On Highway 61: Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom

by Dennis McNally

On Highway 61 explores the historical context of the significant social dissent that was central to the cultural genesis of the sixties. The book is going to search for the deeper roots of American cultural and musical evolution for the past 150 years by studying what the Western European culture learned from African American culture in a historical progression that reaches from the minstrel era to Bob Dylan.

The book begins with America’s first great social critic, Henry David Thoreau, and his fundamental source of social profound commitment to freedom, to abolitionism and to African-American culture. Continuing with Mark Twain, through whom we can observe the rise of minstrelsy, which he embraced, and his subversive satirical masterpiece Huckleberry Finn. While familiar, the book places them into a newly articulated historical reference that shines new light and reveals a progression that is much greater than the sum of its individual parts.

As the first post-Civil War generation of black Americans came of age, they introduced into the national culture a trio of musical forms—ragtime, blues, and jazz— that would, with their derivations, dominate popular music to this day. Ragtime introduced syncopation and become the cutting edge of the modern 20th century with popular dances. The blues would combine with syncopation and improvisation and create jazz. Maturing at the hands of Louis Armstrong, it would soon attract a cluster of young white musicians who came to be known as the Austin High Gang, who fell in love with black music and were inspired to play it themselves. In the process, they developed a liberating respect for the diversity of their city and country, which they did not see as exotic, but rather as art. It was not long before these young white rebels were the masters of American pop music – big band Swing.

As Bop succeeded Swing, and Rhythm and Blues followed, each had white followers like the Beat writers and the first young rock and rollers. Even popular white genres like the country music of Jimmy Rodgers and the Carter Family reflected significant black influence. In fact, the theoretical separation of American music by race is not accurate. This biracial fusion achieved an apotheosis in the early work of Bob Dylan, born and raised at the northern end of the same Mississippi River and Highway 61 that had been the birthplace of much of the black music he would study.

As the book reveals, the connection that began with Thoreau and continued for over 100 years was a cultural evolution where, at first individuals, and then larger portions of society, absorbed the culture of those at the absolute bottom of the power structure, the slaves and their descendants, and realized that they themselves were not free.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Travel

384 pages, Hardcover

First published September 22, 2014

About the author

Dennis McNally, author, historian, and longtime publicist for the Grateful Dead, was born into the singular world of the postwar military-industrial complex. The son of an Army counterintelligence officer and a determined mother who pursued a college degree even while battling terminal cancer, McNally’s early years were shaped by frequent relocations, both in the U.S. and abroad, and by a growing awareness of American culture and history. After an education that culminated in graduate studies at the University of Massachusetts, he broke with academic convention by choosing his dissertation topic early: the life and work of Jack Kerouac. His resulting biography, Desolate Angel, published in 1979, impressed Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia, who later invited McNally to write the band’s authorized history.
That invitation led to McNally becoming the Dead’s publicist in 1984 and eventually publishing A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead, a definitive chronicle of the band’s cultural impact. His decades-long immersion in the Dead community brought him close to its central figures and events, from backstage encounters to personal friendships, including his marriage to photographer Susana Millman.
After Garcia’s death in 1995 and the eventual disbanding of Grateful Dead Productions in 2004, McNally continued working in the music world, supporting artists and organizations whose work resonated with his values and taste. Today, he remains an active presence in the world of music publicity, especially in the jam band and Americana scenes, while continuing to reflect on the unique intersections of culture, music, and American identity that have defined his life and career.

Reviews

[Jamie Howison · Rating 3 out of 5]

So here's the thing... in spite of only giving this book a 3 star rating, I really enjoyed reading it. As you might expect of a book subtitled "Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom," McNally spends a large portion of the book exploring African-American music; the spirituals, blues, jazz, and all that both preceded and followed these expressions. He's a good writer, has great insight, loves and respects the music, and cares enough to weed his way through to some of the key interpretive voices. All good. Even when he sees Henry David Thoreau as something of the pioneer or forerunner of this music, I can cut McNally some serious slack. I'd never thought of things in that way...

