The Teatro Solís in Montevideo, Uruguay-established in 1856 and still operating-is the oldest theater in the Americas. Solís audiences thrilled to the lyricism of many of the great singers of the 19th Century, among them Adelina Patti, Romilda Pantaleoni, Gemma Bellincioni, and Enrico Caruso, accompanied by a 285-member company. Programs also featured orchestra and dance: the theater played host to dancer Vaslav Nijinksy's last stage performance and presented Puccini, Mascagni, Saint-Saëns and Richard Strauss. Susana Salgado's lively historical account-the very first of its kind-is enriched by anecdotes, reviews and illustrations. A complete narrative chronology of performances is indexed by performer and work, making this book a rare treat for opera buffs and an invaluable resource for scholars in the fields of music and dance history, American studies, and Latin American studies.

The South -- an inspiration for songwriters, a source of styles, and the birthplace of many of the nation's greatest musicians -- plays a defining role in American musical history. It is impossible to think of American music of the past century without such southern-derived forms as ragtime, jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, gospel, rhythm and blues, Cajun, zydeco, Tejano, rock'n'roll, and even rap. Musicians and listeners around the world have made these vibrant styles their own. Southern Music/American Music is the first book to investigate the facets of American music from the South and the many popular forms that emerged from it. In this substantially revised and updated edition, Bill C. Malone and David Stricklin bring this classic work into the twenty-first century, including new material on recent phenomena such as the huge success of the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the renewed popularity of Southern music, as well as important new artists Lucinda Williams, Alejandro Escovedo, and the Dixie Chicks, among others. Extensive bibliographic notes and a new suggested listening guide complete this essential study.

A stunningly-illustrated interweaving of first person narratives, photographs, cultural commentary and soundscapes, Bright Balkan Morning provides an unprecedented view of settled Romani lives in the Balkans and the unique roles of "Gypsy" instrument players in the region. These Romani instrumentalists from Iraklia, an ancient Greek Macedonian crossroads and market town that is home to about 2,000 Roma, provide the sounds that facilitate parties and rites of passage, performing an essential and highly valued service for their multicultural neighbors. At the heart of the book are ten first-person Romani life stories. Charles and Angeliki Keil situate these personal accounts within the cultural, historical and economic setting of Greek Macedonia, and provide an overview of musical events in diverse localities. The 161 black and white photographs by Dick Blau include parades, parties, weddings and wrestling matches; portraits of the musicians and their families; studies of domestic life in the Romani neighborhood; reproductions from Romani family albums and other historic images. Steven Feld's soundscape CD features the voices and instruments of people whose stories are told in the book. Familiar sounds of markets, church, neighborhood and countryside set the context for exuberant performances at home and at parties, cafes and nightclubs.CONTRIBUTORS: Angeliki Vellow Keil, Charles Keil, Steven Feld, Ian Hancock.

Salsa is a popular dance music developed by Puerto Ricans in New York City during the 1960s and 70s, based on Afro-Cuban forms. By the 1980s, the Colombian metropolis of Cali emerged on the global stage as an important center for salsa consumption and performance. Despite their geographic distance from the Caribbean and from Hispanic Caribbean migrants in New York City, Caleños (people from Cali) claim unity with Cubans, Puerto Ricans and New York Latinos by virtue of their having adopted salsa as their own. The City of Musical Memory explores this local adoption of salsa and its Afro-Caribbean antecedents in relation to national and regional musical styles, shedding light on salsa's spread to other Latin American cities. Cali's case disputes the prevalent academic notion that live music is more "real" or "authentic" than its recorded versions, since in this city salsa recordings were until recently much more important than musicians themselves, and continued to be influential in the live scene. This book makes valuable contributions to ongoing discussions about the place of technology in music culture and the complex negotiations of local and transnational cultural identities.

The 'Hood Comes First looks at the increasingly specific emphasis on real neighborhoods and streets in rap music and hip hop culture as an urgent response to the cultural and geographical ghettoization of black urban communities. Examining rap music, along with ancillary hip hop media including radio, music videos, rap press and the cinematic 'hood genre, Murray Forman analyzes hip hop culture's varying articulations of the terms "ghetto," "inner-city," and "the 'hood," and how these spaces, both real and imaginary, are used to define individual and collective identity.Negotiating academic, corporate, and "street" discourses, Forman assesses the dynamics between race, social space and youth. Race, class and national identification are recast and revised within rap's spatial discourse, concluding with the construction of "the 'hood," a social and geographic symbol that has become central to concepts of hip hop authenticity. Additionally, the book analyzes the processes within the music and culture industries through which hip hop has been amplified and disseminated from the 'hood to international audiences.

