Sweet Air: Modernism, Regionalism, and American Popular Song

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Sweet Air: Modernism, Regionalism, and American Popular Song

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Sweet Air rewrites the history of early twentieth-century pop music in modernist terms. Tracking the evolution of popular regional genres such as blues, country, folk, and rockabilly in relation to the growth of industry and consumer culture, Edward P. Comentale shows how this music became a vital means of exploring the new and often overwhelming feelings brought on by modern life. Comentale examines these rural genres as they translated the traumas of local experience--the racial violence of the Delta, the mass exodus from the South, the Dust Bowl of the Texas panhandle--into sonic form. Considering the accessibility of these popular music forms, he asserts the value of music as a source of progressive cultural investment, linking poor, rural performers and audiences to an increasingly vast network of commerce, transportation, and technology.

Reviews

The Journal of American Culture

In his second book, Edward Comentale revisits and reconceptualizes some obscure portions of American popular music. . . .It aptly highlights the dynamics opposing mainstream culture and regional cultures in the US. . . . No one can deny this author is passionate about early American music from the South

The Journal of American Culture

Aptly highlights the dynamics opposing mainstream culture and regional cultures in the US. It is clear Comentale knows very well the American music he comments and loves

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