by Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 10, 2002
“Above all, the Carters proved that simple songs about the lives of ordinary people can be as beautiful, as profound, and as...
An investigative biography of the Carters, the legendary bluegrass/country music family, from documentary filmmaker Zwonitzer.
With little original source material to work from, Zwonitzer did plenty of ferreting to discover the influences of the original Carter Family—A.P., Sara, and Maybelle—who 75 years ago put their voices onto wax cylinders and left them to be remastered forever. With their unforgettable harmonizing and scratch guitar work on such songs as “Wildwood Flower” and “Let the Circle Be Unbroken,” the Carters’ music influenced later singers from Woody Guthrie and Elvis to Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. But Zwonitzer also tracks musical influences on the Carters, from white southern gospel to Appalachian balladry, including descriptions of how A.P. scared up songs from the family’s poor hill country—from “remote hollows, tenant farms, mining camps, [and] big-city factories,” not to mention how they created wholly new material—songs of love, longing, hurt, loss, and suffering. Never soupy, always clear-eyed, the Carters offered a balm to the woes of the Great Depression with songs like “Keep On the Sunny Side.” Zwonitzer makes clear that they were no ham hillbilly act but just regular people, a family, though much of the story here is about the unraveling of that family and the reasons behind A.P. and Sara’s divorce and subsequent withdrawal from performing. Mother Maybelle kept at it, with her daughters, in the new Carter Family, and Zwonitzer charts their work here too, and their personal relations with artists like Hank Snow, Flatt and Scruggs, and Johnny Cash. He sheds light on the music industry’s financial skullduggeries, and there’s a greatly entertaining chapter on Texas radio station XERA, where the Carters were regulars, and on its owner “Doctor” Brinkley, purveyor of snake oil and sundry remedies.
“Above all, the Carters proved that simple songs about the lives of ordinary people can be as beautiful, as profound, and as lasting as music studied in conservatories.” Amen.Pub Date: July 10, 2002
ISBN: 0-684-85763-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
Share your opinion of this book
More by Mark Zwonitzer
BOOK REVIEW
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
Share your opinion of this book
by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1945
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
Share your opinion of this book
More by Richard Wright
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Richard Wright ; illustrated by Nina Crews
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.