Mark Zwonitzer

A footnote is worth a thousand words.

This is a detailed and highly readable biography of The Original Carter Family -- a group which, perhaps more than any other in all the world, defined the course of American "old-time country" music and its offshoots -- bluegrass, "classic" country, modern country. The hundreds of songs they recorded included many classics, and their style -- in particular, the guitar work of Maybelle Carter -- helped set the course for almost all musicians after her. For more than half a century -- through the lives of Maybelle, Sara, and A. P. Carter, and Maybelle's daughters Helen, June, and Anita Carter, and June's husband Johnny Cash -- they helped shape American music.

This book doesn't cover that very well. There are plenty of vital Carter Family songs that I don't recall hearing mentioned ("The Storms Are On the Ocean," "Give Me the Roses While I Live," "Gold Watch and Chain," "Hello Stranger," and "When the World's On Fire" are just a handful of examples). As far as discographic information goes, forget it. Also, the descriptions of the Carters' musical style is, let's just says, pretty meaningless if you haven't heard it; it's clear the authors aren't actually interested in musical technique. And the book really doesn't make clear how different the music of Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters was from the Original Carter Family (bluegrassers, you may insert an accordion joke here), and how the later Carters continued to turn more and more pop and less and less old-time country. This book isn't history; it's biography.

Of course, biography has its place, and that place is very important. Indeed, I wanted this book more for biography than history, because I wanted information about the personality traits of the Carters -- and found, indeed, some very intriguing information about A. P., the member of the Original Carter Family who didn't really play an instrument but who collected and edited most of their texts. The information about A. P., if accurate, is tremendously interesting and significant. If it's true.

But there's the rub. If it's true. There is no documentation! None, nada, nothing. At best, there may be a statement that "so-and-so says," but even that is rare, and most of what we read here is completely un-sourced.

Admittedly there is, in this case, a complete lack of written documentation; there are no diaries, no family histories, none of the things biographers love. The authors admit to have gotten their information from talking to people who knew the Carters. But this book was written twenty years after Sara and Maybelle died; it was written a century after many of the events it describes. Who was still around to tell these stories? And what checks did the authors make on those very old memories? No way to tell. At a number of places (e.g. in descriptions of the way the earliest Carter recordings were made), we know that the book is wrong (the recordings were made electrically, not acoustically). So I find it very hard to trust this book.

If you just want information about the Carters, this is probably the best source out there. But don't treat it as gospel. At best, it's someone else's sermons on a gospel text.… (mais)

Samuel Clemens is an enduring interest, and I thoroughly enjoyed this account of the final years of his life, co-mingled as it was with my first exposure to a biography of a Hay. Both biographies are worthy, and the subjects' influence on, and reactions to, the rise of American imperialism is an engrossing subject. Yet this didn't quite scratch the itch I'd hoped it would. Twain's friendship and respect for Hay, despite their substantial differences over the McKinley and Roosevelt administrations' actions in the Philippines never generates a tension in Zwonitzer's writing the way I felt it should have given the import of the subject matter, Clemens's passion on the subject, and Hay's involvement. In some respects, I think this wasn't quite what I expected is because the men, while born in the same general area of Missouri, and close for a time in their young adulthood, were not particularly close late in life, and their was never much, if any, tension between them personally. Had Zwonitzer brought more to bear on the dissonance between these hugely important characters, perhaps been more of an antagonistic narrator with regard his subjects, not only the savagery arising from the strains of white supremacy, Christianity, and oligarchy that drove the politics and policies of the era, a milieu both men were naturally soaked in, I'd recommend this more highly.

For Clemens buffs, it's an essential read, I think. For me, it was also a nice buttress for my understanding of the McKinley and Roosevelt Presidencies, the former barely getting mentioned, as I recall, in my history lessons in HS and in college, so I was glad for the chance to learn more about it while reading about Clemens and Hay.… (mais)

Thorough A lengthy examination of American history at the turn into the twentieth century. The author chose to narrate the period through the eyes of two American legends, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and John Hay (President Lincoln's secretary). Both men were seeking to secure their places in history, during this period, the twilight of their lives. The amount of ground covered is immense. The two main characters are sometimes tangentially connected, but the author manages to explore different viewpoints as to America's role using them as his windows into the period. The device works well, succeeding in pulling together difficult points. This is not a book to be rushed through, rather one that should be read a bit at a time, giving the reader the chance to determine his own opinions.… (mais)