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Hip Americana: The Cultural Criticism of Greil Marcus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

Timothy Gray
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Extract

In the summer of 1976, as many in our nation were getting ready to celebrate the bicentennial and listening to AM radio shlock like “Afternoon Delight,” I persuaded my father to buy me an oversized red paperback I had been perusing at the local mall. The book was the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, a landmark collaboration edited by Jim Miller. Throughout my teenage years, I would pour over its many photographs, memorize its discography sections, and take instruction and courage from its lively, opinionated writing. Looking back at the Illustrated History a quarter of a century later, I find that its list of contributors reads like a “Who's Who” of rock criticism. Peter Guralnick, Robert Christgau, Lester Bangs, Robert Palmer, Jon Landau, and Dave Marsh are just a few of the writers who went on to make their names as critics, musicologists, and biographers. On this occasion, they managed to weave the separate strands of rhythm and blues, folk, country, and rock into a cohesive tapestry.

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Research Article
Information
Prospects , Volume 27 , October 2002 , pp. 611 - 639
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2002

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