Reading Thursday
Jun. 21st, 2018 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
Bayou Underground: Tracing the Mythical Roots of American Popular Music by Dave Thompson. This is a nonfiction book about what's sometimes called 'swamp rock' – music evocative of and inspired by the bayous and backcountry of rural Louisiana and nearby states. Thompson doesn't like the term swamp rock, which, fair enough; it's hard to describe any sort of singular genre that includes musicians as diverse as Elvis Presley, forgotten 20s blues singers, Sinead O'Conner, Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, and Judas Priest. (And because there's nothing like reading about music to make you desperate to actually listen to it, I put together a Spotify playlist of the songs Thompson mentions, so feel free to get a taste of what 'swamp rock' includes - or at least what Bayou Underground does.)
Bayou Underground is organized around a theoretical mixtape: eighteen tracks, each one lending themselves to a chapter less about that particular song and more about various strands of history, folklore, and/or geography that might be relevant. For example, "Sneaking Sally Through the Alley" by Roger Palmer is the title of a chapter about Storyville, New Orlean's famous neighborhood where prostitution was once legal and jazz was invented, despite Palmer's denial that he didn't mean the eponymous 'Sally' to be a prostitute. “Chateau Lafite ’59 Boogie” by Foghat heads a chapter about the pirate Jean Lafitte, despite there being no connection other than a coincidental similarity of names. Other chapters stick closer to their songs; “Promised Land” by Elvis Presley is indeed about Presley's youth and emergence as a singer, while “The House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals covers the long history of the folksong and its many, many covers.
Thompson is a music journalist, but Bayou Underground is more about evoking a place and a mood than analyzing any specific band, trend, or sound. He tells the story of random people he encountered, legends of ghosts and swamp monsters, and describes the view out of his car window more than anything else. He covers the Axman, a still-unsolved serial killer case from the 1920s; hunting alligators; whether or not Robert Johnson really sold his soul at the crossroads; the steamboats of the Mississippi; recipes for gumbo, crawfish pie, and beer-fried alligator; where Creedence Clearwater Revival got their name; Hurricane Katrina; the comic book Swamp-Thing; and the HBO show True Blood. It's quite the melting pot of a book, in other words, with all sorts of tidbits thrown in to amuse.
There are occasionally mistakes when Thompson dives into history, as in this passage: Jean continued business as usual, but received notice that his activities were now internationally renowned: he received a hand-delivered message from the English king, King George I, offering Lafitte and his men British citizenship and land if they would only assist in the naval fight against the United States. Since George I died in 1727, I really doubt he was offering anyone anything in 1814. Thompson also credits John Montaigne (aka Doctor John) with blending Catholicism and West African traditions to create modern-day New Orleans-style voodoo, which I've always heard credited to Marie Laveau, but, eh, in Thompson's defense, there are basically zero substantial historical records that deal with either person or with early voodoo at all, so who knows what the truth is.
I can't say the mistakes put me off the book. Bayou Underground is clearly not meant to be taken as an accurate lesson; instead it's a thing to read when it's hot and humid and all you want to do is lay down with a cold drink and some good music. And it's very, very good at evoking that exact feeling.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Hops and Glory: One Man's Search for the Beer That Built the British Empire by Pete Brown. Today – at least in the US – one of the most popular beer styles in the craft brewing scene is IPA, or India Pale Ale. The story goes that this style (high in alcohol and hops, which gives it a bitter flavor) was invented during the early days of British colonialism in India, since it was the only sort of beer that could actually make the journey. In the early 1800s, it could easily take six months to get from England to India, on a constantly bobbing ship, that crossed the equator twice and in between cruised south of Africa where it gets quite cold – an endurance trial of motion, time, and temperature that few brews could endure. And so IPA was invented and beloved. Brown sets out to discover if this often-told legend is actually true, and if so what caused IPA's fortunes to fall. Because it nearly disappeared during the 20th century, and still today is fairly unknown in its former homes of the UK and India.
Hops and Glory is half travelogue and half historical nonfiction. Brown – with the surprising assistance of the Coors multinational company – brews a keg of IPA to an authentic 1800s recipe, and then sets out to give it the same "ripening" process all IPAs once received. This involves sailing from Spain to Brazil on an actual wooden three-masted ship, getting from Brazil to India on a container ship, and going by train from Mumbai to Kolkata, lugging the unopened keg all the way. Unsurprisingly, there are an immense number of mishaps involving lost visas, the lack of internet connection, delayed flights, annoying co-passengers, people falling off boats, accidental smuggling of alcohol across international borders, along the way. Brown makes for a hapless but good-humored guide through it all, given to self-deprecating humor rather than mocking others.
Brown intersperses the story of his modern-day journey with chapters detailing his research into the history of IPA, which gets into topics as various as the Industrial Revolution, individual British brewers, the East India Company, madeira wine, Victorian sensibilities, arak, water quality, the temperance movement, the opium wars, and Peter the Great.
Overall it's a funny, informative story, told in a friendly style that reminds me of Bill Bryson or Tony Horwitz. Definitely recommend if you have any interest in the topic(s).
What are you currently reading?
Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans: The Life and Times of Henry Louis Rey by Melissa Daggett. Ghosts, the Civil War, and angry priests! This is already proving to be very exciting for academic nonfiction from a university press.