I'm afraid, though, that I just don't buy his interpretation of Bob Dylan as being the endpoint of "Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom." Don't get me wrong here... I think Dylan is a brilliant and gifted writer, and one who may yet surprise us with some stunning original music. But the endpoint? I don't buy it, I'm afraid. The author of the review in Kirkus apparently agrees, and says it better than I could: "A combination of cultural history of American popular music and race relations and a fan’s notes on Bob Dylan, whose story consumes the final 100 pages."

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

FASCINATING

Keep YouTube handy, you are going to want it. I found the Youtube channel RagtimeDorianHenry particularly useful.

I did not know anything about jazz when I started. This book made me hungry to hear blues and jazz; not much change in my opinion of big-band though :) There is a great deal of detail and exhaustive lists of names – I skimmed over those and concentrated on the concepts. There is also some music theory; again I skimmed that since I don't know a minor third from a major seventh. If you find information interesting this book will delight.

The author skillfully traces the idea of freedom that is at the core of American self-image from Henry David Thoreau and Mark Twain, through Scott Joplin, W.C. Handy, Louis Armstrong, Muddy Waters, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and Bob Dylan . Perhaps the description of Bessie Smith by Langston Hughes sums it up best; “her music was the essence of sadness… not softened by tears, but hardened with laughter, the absurd, incongrous laughter…” Or Milton Mezzrow (p174) description of jazz that releases “the rebel in us…A creative musician is an anarchist with a horn, and you can’t put any shackles on him” This is the music of optimists who can see beyond the present reality and toward a better day.

The story is also a social history of the United States after the civil war and gives an amazingly vivid view of the life of americans who happen to have dark skin. Can you imagine being smart, talented, well-informed but forced to play the part of clown if you wanted to earn a living? I was astounded to find out about the unsung African-American artists of the 19th century such as Ira Aldridge who was highly acclaimed for his interpretations of Shakespear but had to play as a caricuture. Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones who sang at Carnegie Hall and worked with Antonin Dvorak but had to labor in a minstrel show to make a living. Egbert Austin Williams was an accomplished producer on Broadway but also described as “the funniest man I ever saw and the saddest man I ever knew” by W.C. Fields. The type of comedy called minstrelsy is much more damaging than I had realized; I think it persists today. I seems it is something we need to talk about… like bullying.

As Antonin Devorak said “I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the Negro Melodies…These are the folk songs of America…There is nothing in the whole range of composition that cannot be supplied with themes from this source” 1893 in The New York Herald Tribune (p76)

Cavils (it’s my nature, I can’t help it)
There should be more about the women –this is a book about boys. The author has a token “Women of Blues Chapter” and gives brief mention of Bessie Smith and Joan Baez. I think there is more to say about these two and probably many more significant women.

There should be less about Bob Dylan. I like him too, but the minutiae stretched over more than 100 pages are just too much.

I picked up this book for a Goodreads bookclub challenge to read a book with numbers in the title - goofy huh.

[Roderick Mcgillis · Rating 5 out of 5]

"His (Bob Dylan's) music and the tradition of black and white reconciliation/affirmation/inspiration it represented would, along with many other proximate influences, trigger an extraordinary assessment of American culture - the era of great questioning known as the '60s. Though many of the positive consequences of that great challenge dissipated themselves in indulgence and greed, the impulse toward liberation that emerged in that era endures in a dozen causes - the environmental movement, the feminist movement, the pursuit of rights for all who do not live in conventional sexual roles - and far, far more.That history is still being written" (429-430).

This book begins with Thoreau and ends with Dylan, and in between, it weaves a path through American musical (and literary and social) history tracing the importance - no, the crucial and central importance - of Black Americans' struggle for and articulation of a principle, a principle we call freedom. We might quibble that this or that figure is missing or not given enough attention, but really the project here to examine a tradition in America dedicated to inclusiveness, fairness, equality, and compassion is well done. Cheers. The folding of jazz and its precursor music (e.g. ragtime and earlier minstrelsy) into blues and R&B and Rock n' Roll, and Folk is nifty.

