Music from the True Vine - by Bill C Malone (Paperback)

About the Book

Music from the True Vine: Mike Seeger's Life and Musical Journey

Book Synopsis

A musician, documentarian, scholar, and one of the founding members of the influential folk revival group the New Lost City Ramblers, Mike Seeger (1933-2009) spent more than fifty years collecting, performing, and commemorating the culture and folk music of white and black southerners, which he called "music from the true vine." In this fascinating biography, Bill Malone explores the life and musical contributions of folk artist Seeger, son of musicologists Charles and Ruth Crawford Seeger and brother of folksingers Pete and Peggy Seeger.

Malone argues that Seeger, while not as well known as his brother, may be more important to the history of American music through his work in identifying and giving voice to the people from whom the folk revival borrowed its songs. Seeger recorded and produced over forty albums, including the work of artists such as Libba Cotten, Tommy Jarrell, Dock Boggs, and Maybelle Carter. In 1958, with an ambition to recreate the southern string bands of the twenties, he formed the New Lost City Ramblers, helping to inspire the urban folk revival of the sixties. Music from the True Vine presents Seeger as a gatekeeper of American roots music and culture, showing why generations of musicians and fans of traditional music regard him as a mentor and an inspiration.

Review Quotes

An excellent and affectionate biography.--Times Literary Supplement

An excellent book for the general reader of traditional music history and even for those who knew Seeger. . . . Malone's biography, with its detailed references, will be an important resource for further scholarly research on the history of traditional American music.--Studies in American Culture

An illuminating biography. . . . Paints Seeger's contribution to the folk music revival as one of genuine respect for and commemoration of the music he was preserving and lets the importance of Seeger's work speak for itself.--Library Journal

An important contribution to folklore scholarship. . . . Rich in detail and could be a blueprint for telling the story of an individual's entrance into a musical career.--Journal of American Folklore

In Bill C. Malone, Seeger has a biographer worthy of his importance.--Foreword Reviews

Malone, long the nation's most authoritative historian of country music, has written an impressively researched, psychologically insightful, and eminently readable biography of an individual whose lifework changed our understanding both of folk music and the southern region that spawned it.--Journal of Southern History

Resistant to making his own life a central part of his legacy, [Mike Seeger] remained an enigma to many who'd long relished and built on his music. . . . The more obscure parts of the story are clarified in Bill C. Malone's biography.--Wall Street Journal

What renders the book relevant to a wide range of readers--whether or not they have ever heard of Mike Seeger--is its emphasis on placing the musician's life into broader contexts.--West Virginia History

Malone traces Seeger's life and achievements with affection and in remarkable detail.--Booklist

This is a delightful biography of Mike Seeger . . . . A must read for anyone interested in folk music. Essential. All readers.--Choice

About the Author

Bill C. Malone is professor of history emeritus at Tulane University. Widely regarded as the foremost historian of country music, he is author of Country Music, U.S.A. and Don't Get above Your Raisin': Country Music and the Southern Working Class. For UNC Press, he is also the editor of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Vol. 12: Music.