Live Music in America: A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé
A book talk by Steve Waksman, Smith College Professor of Music
A book talk by Steve Waksman, Smith College Professor of Music
Sunday, January 15, 2023 at 2 pm
Eli's Room (Lower Level Studio)
Northampton Center for the Arts
33 Hawley Street, Northampton, MA
Please note: Masks are required for this in-person event.
Registration is full.
Sliding scale admission: $5-20 | Students: free of charge
Northampton Center for the Arts
33 Hawley Street, Northampton, MA
Please note: Masks are required for this in-person event.
Registration is full.
Sliding scale admission: $5-20 | Students: free of charge
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Smith College Professor of Music Steve Waksman will discuss his new book, Live Music in America: A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé. Starting with Jenny Lind's fabled U.S. tour (she performed to large crowds in Northampton in 1851 and 1852) and winding all the way into the twenty-first century, Live Music in America is the first book to consider the history of live music in the U.S. across genres and time periods. It draws upon previously unstudied archival materials to shed new light on the origins of jazz, the emergence of rock 'n' roll, and the rise of the modern music festival. Dr. Waksman's presentation will be illustrated with photos from his research along with music and video clips.
Steve Waksman is Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor of Music at Smith College. Live Music in America: A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé was published by Oxford University Press in 2022. He is also the author of Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience (1999), and This Ain’t the Summer of Love: Conflict and Crossover in Heavy Metal and Punk (2009).
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Books will be available for sale at the event.
Author Steve Waksman
Karen Brown Photo / NEPM |
“Live music is an incredibly complex cultural phenomenon. But I think we often just think about it as this thing that happens. It's like, ‘It's live music. What do you need to do? You plug a few instruments into some amplifiers. You rock out.’ But it's not just that."
- Steve Waksman |
Live Music in America: A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé
by Steve Waksman
Oxford University Press, 2022
by Steve Waksman
Oxford University Press, 2022
When the Swedish concert singer Jenny Lind toured the U.S. in 1850, she became the prototype for the modern pop star. Meanwhile, her manager, P.T. Barnum, became the prototype for another figure of enduring significance: the pop culture impresario. Starting with Lind's fabled U.S. tour and winding all the way into the twenty-first century, Live Music in America surveys the ongoing impact and changing conditions of live music performance in the U.S. It covers a range of historic performances, from the Fisk Jubilee Singers expanding the sphere of African American music in the 1870s, to Benny Goodman bringing swing to Carnegie Hall in 1938, to 1952's Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland - arguably the first rock and roll concert - to Beyoncé's boundary-shattering performance at the 2018 Coachella festival. More than that, the book details the roles played by performers, audiences, media commentators, and a variety of live music producers (promoters, agents, sound and stage technicians) in shaping what live music means and how it has evolved. Live Music in America connects what occurs behind the scenes to what takes place on stage to highlight the ways in which live music is very deliberately produced and does not just spontaneously materialize.
In partnership with the Northampton Center for the Arts