Ska an oral history pdf

The diverse voices of. Rastafari and the Arts. Drawing on literary, musical, and visual representations of and by Rastafari, Darren J. The diverse voices of contributors to this encyclopedia confirm ethnomusicology's fundamental ethos of inclusion and respect for diversity. Combined, the multiplicity of topics and approaches are presented in an easy-to-search A-Z format and offer a fresh perspective on the field and the subject of music in culture.

Oral History: Challenges of Dialogue addresses oral history from two perspectives. The first is the perspective of oral history as dialoguing, the second is the presentation of concrete situations, research, persons, and their own stories as built on the solid ground of discourse and within a concrete context. Drawing on literary, musical, and visual representations of and by Rastafari, Darren J.

Middleton provides an introduction to Rasta through the arts, broadly conceived. Rastafari and the Arts: An Introduction takes a fresh view of Rasta, considering the relationship between the artistic and religious dimensions of the movement in depth. It was the post—Vietnam, post—Watergate era, a time of high unemployment, ruinous inflation, gasoline lines, Communist advances, and bottomed-out U. In the s, it all turned around: "stagflation" ended and nearly two decades of prosperity ensued.

The Soviet Union retreated, then collapsed. More Details Other Editions 3. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Ska , please sign up.

Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Ska: An Oral History. Oct 13, Dan Schwent rated it liked it Shelves: nf , confession-time.

Ska: An Oral History covers the history of ska music from its inception to Jamaica through the ska boom of the 90's, all the way up to present day. Lean closer everyone, I have something to reveal. I've remained a fan of the music ever since, though these days I'm more into the more traditional ska sound of The Slackers, Mr. T-Bone, and Dr. Ring- Ska: An Oral History covers the history of ska music from its inception to Jamaica through the ska boom of the 90's, all the way up to present day.

Anyway, on to the review The chronicle starts in Jamaica, naturally. Some of the stuff, like Don Drummond murdering his girlfriend and dying in the insane asylum, I was familiar with.

From there, the English skinhead reggae scene of the 60's is covered, primarily focusing on Laurel Aitken and Judge Dread. It really put me in the mood to dig out the Specials debut album. Actually, I'd say a bit too much time was spent on the two-tone era. It seemed a bit like padding. Hepcat was mentioned next and I began getting excited.

The glorious pre-Let's Face It era was ignored were mentioned. Deals gone bad was mentioned and then Agent Jay of The Slackers and Isaac Green of The Skalars talked about how the scene died because most of the people going to shows were in bands and nobody was buying records.

Which I witnessed first hand in my first couple of years of going to ska shows. That's pretty much it. The book did a good job of detailing the history of ska but I think it focused on the two tone era a little too much and could have used more than a mention of The Slackers, since they are by far the biggest touring American ska band at the moment.

What was the first ska album your ever bought? First show you ever saw? The first ska I ever heard was Madness. The first show I ever saw was The Toasters. What inspired you to decide to write a book that tells the history of ska music? What made you decide to make it an oral history told by the musicians themselves?

Well I decided to write a book on ska history when I got out of grad school in and realized there was nothing out there on it. I went to the library to read more and there was nothing there. Sure, there were tons of books on Bob Marley and reggae, and maybe a few of them would have a half a chapter on ska or rocksteady, but then that was it.

I was dumbfounded. To me it was just wrong. This was back in when the Internet was just starting to boom, so I found some stuff online, through FAQs and stuff like that, but there was just as much misinformation out there in that arena as there was information. So I felt it was my duty. Then I realized, who the hell am I? Who would ever listen to me?!

But if I could get the story from those who were there, the artists themselves, then that would be the real story. I did a whole bunch of interviews and the project got to be so big that it was too daunting for me.

I put the tapes in a box and they just sat, that unfinished project, as life happened. I had kids, I moved a bunch of times, and I became a journalist and honed my skills.

Some of the artists I had interview begun to die, one by one. I realized that I could not let those words go unheard. It again was my duty to pick the project back up and finish it. So in , on my 35th birthday, I decided to go full force. I re-interviewed many people, I interviewed new people, and I wrote every single day for a year and a half until it was done. Did you have the book deal before you started this project?

How did you sell this to your publisher? But I promised myself I would not self publish. But I felt this was too important for that. I owed it to these artists to do it right. So I found a literary agent in New York City.

He helped me tremendously. He helped me to write a fantastic book proposal, which is like writing a book by itself. I spend a long time writing that and hired a friend to design it and I tell you, that proposal kicked ass. There is a hardcore fan base for ska, but to a Houghton Mifflin or a St. So after I was with my agent for a year and a half, I decided he had exhausted to top tier of big guns, and it was time for a little DIY action.

I fired him. Within two weeks, I had my publisher, on my own.