Accordion Revolution: New Book Cover Revealed!
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AccordionUprising
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Alans said:
So many people have commented on the cover! I've printed cards/flyers, but no posters yet.
My family made me a one-off t-shirt, which looks amazing. But t-shirts are so hard to stock in all the sizes. It took us six years to get through the shirts from our first Accordion Noir Festival. I'm considering one of those online shirt makers, but not sure if any of them are good.
bruce
Alan, that angry girl? She scares me... lol
Tom, I am interested in what you think about both books. Let us know when you have the chance please.
Tom, I am interested in what you think about both books. Let us know when you have the chance please.
Alans
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I hadn’t realized the girl on the cover appears angry,maybe ferocious is more like it.
My copy arrives tomorrow.
Bruce,I think I tried to join accordion noir a few months back but there were no new episodes in a long time.
My copy arrives tomorrow.
Bruce,I think I tried to join accordion noir a few months back but there were no new episodes in a long time.
AccordionUprising
Well-known member
We just last month relaunched our automatic Accordion Noir Radio podcast. You should be able to subscribe from iTunes and various podcast sites. (Let me know if it doesnt work please.)
The show has continued to broadcast weekly since 2006, just the subscription podcast failed for a long while.
All the episodes we have (over 500 hours) are also available at http://www.accordionuprising.com/ and on the Internet Archive at: https://archive.org/search.php?query=accordion noir
Thanks for listening!
The show has continued to broadcast weekly since 2006, just the subscription podcast failed for a long while.
All the episodes we have (over 500 hours) are also available at http://www.accordionuprising.com/ and on the Internet Archive at: https://archive.org/search.php?query=accordion noir
Thanks for listening!
AccordionUprising said:
Bruce, your Accordion Revolution book is great. You have so much good detail. It must have taken a long time to research all the information. I read a little each day as there is so much content. I tried to find your error on page 59. Most of what I found was small errors that probably are not worth changing. You are probably looking for content error, that I am not very good at, since I don't know much about the accordion. For what it's worth, here's what I found if you want to modify:
...died in 1986 he had...
to
...died in 1986, he had...
The Three Vagrants' Two Sisters
to
The Three Vagrants and Two Sisters
...accordionist sisters Joesephine and Lena Bergamasco, with...
to
...accordionist sisters, Joesephine and Lena Bergamasco, with......
...but they like many others brought...
to
... but they, like many others, brought...
...the accordion, to thousands...
to
...the accordion to thousands...
John
I second John's opinion that this is a great book! You can tell that Bruce Triggs really knows his subject and it is a true labor of love. I've read over half the book already and I'm sure the rest won't change my opinion.
This book, "Accordion Revolution" tells the story of the myriad people, cultures, and music styles of the accordion popular (and not so popular) in North America before the coming of rock and roll. Triggs has meticulously found as many examples as possible to demonstrate how the accordion has featured in these styles and includes short bios of the relevant players where available.
In addition, he tries to fit the accordion into the context of the rise and fall of these styles, with accounts of why. For example, the accordion rose in some dance music because it was louder than the fiddles which preceded it. And the accordion was left behind in blues (and the rock that followed) because it is difficult to play blues scales on a diatonic instrument.
Some of the subjects investigated include minstrelsy, cajun/creole, zydeco, polka, klezmer and many more. Triggs discusses the origins, development, downfall and revival of these styles, illustrated with profiles of the bands and players. Of particular interest are his astute observations of the role of the accordion and the reasons that the styles rose and fell and did or did not make it into the revival and recorded worlds. In addition there is much interesting discussion of how and why the accordion was left out of much of the scholarship of the various "folk revivals."
It's an awesome book for its price ($20 print, $10 ebook) and definitely a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the untold (until now) history of the accordion. 5 stars!
Ok, now for the bad news. It's way too short!! I hope there will be volumes 2 and 3, etc. As Triggs says in the intro, "...the manuscript expanded to more than seven hundred pages.....many significant artists and areas of the accordion world didn't find their way into these pages."
Like, come on, Bruce, I can't believe you deleted the WHOLE CHAPTER on Italian music and players!! Ok, there is info on Dick Contino and the Dieros but none of the historical background and profiling like the Irish, Mexican, Cajuns and Scottish got. This is of course, my personal bias, growing up in the northeast where "accordion = wedding tarantella." I say this because the Greeks, Portuguese, Turks, etc. among us are also patiently waiting. This does not detract from my review of the book as a whole, and is offered only to get you going on the next offering!
So, yeah, miss this book at your own peril. I did not find any other errors on page 59, but am sending my minor editorial finds in a pm.
Tom
This book, "Accordion Revolution" tells the story of the myriad people, cultures, and music styles of the accordion popular (and not so popular) in North America before the coming of rock and roll. Triggs has meticulously found as many examples as possible to demonstrate how the accordion has featured in these styles and includes short bios of the relevant players where available.
In addition, he tries to fit the accordion into the context of the rise and fall of these styles, with accounts of why. For example, the accordion rose in some dance music because it was louder than the fiddles which preceded it. And the accordion was left behind in blues (and the rock that followed) because it is difficult to play blues scales on a diatonic instrument.
Some of the subjects investigated include minstrelsy, cajun/creole, zydeco, polka, klezmer and many more. Triggs discusses the origins, development, downfall and revival of these styles, illustrated with profiles of the bands and players. Of particular interest are his astute observations of the role of the accordion and the reasons that the styles rose and fell and did or did not make it into the revival and recorded worlds. In addition there is much interesting discussion of how and why the accordion was left out of much of the scholarship of the various "folk revivals."
It's an awesome book for its price ($20 print, $10 ebook) and definitely a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the untold (until now) history of the accordion. 5 stars!
