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4th out of 94 books
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16 voters
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Dusty in Memphis (33⅓ #1)
by
Warren Zanes
Dusty in Memphis, Dusty Springfield's beautiful and bizarre magnum opus, remains as fine a hybrid of pop and rhythm and blues as has ever been made. In this remarkable book, Warren Zanes explores his own love affair with the record. He digs deep into the album's Memphis roots and talks to several of the key characters who were involved in its creation; many of whom were - ...more
Paperback, 121 pages
Published
October 1st 2003
by Continuum International Publishing Group
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A disappointment. I'm a fan of Warren Zanes and was really looking forward to finally picking this up.
It's great and all that he starts the book by saying that it's not about the album "Dusty in Memphis" but (a) that's a typical literary conceit that means just the opposite and (b) why the fuck did he write a book about the album "Dusty in Memphis" called "Dusty in Memphis" if it wasn't about the album "Dusty in Memphis"?
This has li...more
It's great and all that he starts the book by saying that it's not about the album "Dusty in Memphis" but (a) that's a typical literary conceit that means just the opposite and (b) why the fuck did he write a book about the album "Dusty in Memphis" called "Dusty in Memphis" if it wasn't about the album "Dusty in Memphis"?
This has li...more
This is the first in a wonderful series of small volumes devoted to classic albums. This volume, written by Warren Zanes, offers a kind of mini-travelogue of the American South and some of the stereotypes that surround it. Zanes relates a peeping-tom experience from his youth that brilliantly encapsulates cultural attitudes toward Southern women and their sexuality. What does all of this have to do with Dusty Springfield? Zanes shows how as a white British woman, Springfield's approach to th...more
Het eerste deel uit de 33 1/3-reeks van Continuum (2003) werd geschreven door Warren Zanes, in de jaren tachtig mede-oprichter van rootsrockband The Del Fuegos (hun debuut The Longest Day kan ik iedereen die het wil horen aanbevelen) en intussen professor in de culturele studies. Goed volk dus om een nieuwe, veelbelovende serie op gang te brengen, en dat gebeurt meteen met een niet echt voor de hand liggende plaat. Niet dat ik Dusty In Memphis geen goed album vind, verre van: terwijl ik het vroe...more
Yawn, I would have loved to hear about the making of this album, but this is the author blabbing on and on about the south. He talked to some of the main participants but it really about his love affair with the south. I love the 33 1/3 books but this was not enlightening and didn't let me look at this wonderful recording in a new light.
I was expecting to read this book like the David Bowie book, but it was different. Less text book and more personal experience. It also gave me a glimpse into the Brit's fascination with American Rock-and-Roll in the south as well as Motown. Great album interesting book.
Entirely too solipsistic and full of typically lame "poetic" musings on Southern culture. Only someone with an incredibly huge ego would be unembarrassed to let such sophomoric journal scribblings be published as a book.
I was introduced to the Thirty Three and a Third series by Eric Mandelbaum. Each of these short reads is a very personal reflection by its author on a particular album (in most cases) by a musical artist or group during the past several decades. I give the highest rating to Dusty in Memphis because I was captivated by the wide-ranging discussion, not just for the few insights into Dusty Springfield or how the album was put together. Zanes grapels with:
the mystique of the South
the ...more
the mystique of the South
the ...more
I am a huge fan of the 33 1/3 series and Dusty in Memphis is one of my fav albums of all time. That being said I was pretty disappointed in this book. Although I liked how the author personalized his experience with the record, I think he spent too much time on academic theorizing of the ides of the "south" and how other cultures and outsiders fetishize it. I was looking forward to hearing more about Dusty and how this record was made then an academic analysis of the use of black music...more
Here's a recipe for who shouldn't write a book-- a former indie rocker who, in his early middle age, got a phd in Media Studies. Plus, this first of the 331/3s is riddled with typos. Still, it's ardent and he has some great interview subjects throughout.
I had hoped that there would be some discussion on an album that I know very little about, but in my reading I discovered I had opened a treatise on the existence of the mythology of Southern music in the American folk music lexicon. While interesting as a cultural study, offered very little on the album...other than the interview of four pages with Stanley Booth at the very end.
I give up. As unfair as it may seems for the author I'd rather listen to the music than to read about it.
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