This book of 430 pages of exposition devotes over 100 of these pages to the young man from Hibbing. The treatment of Dylan is compelling. It stops abruptly in 1966, and I could have wished for a look at Dylan's later career from the same perspective. But I must take what the book offers, and I take it gratefully.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great introductory reading for anyone interested in the roots and evolution of American music -- especially its intellectual, racial, and geographical contexts. Though the author's central argument isn't always as prominent as it could be from chapter to chapter, the book tells a great story throughout, using as a motif the Mississippi River and its parallel roadway, Highway 61, to chart the journey of the music and its practitioners. Somehow he manages to link Thoreau and Twain and their articulation of the freedom principle in their work to the spiritual tradition, minstrelsy, the emergence of jazz and the blues, and ultimately the person he considers the greatest beneficiary of black music and the embodiment of its syncretic fusion --Bob Dylan.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

McNally introduces his book as "an idiosyncratic history," and that it definitely is. I found much of it interesting, though often meandering. One could argue that the meandering mimics the titular highway, though as the geography of the stories contained sprawl and jumble from Mississippi to Maryland, St. Louis to Chicago, New Orleans to New York, and Hibbing to Hamburg, the thematic importance of being "On Highway 61" gets quite lost. That said, I did find both the music and race history very interesting. I think McNally's thesis, as it were, is rather thin--pushing his poetic title too far--but the background on the development of blues music in particular was worth the read. Not personally being a particular Bob Dylan fan, I found the song-by-song analysis of his first six albums in the last section of the book a bit trying and excessive (and idiosyncratic perhaps--but not in a good way), thought Dylan fans will probably love it and the amateur-musicologist in me did find some of the details interesting. The line he wants us to see between Thoreau and Dylan may exist, but I'm not at all convinced that it ever traveled Highway 61. [3.5 stars]

[Douglas Graney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to begin reading this book.

The first few chapters do not disappoint. It is impressively scholarly.

However there is so much detail in writing about music and the bio's of some of the subjects that On Highway 61 loses it's focus and it's power.

The book could have easily been called On The Mississippi River or many other titles because of the (too) broad subtitle.

The last few chapters on Bob Dylan are interesting but again, Dennis McNally makes the reader labor through a lot of material when the point he is making could be much more concise.

I found the same to be true in his book on The Grateful Dead where he spent so much time on the early years of their history. However the interlude chapters were a pleasant and needed diversion from the chronology.

If someone is doing research on the areas McNally covers, they might find this book useful.

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book — very well researched and thorough. Its scope is impressive, bringing together culture, literature, music history, politics, and the country’s founding ideal of freedom. McNally traces how African American music — against all odds — endured, influenced and created the great musical development in the US as the country progressed (and often regressed) from the civil war until the passage of the civil rights act. And he provides hope that we can someday recapture and realize the american freedom ideal.

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was intended to be a story about Highway 61 – which runs along the Mississippi River - covering “music, race, and the evolution of cultural freedom”. But it ended up being a collection of ideas that the author – Dennis McNally - found important, and not really a cohesive story.

“On Highway 61” seemed to be three books in one. In the first “book”, McNally wanted to tie in the writers Thoreau and Twain with music, as symbols of freedom. While this could have been an interesting connection, McNally did not spend enough time to forge a strong link between the authors and musicians, so this idea was left largely unsupported.

The second “book” concerned the growth of music and particularly Ragtime, Blues, Jazz, R&B, and Rock along Highway 61 – following the “Great migration”. It was here where I thought McNally excelled. He has a good knowledge of the great artists in each of these genre’s and can write well of them.

That said he could have tied the growth of music more to the socio-economic changes of the times. He talks of a great migration up On Highway 61 but gives little context around this. Why did it happen? How did this result in the growth of the various centers of music – including Memphis, Kansas City, and Chicago. A map and an infographic with a timeline would have both been helpful.

The last “book” was a paean to Bob Dillon’s first six albums as the end to music evolution on Highway 61. This was really a book itself. Perhaps McNally should have focused on this?

That said, the McNally writes well, and I learned more about music – which was a key reason for picking up On Highway 61. I found myself checking YouTube videos as he described the various artists and think this is the best way to approach the book.

