Positively Fourth Street is an evocative account of four remarkable people at a remarkable point in postwar musical history, by a writer whose first book was the award-winning biography of Billy Strayhorn. Critical yet fair, it is a reminder that idols don't have feet of clay so much as of flesh. Joan and Bob and Richard and Mimi trod on one another's toes and occasionally landed a well-aimed kick. But when all is sung and done, separately and together, they made some wonderful music. -- Liz Thomson
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Sounds like another fascinating look into the early years of Dylan and co. with a focus on their interrelationships.
Not so flattering a review from the NYTimes,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/books/01/06/10/reviews/010610.10kellyt.html
I was looking for something else when I found this, thought you might like looking at it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/lomax/
Positively Fourth Street was something I read, after all it was just around the corner. I believe I mentioned that title just by way of patter but it may have been in the first post that I wrote and then skipped over re: what Copland's music "Looks like...in motion", as a response to robertwhalen. I got side-tracked from Agnes de Mille of the film-family as a dancer and the Martha Graham commission to Copland, in view of Rodeo and Appalachian Spring as I saw it, saw them, as a child.
I feel Wilentz threw these in simply as example of Early Americana in Music, although pre-Dylan,as an influence on what was coming, as surely as were/had been Guthrie and Seeger, etc.
Looking back, however, all I can say is Thank,God, we moved on to a more complex music once the folk revival lessened in popularity. Notice: I say 'music', not the poetic form or rhapsodic charisma manifest in Dylan who did wonders in an upsurge for Poetry as performance art introducing a more international poetry scene.