Bayou Underground: Tracing the Mythical Roots of American Popular Music by Dave Thompson. This is a nonfiction book about what's sometimes called 'swamp rock' – music evocative of and inspired by the bayous and backcountry of rural Louisiana and nearby states. Thompson doesn't like the term swamp rock, which, fair enough; it's hard to describe any sort of singular genre that includes musicians as diverse as Elvis Presley, forgotten 20s blues singers, Sinead O'Conner, Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, and Judas Priest. (And because there's nothing like reading about music to make you desperate to actually listen to it, I put together a Spotify playlist of the songs Thompson mentions, so feel free to get a taste of what 'swamp rock' includes - or at least what Bayou Underground does.)
Bayou Underground is organized around a theoretical mixtape: eighteen tracks, each one lending themselves to a chapter less about that particular song and more about various strands of history, folklore, and/or geography that might be relevant. For example, "Sneaking Sally Through the Alley" by Roger Palmer is the title of a chapter about Storyville, New Orlean's famous neighborhood where prostitution was once legal and jazz was invented, despite Palmer's denial that he didn't mean the eponymous 'Sally' to be a prostitute. “Chateau Lafite ’59 Boogie” by Foghat heads a chapter about the pirate Jean Lafitte, despite there being no connection other than a coincidental similarity of names. Other chapters stick closer to their songs; “Promised Land” by Elvis Presley is indeed about Presley's youth and emergence as a singer, while “The House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals covers the long history of the folksong and its many, many covers.
Thompson is a music journalist, but Bayou Underground is more about evoking a place and a mood than analyzing any specific band, trend, or sound. He tells the story of random people he encountered, legends of ghosts and swamp monsters, and describes the view out of his car window more than anything else. He covers the Axman, a still-unsolved serial killer case from the 1920s; hunting alligators; whether or not Robert Johnson really sold his soul at the crossroads; the steamboats of the Mississippi; recipes for gumbo, crawfish pie, and beer-fried alligator; where Creedence Clearwater Revival got their name; Hurricane Katrina; the comic book Swamp-Thing; and the HBO show True Blood. It's quite the melting pot of a book, in other words, with all sorts of tidbits thrown in to amuse.
There are occasionally mistakes when Thompson dives into history, as in this passage: Jean continued business as usual, but received notice that his activities were now internationally renowned: he received a hand-delivered message from the English king, King George I, offering Lafitte and his men British citizenship and land if they would only assist in the naval fight against the United States. Since George I died in 1727, I really doubt he was offering anyone anything in 1814. Thompson also credits John Montaigne (aka Doctor John) with blending Catholicism and West African traditions to create modern-day New Orleans-style voodoo, which I've always heard credited to Marie Laveau, but, eh, in Thompson's defense, there are basically zero substantial historical records that deal with either person or with early voodoo at all, so who knows what the truth is.
I can't say the mistakes put me off the book. Bayou Underground is clearly not meant to be taken as an accurate lesson; instead it's a thing to read when it's hot and humid and all you want to do is lay down with a cold drink and some good music. And it's very, very good at evoking that exact feeling.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Hops and Glory: One Man's Search for the Beer That Built the British Empire by Pete Brown. Today – at least in the US – one of the most popular beer styles in the craft brewing scene is IPA, or India Pale Ale. The story goes that this style (high in alcohol and hops, which gives it a bitter flavor) was invented during the early days of British colonialism in India, since it was the only sort of beer that could actually make the journey. In the early 1800s, it could easily take six months to get from England to India, on a constantly bobbing ship, that crossed the equator twice and in between cruised south of Africa where it gets quite cold – an endurance trial of motion, time, and temperature that few brews could endure. And so IPA was invented and beloved. Brown sets out to discover if this often-told legend is actually true, and if so what caused IPA's fortunes to fall. Because it nearly disappeared during the 20th century, and still today is fairly unknown in its former homes of the UK and India.
Hops and Glory is half travelogue and half historical nonfiction. Brown – with the surprising assistance of the Coors multinational company – brews a keg of IPA to an authentic 1800s recipe, and then sets out to give it the same "ripening" process all IPAs once received. This involves sailing from Spain to Brazil on an actual wooden three-masted ship, getting from Brazil to India on a container ship, and going by train from Mumbai to Kolkata, lugging the unopened keg all the way. Unsurprisingly, there are an immense number of mishaps involving lost visas, the lack of internet connection, delayed flights, annoying co-passengers, people falling off boats, accidental smuggling of alcohol across international borders, along the way. Brown makes for a hapless but good-humored guide through it all, given to self-deprecating humor rather than mocking others.
Brown intersperses the story of his modern-day journey with chapters detailing his research into the history of IPA, which gets into topics as various as the Industrial Revolution, individual British brewers, the East India Company, madeira wine, Victorian sensibilities, arak, water quality, the temperance movement, the opium wars, and Peter the Great.
Overall it's a funny, informative story, told in a friendly style that reminds me of Bill Bryson or Tony Horwitz. Definitely recommend if you have any interest in the topic(s).
What are you currently reading?
Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans: The Life and Times of Henry Louis Rey by Melissa Daggett. Ghosts, the Civil War, and angry priests! This is already proving to be very exciting for academic nonfiction from a university press.
