Endorsements
"It is the work of a superb scholar and master teacher
who is generous with compelling perceptions of what has made American music
’sing’, communicated in crystalline prose with humanity, humility,
and humor."
—H. Wiley Hitchcock, Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus, City
University of New York
"A highly readable and wonderful book that brings together
classical, folk, and popular music. No lover of American music should be
without it."
—Beverly Sills, Chairman, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
"Covering everything from early hymnody to the latest
hip-hop, Richard Crawford roves with an easy authority through the nation’s
musical life. His telling of the history of music in America is animated
by his command of the social context of music making and the breadth of
his musical sympathies. I cannot imagine a more engagingly written account
of the country’s music."
—Stanley Sadie, Editor, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians
"In the scope of its chronology and the range of its
examined musics—from the popular, the ethnic, the regional, and the
vernacular to the most ’cultivated’—America’s Musical
Lifemay seem encyclopedic, but it is in no sense an encyclopedia in style
or spirit. Rather, it is a distinguished music historian’s considered
overview of five centuries of our richly multiple musical culture, addressed
to general readers, who—when they emerge from reading the book—will
be general readers no longer."
—Milton Babbitt, William Shubael Conant Professor of Music Emeritus,
Princeton University
Copyright © 2005, W. W. Norton & Company. All
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