Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster And The Rise Of American Popular Culture - Softcover

Emerson, Ken

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0306808528 ISBN 13: 9780306808524

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 1998

Synopsis

"A colorful, panoramic view of 19-century American society--with P. T. Barnum, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Foster's relative President James Buchanan all glimpsed in the background. The author's enviably broad knowledge of pop music . . . allows him to draw provocative and intelligent parallels with figures from American culture past and present."--Washington Times

Stephen Foster (1826-1864) was America's first great songwriter and the first to earn his living solely through his music. He composed some 200 songs, including such classics as "Oh! Susanna," "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," "Old Folks at Home (Way down upon the Swanee River)," and "Camptown Races (Doo-dah! Doo-dah!)." He virtually invented popular music as we recognize it to this day, yet he died at age thirty-seven, a forgotten and nearly penniless alcoholic on the Bowery. The author reveals Foster's contradictory life while disclosing how the dynamics of nineteenth-century industrialization, westward expansion, the Gold Rush, slavery, and the Civil War infused his music, and how that music influenced popular culture.

About this title

Review:

Ken Emerson's thickly textured narrative features an affectionate examination of American music's diverse strands as well as a perceptive portrait of the nation's first great songwriter. Stephen Foster (1826-64) was born in Pittsburgh and visited the South only briefly, yet songs like "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Oh! Susanna" drew on black Southern culture to create a uniquely American form of popular music. The author is clear-sighted about the complex blend of racism and genuine compassion that infused Foster's "blackface" compositions.

About the Author:

Ken Emerson, a former editor of The New York Times Magazine and New York Newsday, has written about popular music for thirty years. He lives in New Jersey.

About this edition

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0306808528
• ISBN 13: 9780306808524
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416