Cool Town - (A Ferris and Ferris Book) by Grace Elizabeth Hale (Paperback)

About the Book

"In Cool Town, Grace Elizabeth Hale examines the town's flourishing as a Southern alternative culture mecca, emerging out of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and early 1970s to become home for a set of artistic, social, and political alternatives to northern liberalism or urban punk on the left and Sunbelt Republicanism on the right. In this moment of cultural flourishing, Hale argues, a generation of young white southerners could not or did not see themselves fleeing the region, but also did not fit the cultural or political options available at home. So they blended a DIY ethos, local traditions, and musical and other influences from outside to create their own thing-the "Athens scene"--

Book Synopsis

In the summer of 1978, the B-52's conquered the New York underground. A year later, the band's self-titled debut album burst onto the Billboard charts, capturing the imagination of fans and music critics worldwide. The fact that the group had formed in the sleepy southern college town of Athens, Georgia, only increased the fascination. Soon, more Athens bands followed the B-52's into the vanguard of the new American music that would come to be known as "alternative," including R.E.M., who catapulted over the course of the 1980s to the top of the musical mainstream. As acts like the B-52's, R.E.M., and Pylon drew the eyes of New York tastemakers southward, they discovered in Athens an unexpected mecca of music, experimental art, DIY spirit, and progressive politics -- a creative underground as vibrant as any to be found in the country's major cities.

In Athens in the eighties, if you were young and willing to live without much money, anything seemed possible. Cool Town reveals the passion, vitality, and enduring significance of a bohemian scene that became a model for others to follow. Grace Elizabeth Hale experienced the Athens scene as a student, small-business owner, and band member. Blending personal recollection with a historian's eye, she reconstructs the networks of bands, artists, and friends that drew on the things at hand to make a new art of the possible, transforming American culture along the way. In a story full of music and brimming with hope, Hale shows how an unlikely cast of characters in an unlikely place made a surprising and beautiful new world.

Review Quotes

"A carefully constructed history of how Athens, Georgia became a cultural hot spot. . . . A welcome history of an overlooked milieu, one that provides ample inspiration for art makers today."--Kirkus Reviews

"Both a historian and a participant in the music scene, Hale crafts a lively account of 1980s Athens: the artists, their stories, and the haunts they frequented, such as the Grit and the 40 Watt Club."--Library Journal

"Captivating. . . . A deeply researched, highly engaging history of the Athens music scene."--Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Delivers more than a love song to the music. Cool Town also serves up a textured portrait of a generation caught between baby and tech booms, wriggling under the thumb of the mainstream--in the pre-internet days when 'mainstream' was a discernible thing--and rummaging through thrift-store bins both literal and figurative in an effort to create something new."--New York Times Book Review

"Hale brings to this project the keen insights of. A talented historian and deep personal knowledge. . . . [Cool Town] is a rewarding read, with crackling prose that well matches such a captivating topic."--Journal of Southern History

"Hale offers a portrait of Athens that emphasizes fluidity, collectivity, and conviviality, conditions that were certainly framed by the relative homogeneity of the scene's participants."--Los Angeles Review of Books

"Hale's rich, personal narrative draws readers in. . . . This colorfully rendered reverie will delight indie music fans."--Publishers Weekly

"Reconstructs the musical hotbed that birthed R.E.M., The B-52s, and Neutral Milk Hotel."--The AV Club

"The Athens Effect propagated a thrift-store, sexually fluid, avant-pop aesthetic that seemed more accessible than the extremes of punk or of successors such as goth. The fun of Cool Town is to hear where those elements came from, illuminated by Hale's theories about why, and, most poignantly, what it means today."--Bookforum

"While the Athens buzz may have been manufactured, Athens is a very real place, and Hale writes with real passion about her formative years there."--"The Currents Rock and Roll Book Club, Minnesota Public Radio"

About the Author

Grace Elizabeth Hale is the Commonwealth Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Virginia. Her previous books include A Nation of Outsiders: How the White Middle Class Fell in Love with Rebellion in Postwar America and Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890@-1940.