 14. El Paso - Marty Robbins 15. Trial Of Mary Maguire - Bobby Patterson 16. Down From Dover - Dolly Parton 17. Sail Away - Randy Newman 18. Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts - Bob Dylan 19. Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen 20. Blackwatertown - The Handsome Family
You done good. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Lighter Date: 19 Nov 04 - 06:49 PM This looks very interesting, Pop. But if American ballads are "obsessed with death," what about their British counterparts? You know, "Edward" and "Lord Randall" and did somebody say "Barbara Allen"? "Obsessed," of course, is a loaded term. I hope the book isn't as facile as the advertising wants us to think it is. |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: PoppaGator Date: 20 Nov 04 - 01:19 PM American ballads, by and large, are directly descended from (if not identical to) English ballads. And death, of course, is as universal a subject as one could imagine -- what culture does NOT muse upon tht topic? I recognize the name of Greil Marcus as a solid respectable writer whose work I'm always glad to read -- don't know about his collaborator. In any event, I'd take the advertising with a grain of salt and hope/trust that the book would turn out to be serious and worthwhile. The CD song list is certainly intriguiging, innit? |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Nerd Date: 20 Nov 04 - 07:17 PM I have the book and so far am not impressed with the first two essays. Both writers have essentially made fun of ballad scholarship and called it irrelevant, only to prove by their cluelessness that they could have benefitted from reading some of it. To have Dave Marsh saying "no one has ever treated Barbara Allen as a Song before" is pretty funny. To have Ann Powers reveal to you that "The Water is Wide" isn't really a ballad, and then muse on how odd it is that it is still treated by many writers as part of the American ballad tradition will have people familiar with ballad scholarship scratching their head; Tristram Coffin wrote pretty eloquently about Anglo-American lyric songs that are stripped-down ballads with floating verses added to them, and dubbed the phenomenon "the emotional core" of a ballad; this is precisely what "The Water is Wide" is. I think by picking the mix of people they did they kind of eliminated the possibility that anyone will know much of the lengthy literature on each ballad. There is SOME virtue in this, as they may see the ballad with a fresh perspective. But so far in both cases it has made their interpretations less interesting, not more, because they are unknowingly rehashing (in hipper lingo, to be sure) obvious things that scholars have said, or else free-associating "what I like about the ballad," both of which are self-centered and narrow approaches. Anyone who is any kind of scholar will also be infuriated that they had each writer provide a bibliography, but many of them are incomplete. Powers cites three or four scholars, but leaves every single one out of her bibliography so you won't be able to find their work easily. This is basic editorial courtesy, and if Marcus and Wilentz can't be bothered, and the authors can't be bothered, it bodes ill for the usefulness of the book. As I keep reading it, I'll post if my opinion changes. |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: PoppaGator Date: 20 Nov 04 - 07:57 PM Thanks -- I guess! Not being terribly scholarly about the subject, I'm not sure I'd even notice the same problems. Perhaps I would have been too easily duped by the various arguments, enjoyed the book on my own semi-naive level, and learned a few things, some true and some not. On the other hand, maybe I would have detected a shortcoming or two. Either way, I won't let anyone spoil it for me. And, as always, I won't be spending money on it, so my opinion won't be swayed by having made any kind of investment or commitment. It'll be a while before this is available at the library; I'll put a hold on it in plenty of time to be among the first to borrow a copy. By then, I'll have been forwarned, will read some or all of it anyway in the hope of being entertained and perhaps a bit enlightened, and promise to take everything with a grain of salt. |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Nerd Date: 21 Nov 04 - 02:19 AM One good thing: Ann Powers quotes Malcolm Douglas straight out of Mudcat post! |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Nerd Date: 21 Nov 04 - 04:29 PM Well, the third essay is the worst yet. The writer decides that Pretty Polly is a manifestation of the great Pagan mother-goddess, etc, etc. Pretty Polly! But looking ahead, R. Crumb's entry is very funny, both the cartoons and the letters with which they are bookended. Some of the more artistic renderings (Sharyn McCrumb's short story) look excellent, and I always like Joyce Carol Oates. Cecil Brown's book on Stagolee was really good. So I anticipate it getting better, not