The first serious ethnomusicological study of Malagasy music, Recollecting from the Past evokes the complex sound and performative aesthetic in Madagascar called maresaka. Maresaka pertains not only to musical expression but extends into ways of remembering the past, aesthetics of everyday life, and Malagasy concepts of self and community. Ron Emoff focuses on tromba spirit possession ceremonies in which Malagasy use devotional practice as an occasion to expressively re-figure worlds often impeded by colonialism and postcolonial phenomena, extreme material poverty, and widespread illness. Malagasy not only preserve the past, but they interpret, revalue and transform it to their own ends. Music is crucial to these performances since powerful ancestral spirits will not enter into the present if not enticed by masterful musical performances, and so music itself provides a complex symbolic system with which Malagasy can recall and reconstruct the past. This groundbreaking study will be of interest to readers in the fields of anthropology, ethnomusicology, cultural studies, African studies, postcolonial and performance studies.

The thirteen essays that comprise Global Noise explore the hip hop scenes of Europe, Anglophone and Francophone Canada, Japan and Australia within their social, cultural and ethnic contexts. Countering the prevailing colonialist view that global hip hop is an exotic and derivative outgrowth of an African-American-owned idiom subject to assessment in terms of American norms and standards, Global Noise shows how international hip hop scenes, like those in France and Australia, developed by first adopting then adapting US models and establishing an increasing hybridity of local linguistic and musical features. The essays reveal diasporic manifestations of international hip hop that are rarely acknowledged in the growing commentary on the genre in the US. In the voices of rappers from around the globe with divergent backgrounds of race, nationality, class and gender, the authors find a consistent rhetoric of opposition and resistance to institutional forms of repression and the construction of a cohesive, historically-based subculture capable of accommodating regional and national diversities.CONTRIBUTORS: Roger Chamberland, Ian Condry, David Hesmondhalgh, Claire Levy, Ian Maxwell, Caspar Melville, Sarah Morelli, Mark Pennay, André J.M. Prévos, Ted Swedenburg, Jacqueline Urla and Mir Wermuth.

" For years fiddlers and folklorists have prized the old-time fiddle tunes from Kentucky. Many of the most outstanding country music artists hail from the state, including Bill Monroe, widely regarded as the founder of bluegrass music. Even Aaron Copland lifted, note-for-note, a Kentucky fiddler's performance of "Bonaparte's Retreat" for the "Hoedown" section of his ballet Rodeo. That tune and nearly 200 others are transcribed here, most for the first time. They are taken from recordings of Kentucky fiddlers, many of whom were born before 1900, practitioners of a style of playing now extremely rare. Jeff Todd Titon places the tunes in their historical context, provides biographical sketches of the performers, and offers suggestions for contemporary fiddlers who want to use the book for performance. A compact disc of recordings is also included.

The practice of singing and songwriting in France during the Great War provides an intriguing tool for the exploration of the French cultural politics of the epoch. Responding to the dearth of cultural studies of the First World War, Regina Sweeney's unique cross-disciplinary study illuminates many of the hitherto unexplored corners of an era that many historians consider to exhibit a break with recognizable trends.In early twentieth century Europe, singing was considered a part of education integral to the formation of good citizens. Singing was especially important to the French, for whom it was historically associated with authenticity of feeling and purity of character, and thereby with the very roots of French democracy; it was particularly associated with the image of France as a victorious nation. But as Sweeney shows, different performances of the same patriotic song could carry vastly different meanings. By focusing on singing, Sweeney is able to provide a more nuanced reading of French Great War cultures than ever before, and to show that cultures previously held to be exclusive -- those of the home front and the Western front, for example -- existed in dialectical tension and were themselves far from homogenous.

Banda music has been performed by traditional brass bands in rural northwestern Mexico for more than a century, while technobanda, a newer style that has replaced the brass instruments with synthesizers and electric instruments, has become part of a lifestyle for tens of thousands of young people in the US, particularly in Los Angeles. The young people who flock to technobanda concerts also insist on the use of the Spanish language, a particular etiquette on the dance floor and above all, a specific style of dress: cowboy/cowgirl apparel and belt buckles emblazoned with the name of their home Mexican state. In this engaging and insightful ethnography, Helena Simonett brings us inside the music and its culture. Her discussions of narco-trafficking and narco-corridos ballads reveal the interconnected roles of musical, commercial and criminal networks, and illuminate how and why musical and social issues become so interconnected for banda artists and audiences. In this richly contextualized analysis of a singularly important contemporary musical style, Simonett sheds new light on how expressive culture both generates and reflects intersecting social identities.

Music and Cinema brings together leading scholars from musicology, music theory, film studies, and cultural studies to explore the importance of music in the cinematic construction of ideologies. The 15 essays include "Songlines: Alternative Journeys in Contemporary European Cinema" by Wendy Everett; "Strategies of Remembrance: Music and History in the New German Cinema" by Caryl Flinn; "Designing Women: Art Deco, the Musical, and the Female Body" by Lucy Fischer; "Kansas City Dreamin': Robert Altman's Jazz History Lesson" by Krin Gabbard; "Disciplining Josephine Baker: Gender, Race, and the Limits of Disciplinarity" by Kathryn Kalinak; "Finding Release: Storm Clouds and The Man Who Knew Too Much" by Murray Pomerance, and many more.

A legend in the folk music community, John Jacob Niles enjoyed a lengthy career as a balladeer, folk collector, and songwriter. Ever close to his Kentucky roots, he spent much of his adulthood searching for the most well-loved songs of the southern Appalachia. The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles brings together a wealth of songs with the stories that inspired them, arranged by a gifted performer. This new edition includes all of the melodies, text, commentary, and illustrations of the 1961 original and features a new introduction by Ron Pen, director of the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music at the University of Kentucky.

"You Better Work!" is the first detailed study of underground dance music or UDM, a phenomenon that has its roots in the overlap and cross-fertilization of African American and gay cultural sensibilities that have occurred since the 1970s. UDM not only predates and includes disco, but also constitutes a unique performance practice in the history of American social dance. Taking New York City as its geographic focus,

Jean Ritchie, the youngest of fourteen children born and raised in Viper, Kentucky, is considered one of the greatest balladeers in this century. Her performances have influenced the resurgence of interest in folk music and given audiences a glimpse into the heart of Appalachia. Jean Ritchie's Swapping Song Book brings together twenty-one songs from the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky. Many are old songs, brought over by settlers from Scotland, Ireland, and England. Child ballads, gospel music, play party tunes, and frolic songs have been handed down by family members, with each generation adding or embellishing verses and melodies. This new edition retains the original text, written by Ritchie, and includes her husband George Pickow's beautiful photographs to help illustrate the stories of such songs as "Jubilee," "The Old Soap Gourd," and "Ground Hog." A new foreword by Charles Wolfe shows how Ritchie's collection of songs is "part of the rich folk poetry" that makes up Appalachian culture.

For the first ever American Music Masters event sponsored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, musicians and folkies came together to salute the life and legacy of Woody Guthrie, America's folk troubadour. With contributions from Guthrie's son Arlo and his longtime friends Pete Seeger and Harold Leventhal, and with new appreciations and insights provided by scholars and critics, Hard Travelin' continues that celebration, offering a new understanding of Guthrie's contribution to America's music and culture. It is illustrated with photographs and drawings, many never-before-seen, from the Woody Guthrie Archives. Guthrie's songs -- such as "This Land Is Your Land," "Pretty Boy Floyd," or "Roll on Columbia" -- are still known and sung by many Americans, while the story of his life has taken on a mythic cast -- the modern troubadour, the hobo balladeer and union supporter, the wandering folk singer who heard and wrote in the voice of the people. Guthrie's influence is felt not only whenever someone sings one of his songs, but any time a modern folk group or rocker sings a protest song or joins a social or political cause.In this book, Guthrie's family and friends offer personal and often poignant recollections of his life. Noted writers such as Dave Marsh, David Shumway, and Robert Cantwell shed new light on the Guthrie legacy, including an expanded appreciation of his impact on rock and roll, through such figures as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. They also assess Guthrie's place in the political and social movements of his time, especially his support for unions and for the communist party; his attitudes toward race; and the little-studied topic of his visual art, the often very personal drawings, doodles, sketches, and paintings that he produced throughout his life. The book concludes with a valuable biblio/discography.

For sixty years, Renfro Valley has highlighted some of the biggest and most influential names in country and folk music. The show began in the 1930s as a combination radio broadcast and stage performance, and today it has grown into an array of shows and headliner concerts featuring old-time country music, country gospel, modern country, bluegrass, and comedy acts. John Lair, the ambitious and deeply committed founder of Renfro Valley, was fascinated with the past. He created the Renfro Valley Barn Dance to give radio listeners the experience of an old-fashioned rural hoe-down. He resisted the encroachment of popular "cowboy songs" and kept the stage and the airwaves filled with authentic Kentucky mountain music. Lair's vision struck a chord with music fans: on some Saturday nights, more than ten thousand people arrived at Renfro Valley and performances went on all night to accommodate the audiences. Pete Stamper, a forty-seven year veteran of Renfro Valley, traces the show's history from its early radio days in Cincinnati and Chicago, through the glory years in the 1940s, the lean times in the 1960s when rock and roll seemed to take over the music scene, to its renewed popularity in the 1990s. Once known as "the valley where time stands still," Renfro Valley has updated its programming while maintaining the feel of the folk culture on which it was founded. Red Foley, the Coon Creek Girls, Slim Miller, Pee Wee King, Old Joe Clark, and a host of other musicians and performers helped shape the development of Renfro Valley. Stamper describes the role of the Valley in the commercial history of country music and highlights John Lair's invaluable contribution to country music as a talent scout, businessman, and collector of traditional music of the South.