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A Race of Singers: Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen
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A Race of Singers: Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen Paperback - 2000

by Bryan K. Garman

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From the publisher

When Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass in 1855, he dreamed of inspiring a "race of singers" who would celebrate the working class and realize the promise of American democracy. By examining how singers such as Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen both embraced and reconfigured Whitman's vision, Bryan Garman shows that Whitman succeeded. In doing so, Garman celebrates the triumphs yet also exposes the limitations of Whitman's legacy.

While Whitman's verse propounded notions of sexual freedom and renounced the competitiveness of capitalism, it also safeguarded the interests of the white workingman, often at the expense of women and people of color. Garman describes how each of Whitman's successors adopted the mantle of the working-class hero while adapting the role to his own generation's concerns: Guthrie condemned racism in the 1930s, Dylan addressed race and war in the 1960s, and Springsteen explored sexism, racism, and homophobia in the 1980s and 1990s.

But as Garman points out, even the Boss, like his forebears, tends to represent solidarity in terms of white male bonding and homosocial allegiance. We can hear America singing in the voices of these artists, Garman says, but it is still the song of a white, male America.

From the jacket flap

Based on Walt Whitman's notion of a "race of singers" who would unite and celebrate the working class, Bryan Garman reveals how this prescient vision was realized in the form of such singers as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Woody Guthrie and in the late 20th century whose image and lyrics embody and celebrate an exclusively white male working class America.

Details

  • Title A Race of Singers: Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen
  • Author Bryan K. Garman
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: first
  • Pages 352
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S.A.
  • Publication date 2000-09-11
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Features Bibliography, Illustrated, Index, Table of Contents
  • ISBN 9780807848661 / 0807848662
  • Weight 1 lbs (0.45 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.28 x 5.76 x 0.85 in (23.57 x 14.63 x 2.16 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 20th Century
  • Category Music/Songbooks
  • Library of Congress subjects Popular music - Social aspects - United, Whitman, Walt - Influence
  • Library of Congress Catalogue Number 99058448
  • Dewey Decimal Code 781.59

Media reviews

Citations

  • Choice, 01/01/2001, Page 915
  • Library Journal, 09/15/2000, Page 79

About the author

Bryan K. Garman, who received his Ph.D. from Emory University, is chair of the history department at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C.
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A Race of Singers : Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen
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A Race of Singers : Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen

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A Race of Singers : Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen

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Race of Singers: Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen (Cultural Studies of the United States)

by Garman, Bryan K.

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Race of Singers: Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen (Cultural Studies of the United States)

by Garman, Bryan K

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A Race of Singers: Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen (Cultural Studies...
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A Race of Singers: Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen (Cultural Studies of the United States)

by Garman, Bryan K.

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Race of Singers: Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen (Cultural Studies of the United States)

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Race of Singers: Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen (Cultural Studies of the United States)

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