Why did America turn itself inside out in the 1960s, get so nuts that the culture wars that started then are still being fought in 2015? One of the major reasons, I decided after a lot of research, was the long relationship of white (mostly young) people and black culture (mostly music), going back from minstrelsy (the 1840s) and on up to the 1960s, where you can see it revealed in the music of Bob Dylan. And that’s what On Highway 61: Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom (out from Counterpoint Press on October 14, 2014) is about.
Winner: ASCAP music writing award, 2015
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Huffpost says: “…McNally succeeds in the titanic undertaking of presenting and weaving together over 100 years of history, culture and music…”
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Audio Interviews »
Sample Chapter
12. White People and Jazz and its Flowering in New York
In the summer of 1923, two young men named Hoagland Howard “Hoagy” Carmichael and Leon Bix Beiderbecke took two quarts of gin (Prohibition prevented buying at the table) and a package of marijuana (“muggles”) to a black Chicago music hall to hear King Oliver. When the second trumpeter, one Louis Armstrong, went into “Bugle Call Rag,” Carmichael dropped his cigarette and gulped his drink. Bix stood, popeyed, his gaze riveted on the player. “Why,” moaned Carmichael, …read more »
Reviews
Dennis McNally Revisits Highway 61 (and Beyond)
by Joanna Colangelo
…In On Highway 61, McNally succeeds in the titanic undertaking of presenting and weaving together over 100 years of history, culture and music with an unyielding drive towards cultural freedom in America, ranging from Thoreau to Twain to Robert Johnson to Bob Dylan…
On Highway 61 — Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom by Dennis McNally: Review
By James Cullingham
… This is a smart, sumptuous book. McNally resists stereotypical characteristics of black blues players and primitive music, and the origins of blues, folk and jazz. He takes care (and some joy) in debunking myths…
Electric Review:
The Peoples’ Quest For Freedom
by John Aiello
…Every serious fan of rock and roll, jazz or blues should read this book: It has much to say, and it says it with depth and grace.
BOOKS | Cultural historian McNally takes readers on a long strange trip
By Jonah Raskin
For those who lived through the era and still care about issues of class, race, and gender, ‘Highway 61′ is the book to read about American music…
The Pathway to Freedom: Dennis McNally on the deep, black roots of Bob Dylan and the American counterculture
by Richard B. Simon
Many of the stories we’ve heard before. The trick is in the context. The music, America’s culture, is in dialogue with freedom itself…
DENNIS MCNALLY On Highway 61: Music, Race and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom
by John Swenson
…a brilliant and provocative polemic that is about culture as a flashpoint of American idealism…The book is also, to quote one of its main subjects, Bob Dylan, about “love and theft.” …
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Dead.net Out Now: Dennis McNally’s On Highway 61: Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom
African American Lives: Books for February, Black History Month — Arts section
Book Reviews: “On Highway 61: Music, Race and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom”
Bill Kohlhaase
On Highway 61: Music, Race and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom The highway of American music culture and beyond
REVIEWED BY JAY TRACHTENBERG
Dennis McNally Takes Us to the River, “On Highway 61″
In books: African-Americans make diverging roads wider for others ‘On Highway 61′
On Highway 61, Dennis McNally, Counterpoint
… the book’s best qualities are McNally’s ability as a storyteller
Music historian retraces Highway 61 from Thoreau to Dylan
Book Talk: Black music, white culture and a legendary U.S. highway
Bentley’s Bandstand: November 2014 By Bill Bentley, Columnist
Going Down to Highway 61, Again
by RON JACOBS
…Indeed, McNally rocks, rolls, burns, cruises and kills it in this book, his pedal to the metal from beginning to end.
Feature: American music’s even longer, stranger trip
On Highway 61: Music, Race And The Evolution Of Cultural Freedom
Review By DOUG COLLETTE
On Highway 61: Music, Race And The Evolution Of Cultural Freedom
Review By C. MICHAEL BAILEY
Chris Heim’s Picks: Best Music Books of 2014 – #1: On Hwy 61
A Journey Towards Cultural Freedom (And Bob Dylan) ‘On Highway 61’
Review by Michael Goldberg
Audio Interviews
Radio interview: The New Black/On Highway 61
Sunday Journal With Stuart Levitan
Stu talks with Dennis McNally, “On Highway 61: Music, Race and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom”
(great website devoted to jambands): Dennis McNally Presents American Music Portrait On ‘Highway 61: Music, Race And The Evolution Of Cultural Freedom’
Dennis McNally on Tales From the Golden Road
Unplugged And Totally Uncut With Arroe Collins
Audio interview: Dennis McNalley On Highway 61 Part 1 & 2
Homegrown Music Show interview with Dennis McNally
Interview (video) – Dennis McNally, PhD: The Long, Strange Trip of American Music, Race, and Freedom