Items related to Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster And The Rise Of American Popular...

Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster And The Rise Of American Popular Culture - Softcover

Emerson, Ken

 
9780306808524: Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster And The Rise Of American Popular Culture

Synopsis

Stephen Foster (1826-1864) was America's first great songwriter and the first to earn his living solely through his music. He composed some 200 songs, including such classics as "Oh! Susanna," Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," "Old Folks at Home (Way down upon the Swanee River)," and "Camptown Races (Doo-dah! Doo-dah!)." He virtually invented popular music as we recognize it to this day, yet he died at age thirty-seven, a forgotten and nearly penniless alcoholic on the Bowery. The author reveals Foster's contradictory life while disclosing how the dynamics of nineteenth-century industrialization, westward expansion, the Gold Rush, slavery, and the Civil War infused his music, and how that music influenced popular culture.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Ken Emerson, a former editor of The New York Times Magazine and New York Newsday, has written about popular music for thirty years. He lives in New Jersey.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.