worse! |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie) Date: 21 Nov 04 - 05:13 PM Nerd- Can you tell us the ballad of which, "The Water is Wide," is the core? I cannot bring it to mind. |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Nerd Date: 21 Nov 04 - 05:35 PM It's reckoned to be Lord Jamie Douglas, Jean. Child 204. The ballad doesn't have the "Water is Wide" stanza itself, but it has the same situation, and it has verses which are often in versions of "The Water is Wide" (Waly, Waly, etc). BY the way, Ann Powers mentions your own version of "Love is Teasing" as a related song, and Marsh mentions your version in the "Barbara Allen" chapter, making you the only singer discussed in both. Another redeeming feature, in my opinion! But Powers always seems to making fun of people; she says you "claimed" to have learned it from your uncle--which is true, but her wording suggests that you mightn't have--and that Malcolm Douglas is a textual purist who was annoyed by modern singers using compiled texts. You could almost see her eyes rolling at us folkies as she wrote some of this! |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Lighter Date: 21 Nov 04 - 07:52 PM You go, Nerd. As soon as I read the ad copy I knew what to expect. And if you're surprised to see Pretty Polly made into a mother-goddess, you haven't read as many undergraduate papers as I have. Keep us posted. |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: edmur Date: 20 Jan 05 - 03:04 PM Nerd, et.al.: The arguments connecting Pretty Polly to the mother-goddess lineage seemed to be pretty well thought-out...at least the comparisons to other songs in this tradition seemed apt. But educate me (really!), if you care to: what's wrong with this comparison? Trying to learn...edmur |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 20 Jan 05 - 04:20 PM The fact that it's irrelevant, mostly. Although I'm sure that the piece is interesting, the song just isn't old enough to have been influenced by such ideas. Or, equally, it isn't recent enough to have been influenced by the modern re-invention of such ideas; whichever you prefer. The analogy is indeed very much the stuff of undergraduate essays, and I certainly perpetrated something of the sort in my own student days. In my case, it was the result of an uncritical acceptance of writers like Margaret Murray, Robert Graves and Jessie Weston; nowadays it's as likely to be a reliance on the vast body of "New Age" publications that re-iterate the speculations of those quondam authorities and others like them, apparently unaware that their theories are largely discredited. |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: PoppaGator Date: 20 Jan 05 - 04:42 PM Robert Graves is discredited, huh? His the one name I recognize among the three that Malcolm just mentioned; I believe I was taught in school to take him seriously -- back in the 60s. |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie) Date: 20 Jan 05 - 04:49 PM About my "claim" (as Ann Powers claims I claim), I've been meaning to write to her and set her straight. I learned, "O Love is Teasin' " from Peggy Staunton, one of our kitchen/dining-room workers at Henry Street Settlement, shortly after I first came to NYC in 1947 as a new social-work grad from Kentucky (UK)and lived for awhile in the Settlement "dorm." Peggy was born in Ireland and we used to swap songs and jig-steps in the dining room after everybody else had gone. I NEVER in my life claimed to have learned the song, nor any version of it, anywhere else. Ms. Powers must have got it mixed up with, "Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies," which many folks are reviving now, and which my family has sung forever..."Uncle" Jason did have a slightly different variant, and I have over years combined the two, so I give Jason (who stayed in Knott Co. when my folks moved around 1913) credit for his bits of lyrics and tune-turns which have crept into ours (the Perry Co. Ritchies. Or, it could have been another song- I have learned several from Uncle Jason- but it was NOT, "O Love is Teasin.' |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Cool Beans Date: 20 Jan 05 - 05:09 PM I got an advance reading copy a few months ago and I noticed it was dedicated to the late Dave "Sneaker" Ray (sic). I called the PR people but they said, basically, 'not my job, man.' Tell me someone caught that typo before the real book was published. |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 20 Jan 05 - 05:10 PM That was largely, not entirely, discredited! I'd better be a bit more specific and add that doesn't apply to all their work by any means, just to the wilder theories (the ones that get repeated most, I guess, even today). In Graves' case, genuine (and impressive) scholarship is almost inextricably mixed up with flights of poetic fancy (often sheer invention) and essentially it means that you can't take what he says on trust. His collection of ballad texts was a