On Highway 61 was a good book that had the potential to be a great book. The shortfall seemed from the author’s need to tell his story – cohesive or not – and/or the inability of his editor(s) to keep it focused.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

McNally aptly describes his book "an idiosyncratic history." Scholarly but accessible, occasionally dubious in its connections and conclusions, this unique journey through American music history and its broad impact upon culture is fascinating and enjoyable.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was super disappointed with the wasted potential of this book. The fact that it is meant to be a history of music in America and centers on three white guys (two of whom are authors, not musicians) is alarming. Because of the title, I also expected there to be more focus on…Highway 61 (silly me), which was only mentioned a few times whereas Texas, New York City, and England were heavily featured. Similarly, the last several chapters of the book were an in-depth analysis on Bob Dylan’s psychology and musical structure, while incredibly significant figures like B.B. King (who grew up in Indianola, MS - located on Highway 61) was named in a throw-away sentence and never brought up again. Aside from the tenuous links between pretty much everything in the book and the brow-furrowing conclusions the author comes to, the writing itself is hard to follow. Timelines move forward then jump back, people are described without context as to what he/she has to do with the narrative, and the author doesn’t give basic establishing information (like what instrument a certain artist plays). This is also not a book for someone without an already established knowledge of musical form and history - I had to constantly look up things that the author spoke about without giving appropriate background or definition. I do not recommend this book.

[P. Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting overview of the development of American music, starting with the Mississippi Delta and concluding with Bob Dylan. The use of Highway 61, which runs from Duluth, Minnesota to New Orleans, Louisiana, is by now a well-traveled trope. But it still works.
I liked how McNally combined the social history of the period with the development of the blues, jazz, R&B, be-bop, country blues, and rock and roll. The section on Dylan was probably too long, creating a certain imbalance. And in covering Dylan's remarkable life through his first five albums (culminating with Highway 61 Revisited in 1965), I probably learned enough about Dylan, although I was very impressed with the hitherto unknown story of Dylan singing "Only a Pawn in the Game" before an audience of black sharecroppers and KKK men in Greenbow, Mississippi, in the early 60's.

[Bonni McKeown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Coming from the Chicago blues scene of today’s 2020s, I wanted to see what Dennis McNally, a literature critic whose favorite subject was Beat Poet Jack Kerouac, would bring to the history of blues, jazz and folk music. Would he differ from other white-guy critics? Or just be one of the crowd?
I do want to give On Highway 61 credit for taking the story of American culture back to the post-Civil War era and depicting how the Black and White literature and music intertwine. McNally introduces the ideal of freedom with poet Henry Thoreau and begins his river story in Missouri with Mark Twain’s tale Huckleberry Finn and the character of Huck’s Black friend Jim. Later McNally points out that, just like Huck and Jim, white and Black country and blues musicians such as Hank Williams and Howlin’ Wolf learned and traded each other’s musical licks.
On Highway 61 rambles on through the early 20th century music my parents grew up with (they liked the “sweet” swing of white bands like Glenn Miller but not the “hot” swing of Count Basie). Then, the 1960s folk music I grew up with—the origins of the Kingston Trio and the foundations of Woody Guthrie, Led Belly, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger. McNally reviews the divisions of jazz into swing, bebop/avant garde and traditional New Orleans. And the usual blues narrative via Robert Johnson to Maxwell Street to Bob Dylan and those Brit rockers who made millions while starving the blues originators--although that exploiting isn’t made clear enough. McNally also shows racial tone-deafness when he mentions the post WW II GI bill. It helped his dad and mine afford houses-- but not many Black veterans, who faced red-lining in housing and discrimination in education.
McNally uses the theme of “freedom” and I agree that music is a huge part of human expression, all around the world. He also makes the point of white people “escaping” into Black music because Black culture allows for more expression of basic human feelings. He shows readers that from the beginning in this country, at least since the time of late 19th century minstrel shows, white people often have made fun of Black people and their less-inhibited culture, calling it “savage,” but at the same time admiring the music. There is no “freedom” for professional Black musicians who can’t make a living due to systemic discrimination, however.
White fans have often displayed intense jealousy toward Black talent, especially when the Black artists excel even in European forms. McNally points to the white-oriented stylings of the Fisk Jubilee Singers and the ragtime leader Scott Joplin, who wrote classical music scores but couldn’t get any promoter to stage his opera “Treemonisha.” (A nearer-contemporary example would be singer Nina Simone, talented classical pianist whose story was told in a biopic movie two years after this book came out.)
The book mentions white music collectors John Lomax and his son Alan, who helped blues and country musicians get recognized by the Library of Congress, but, like other critics, also participated in overdefining their art and pillaging their earnings. McNally terms Alan Lomax a “leftist”—well, maybe that was just in words, not actions. Alan should have stood more for the rights of working musical artists. Also, the book fails to mention that Black music publishers such as W.C. Handy and Willie Dixon, who like the Lomaxes put their names on other people’s compositions, could also be exploiters of fellow Black musicians. There are gatekeepers in an insidious plantation system demonstrated non-musically in the movie Django Unchained.
Many stories in the book are mentioned but not told. For example, what caused the movement of bebop jazz from Harlem to midtown Manhattan in the late 1940s-50s? Was it gentrification like the move of Chicago blues from the West and South Side to the North Side? Whose idea was it? McNally also labels American Federation of Musicians Chicago boss James Petrillo as “mobbed up,” but does not detail how the AFM merged/integrated its Chicago locals 208 and 10 in the 1960s—a move that, according to bluesmen I know, severely limited representation for Black blues and jazz musicians.
McNally plays into the white fandom of Robert Johnson by devoting a whole chapter to him, while admitting that many other Delta bluesmen were more popular with the Black audience. He also admits that some words and musical phrases of Johnson’s songs, like most blues, were derived from earlier songs. While Robert Johnson made profound contributions to the blues art form, blues is a tradition, always built on the shoulders of one’s ancestors. White culture overemphasizes individualism and “originality.” It is always inventing something “new,” not necessarily better. McNally doesn’t dig deep enough into the definition of white culture to challenge that premise.
The last third of the book is devoted to Bob Dylan, whose work does indeed draw on American roots music styles from the north end to the south end of Highway 61. Dylan heard country-western music at a young age and played in an electric rock’n’roll band. His early folk music hero was Woody Guthrie who, McNally points out, happily played in a quartet with Lead Belly and bluesmen Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. Dylan’s jagged poetry and groovy music was part of my coming-of-age soundtrack that continues to stick in my head. But as other reviewers have stated, Dylan occupies only one notable branch on the American music tree. Somehow the Black story of the music gets cut short by making Dylan the climax of the book. This differs only slightly from the other white-guy critics who climax their stories with Eric Clapton.
For a better-rounded story from a Black viewpoint, check out Nelson George’s Death of R&B.

