Electric Eden

Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music

Nonfiction, Entertainment, Music, Theory & Criticism, History & Criticism, Reference, History
Cover of the book Electric Eden by Rob Young, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Rob Young ISBN: 9781429965897
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publication: May 10, 2011
Imprint: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Language: English
Author: Rob Young
ISBN: 9781429965897
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication: May 10, 2011
Imprint: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Language: English

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of 2011 title

In the late 1960s, with popular culture hurtling forward on the sounds of rock music, some brave musicians looked back instead, trying to recover the lost treasures of English roots music and update them for the new age. The records of Fairport Convention, Pentangle, Steeleye Span, and Nick Drake are known as "folk rock" today, but Rob Young's epic, electrifying book makes clear that those musicians led a decades-long quest to recover English music-and with it, the ancient ardor for mysticism and paganism, for craftsmanship and communal living.

It is a commonplace that rock and R&B came out of the folk and blues revivals of the early 1960s, and Young shows, through enchanting storytelling and brilliant commentary, that a similar revival in England inspired the Beatles and Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Traffic, Kate Bush and Talk Talk. Folklorists notated old songs and dances. Marxists put folk music forward as the true voice of the people. Composers like Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams devised rich neo-traditional pageantry. Today, the pioneers of the "acid folk" movement see this music as a model for their own.

Electric Eden is that rare book which has something truly new to say about popular music, and like Greil Marcus's Lipstick Traces, it uses music to connect the dots in a thrilling story of art and society, of tradition and wild, idiosyncratic creativity.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of 2011 title

In the late 1960s, with popular culture hurtling forward on the sounds of rock music, some brave musicians looked back instead, trying to recover the lost treasures of English roots music and update them for the new age. The records of Fairport Convention, Pentangle, Steeleye Span, and Nick Drake are known as "folk rock" today, but Rob Young's epic, electrifying book makes clear that those musicians led a decades-long quest to recover English music-and with it, the ancient ardor for mysticism and paganism, for craftsmanship and communal living.

It is a commonplace that rock and R&B came out of the folk and blues revivals of the early 1960s, and Young shows, through enchanting storytelling and brilliant commentary, that a similar revival in England inspired the Beatles and Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Traffic, Kate Bush and Talk Talk. Folklorists notated old songs and dances. Marxists put folk music forward as the true voice of the people. Composers like Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams devised rich neo-traditional pageantry. Today, the pioneers of the "acid folk" movement see this music as a model for their own.

Electric Eden is that rare book which has something truly new to say about popular music, and like Greil Marcus's Lipstick Traces, it uses music to connect the dots in a thrilling story of art and society, of tradition and wild, idiosyncratic creativity.

More books from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Cover of the book Not Pretty Enough by Rob Young
Cover of the book Ants Among Elephants by Rob Young
Cover of the book Family by Rob Young
Cover of the book Nice Weather by Rob Young
Cover of the book Letters on Cézanne by Rob Young
Cover of the book Belle Prater's Boy by Rob Young
Cover of the book The Ninth Hour by Rob Young
Cover of the book Cleopatra's Nose by Rob Young
Cover of the book Pillars of the Republic by Rob Young
Cover of the book Bluesman by Rob Young
Cover of the book Hug It Out! by Rob Young
Cover of the book Hello, My Name Is . . . by Rob Young
Cover of the book Selected Poems 1988-2013 by Rob Young
Cover of the book Mothers by Rob Young
Cover of the book All at Once by Rob Young
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy