Scholarly biography of a colorful folklorist who was equal parts academic, businessman, and hustler. Best known for spending much of the last 16 years of his life roaming the rural landscape for singers—from cowboys to convicts—who would record their folk songs, John Lomax (18671948) patched together a long career by working hard and exploiting his good- old-boy Texas persona and his old-boy university network with equal skill. First encouraged in his interest in folk music by his mentors at Harvard, Lomax solicited and collected songs from newspaper editors, educators, friends, and local officials while holding various positions at Texas A&M and the University of Texas. At both institutions he plunged into major squabbles, which are reported here with a completeness endearing only to academics. Twice, when the ivy tower became too hot, Lomax's friends got him into business, where he sold bonds with shrewdness and success. The Great Depression and ill health turned Lomax's interests back to music; he hit the road to deliver lectures and to record the tunes that so substantially increased the holdings of the Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk Song. Even this venture wasn't free of contention, particularly when ex-convict Huddie Ledbetter, an effective singer known as Leadbelly who found fame with Lomax's help, suspected the ``Big Boss'' was getting the better part of their business deal. Porterfield, an award-winning biographer and novelist, is clearly amused by his subject, but the resulting work is as heavy on detail as it is light on insight. It would have been better, for instance, to know why Porterfield claims, despite evidence to the contrary, that young Lomax was not ``rigidly conservative'' than what he ate at a particular diner. An unblinking portrait of Lomax's eccentricities, his outspokenness, and his prejudices—including racism—keep this from dissolving into standard academic fare. (25 illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-252-02216-5
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Univ. of Illinois
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
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
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
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