Music is fundamental to human existence, a cultural universal among all
humans for all times. It is embedded in our evolution, encoded in our
DNA, which is to say, essential to our survival. Academics in a variety
of disciplines have considered this idea to devise explanations that
Richard Manning, a lifelong journalist, finds hollow, arcane,
incomplete, ivory-towered, and just plain wrong. He approaches the
question from a wholly different angle, using his own guitar and banjo
as instruments of discovery. In the process, he finds himself dancing in
celebration of music rough and rowdy.
American roots music is not a product of an elite leisure class, as some
academics contend, but of explosive creativity among slaves,
hillbillies, field hands, drunks, slackers, and hucksters. Yet these
people--poor, working people--built the foundations of jazz, gospel,
blues, bluegrass, rock 'n' roll, and country music, an unparalleled
burst of invention. This is the counterfactual to the academics' story.
This is what tells us music is essential, but by pulling this thread,
Manning takes us down a long, strange path, following music to deeper
understandings of racism, slavery, inequality, meditation, addiction,
the science of our brains, and ultimately to an enticing glimpse of pure
religion.
Use this book to follow where his guitar leads. Ultimately it sings the
American body, electric.