Ok, now for the bad news. It's way too short!! I hope there will be volumes 2 and 3, etc. As Triggs says in the intro, "...the manuscript expanded to more than seven hundred pages.....many significant artists and areas of the accordion world didn't find their way into these pages."
Like, come on, Bruce, I can't believe you deleted the WHOLE CHAPTER on Italian music and players!! Ok, there is info on Dick Contino and the Dieros but none of the historical background and profiling like the Irish, Mexican, Cajuns and Scottish got. This is of course, my personal bias, growing up in the northeast where "accordion = wedding tarantella." I say this because the Greeks, Portuguese, Turks, etc. among us are also patiently waiting. This does not detract from my review of the book as a whole, and is offered only to get you going on the next offering!
So, yeah, miss this book at your own peril. I did not find any other errors on page 59, but am sending my minor editorial finds in a pm.
Tom
AccordionUprising
Well-known member
Tom said:
Thanks both of you. I can't express how nervous I was to hear what people I respect think of the book.
The error on pg 59 wasn't that one! I've been hand-correcting it in copies people bring to readings. All the new ones have it fixed.
It was very hard to decide what to include. And I knew very clearly that I was leaving out many, many of what I think of as the "mainstream" of the accordion world. I picked the biggest players like Contino as you say. I'm defiantly sure I slighted some whole traditions. (I keep thinking of whole styles I left out. Is Dominican merengue North American, it's played all over the East Coast of the US? Basque trikitixa played in rural areas of the West?)
Write or (more likely wrong) I had a frame of trying to talk about ethnic music like Cajun and Klezmer that fed into the revival of interest in young people which i may have seen more clearly in the early 00s when I started writing. I saw an interest coming from Irish rock bands like the Pogues, and "roots music" that seemed to harken back to the forgotten country and western played I talked a lot about.
I was trying to imagine what might feed that revival. Writing as a sort of introduction to the music I saw young people gravitating to. Like, if you're a young fan, how did you enter the accordion world? From seeing a zydeco band play with Paul Simon (who I am critical of), or from one of the thousands of popular accordionists from the accordion's most popular years?
It's framed (however successfully) as my idiosyncratic imagining of "what would rock and roll fans have benefited from hearing?" If they'd encountered zydeco in the 1950s it might have saved a lot of time. John Lennon and millions of other kids might have stuck with the accordion if they'd seen Clifton Chenier on TV along with his Chess records label-mates Bo Diddley and Chuck Barry. So I was sort of imagining the roots of that rock and roll accordion world I heard in my head.
I really appreciate hearing from readers. Apparently I'm supposed to ask that folks cut and paste their reviews here into the review sections on sites where books are sold. The best case for the book is it gets enough attention that it shows up when people search for "accordion history," then people can judge whether it's the book for them. Hopefully if it gets seen it it might earn an audience.
Many thanks for giving it a read! I just did a few book talks on my way to the Cotati Festival in California. It's been really fun to share with an audience in person (not just an imagined one as I'm writing, or a radio audience I can't see!)
bruce
Interesting point and perspective, Bruce. And you're right, I guess it's up to me to get the big Itlian revival going. I don't think I'm quite up to Flaco Himenez or Clifton Chenier though. Ok, I'll try to add a positive review on Amazon as a "certified purchase. "
AccordionUprising
Well-known member
Hi Tom,
After responding lat last night, first thing this morning I wondered if I said anything that would get me in trouble.
There's an article on a particular East-Coast? Italian-American accordionists style in Helena Simonette's great "Accordion in the Americas" anthology. I remember reading it and thinking, "I don't know anything about this music." I think you spotted that I didn't learn enough to include it in my book. Well spotted (or not spotted I suppose).
I wonder how many other cultural genres I missed? One of the desires behind the project was that it might inspire more writing. Last thing I wanted was to be the last accordion book. I want to read more! I included a story about Alan Lomax, the great folklorist (who hated accordionists):
"Cajun musician and scholar Barry Jean Ancelet discussed Lomax’s interpretations of the irreplaceable recordings of early Creole and Cajun music he collected in the 1930s: 'Even in the cases when he was obviously wrong, he inspired those around him who were frustrated by his opinionated wild guesses to find out the real story.'”
I eagerly await the work where people add-to and correct what I came up with.
After responding lat last night, first thing this morning I wondered if I said anything that would get me in trouble.
There's an article on a particular East-Coast? Italian-American accordionists style in Helena Simonette's great "Accordion in the Americas" anthology. I remember reading it and thinking, "I don't know anything about this music." I think you spotted that I didn't learn enough to include it in my book. Well spotted (or not spotted I suppose).
I wonder how many other cultural genres I missed? One of the desires behind the project was that it might inspire more writing. Last thing I wanted was to be the last accordion book. I want to read more! I included a story about Alan Lomax, the great folklorist (who hated accordionists):
"Cajun musician and scholar Barry Jean Ancelet discussed Lomax’s interpretations of the irreplaceable recordings of early Creole and Cajun music he collected in the 1930s: 'Even in the cases when he was obviously wrong, he inspired those around him who were frustrated by his opinionated wild guesses to find out the real story.'”
I eagerly await the work where people add-to and correct what I came up with.
You're a gentleman and a scholar, Bruce! I'm not familiar with Helena Simonette's book, thank you, I'll check it out. In fact, there is a wealth of worthy reading also to be had in your bibliography. Speaking of experience, I entered the world of accordion music through my Italian roots, but through further research have discovered so many other styles. Yes, there are so many other genres to consider and that are even now finding their way into North American accordion music. From Brazil alone we are seeing forró bands, but how about sertanejo, chorro and músicas gaúchas? Bal musette, liscio and when will the Chinese styles have their revival? It's all good!
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