set book when I was in my first year at university (1972), but I certainly hope it's been dropped long since. Many of the notes are not so much inaccurate as invented (Westron Wind comes to mind. His "explanation" of that was entirely out of his own head). |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Joybell Date: 21 Jan 05 - 12:12 AM I still love to dip into "The White Goddess". Great fun although I wouldn't quote any of it as fact without seeking other evidence. Somehow it fits in my mind alongside "The Teachings of Don Juan - A Yaqui Way of Knowledge" (Carlos Castenada). Thing is - Robert Graves was a great poet, and writer. And clever. Really clever. So much more interesting than the New-Age writers of today. The references in them seldom go back beyond other books by the same author (or those of friends). Talk about self-referential! AND they're boring! These days I feel an attack of conniptions coming on when I see the word "Godess" mentioned. Interesting discussion here though. Thanks, Your Royal Highness PoppaGator. Cheers, Joy |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Nerd Date: 21 Jan 05 - 04:41 PM edmur, in addition to what Malcolm said, the problem with the "Pretty Polly as mother Goddess" formulation is that none of the evidence is there in the song itself. The most complete older versions of the song are clearly about a guy who kills his pregnant girlfriend, and then she comes back as a ghost and kills him. It is very typical in terms of conventional morality, and in terms of eighteenth and nineteenth century belief in spirits of murdered people. It is entirely explicable in those terms, which fit its period of popularity. So, why look for another explanation in ancient ideas which are at least a thousand years out of date by the time the song seems to have been written? (More recent versions omit everything but the initial murder, which makes the Goddess connection even more tenuous). Where these arguments generally fall apart is in specific details from the songs tht would support the argument. Instead, it's all flimsily based on generalities (after death, she is powerful and terrible, hence godlike, hence a goddess. She is pregnant, hence a Mother-Goddess). By this logic, practically any ghost story or horror movie is "really about" the pagan mother-Goddess or some other Pagan deity. Jean, I didn't realize that this wasn't even one of the songs you learned from Jason. Double shame on Powers! Malcolm, I am right with you in having been taken in by Weston and Graves--but I haven't got your excuse! I am younger than you, and they were already largely discredited by the time I got to them. I spent a few years believing in them until I had a chance to look further into the literature and into their specific claims. I never got to Murray until after I had already learned she was unreliable, so I was spared that one! All three, of course, are still fascinating reading, and all were very clever! |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Lighter Date: 21 Jan 05 - 05:24 PM Graves remains an outstanding memoirist and rather underappreciated poet of the 1914-18 war, despite his self-indulgent scholarly fantasies. He even did a decent but, um, somewhat quirky translation of the Iliad in the 1950s. In his war memoir, "Goodbye to all That" (still required reading in many college courses) he basically admits that his army service taught him that the strict truth shouldn't be allowed to get in the way of a good story. That view certainly influenced both "The White Goddess" and his anthology of ballads. (It was Graves who first asserted that the girl in "The Foggy Foggy Dew" was originally fleeing the Black Death.) |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: Peter T. Date: 21 Jan 05 - 05:38 PM The puzzle with this book is that I have been unable to find the CD anywhere -- I wanted to check it out, as Marcus is always interesting. I did see recent reference in a review of this book/CD to a brand new comic book version of the ballads which was supposed to be excellent -- anyone know about that? yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: rich-joy Date: 22 Jan 05 - 02:47 AM Peter T : it may just be the Charles Vess comic book of "Ballads" (Green Man Press) - see Mudcat threads : "Ballads Used in Literature" / "favourite stories in folksongs" Cheers! R-J |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: GUEST,Lighter at work Date: 22 Jan 05 - 08:32 AM Some of the stories in the Vess book are imaginative adaptations of ballad stories. Others are told fairly straight. It's a very nice-looking book. |
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Subject: RE: New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar' From: michaelr Date: 22 Jan 05 - 02:21 PM Here's a fairytale forum with Vess himself commenting. I'vee been a fan of his work since I discovered his and Neil Gaiman's "Stardust" books. Cheers, Michael |
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