A dense, brilliant charting of England’s folk-music tradition and its multiplicity of modern mutations.
The Wire editor at large Young brings considerable acumen to bear in this ambitious critical history. Beginning with cult siren Vashti Bunyan’s quixotic 1971 journey across the countryside in a horse-drawn wagon, the writer explores a “silver chain” of impulses—pastoral, utopian, pagan—running through the indigenous music of the British Isles. Beginning in the late 19th century at the doorstep of writer-artist William Morris, the author probes the pioneering work of such song collectors as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Cecil Sharp. Moving into the age of recorded music, he celebrates key figures in the 1950s folk boom like A.L. Lloyd and Ewan MacColl. The meat of the narrative takes in the ’60s, when England’s folk clubs spawned seminal performers like guitarist Davy Graham, vocalist Shirley Collins and family harmony group The Watersons, who in turn inspired the great folk-rock acts of the era. Young focuses on the major names—Fairport Convention, Pentangle, the Incredible String Band, Nick Drake, John Martyn, Steeleye Span—but he doesn’t ignore dozens of lesser-known performers in tune with the Arcadian muse. After a look at the waning of folk-rock, which coincided with the late-’70s ascent of Thatcherism, Young surveys the works of such latter-day inheritors as Kate Bush, David Sylvian, Julian Cope and Mark Hollis’ Talk Talk. It’s impossible to completely convey the sweep and detail of the author’s work, which reflects a deep knowledge of congruent works in English literature, film and visual arts. He logs the connections between the folk boom and parallel developments in Early Music and world music, and doesn’t ignore its tangential connections with genres like heavy metal. He ties the movement to the English landscape itself in a compelling chapter on festivals that culminates in Glastonbury’s 1971 debut. While the book is massive, it never bogs down in pedantry, and Young’s lyrical, good-humored, bracingly intelligent narrative voice keeps the story moving at a brisk pace. A breathtakingly accomplished, entertaining and illuminating epic.
Pub Date: May 17, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-86547-856-5
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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