[Srđan Strajnić · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ova izvanredna knjiga Denisa MekNalija počinje poglavljem o Dejvidu Henriju Torou (David Henry Thoreau, 1818-1862), američkom filozofu, za koga, priznajem nisam do sada čuo, ali je autor brzo objasnio razloge njegovog uključenja. Toro je, naime, dobio počasno mesto u knjizi koja se bavi osvajanjem kulturnih sloboda (a to znači slobode uopšte) iz dva razloga: kao abolicionista i kao autor eseja „Građanska neposlušnost“ (Civil Disobedience). Mark Tven (Mark Twaine), pisac, je svoje mesto u knjizi dobio zahvaljujući Misisipiju, na kome je živeo i radio kao pilot na brodu i o kome je pisao. Čak je po terminu iz plovidbe Misisipijem dobio umetničko ime. Mark Twain u žargonu mornara sa Misisipija znači „oznaka dva“ (označava visinu vodostaja od 12 stopa). MekNali se nemuzičkim temama bavi samo u prvom delu knjige mada i u njemu ima priče o muzici, dok u drugom ispisuje kratku istoriju muzike toka Misisipija koji je nerazdvojiv od Autoputa 61 koji ga prati. Znate, naravno da je istorija muzike doline Misisipija u stvari istorija muzike dvadesetog veka. Rani bluz, rani džez, sving, bop, folk, uz kratke ali interesantne biografije glavnih protagonista tih stilova i uz veliki broj anegdota koje sam prvi put čuo čine da čitanje bude pravo zadovoljstvo. Treće poglavlje je posvećeno Bob Dilanu koji je svojim delom objedinio sve te pojedinačne težnje za slobodom koje su tema ove knjige, ali i crnačke i belačke muzičke doprinose kulturnom oslobađanju. Treba reći da je Denis MekNali pisao i izdao knjigu 2014., dve godine pre nego što je Dilan dobio Nobelovu nagradu, tako da nije u pitanju nikakva naknadna pamet autora. Po mom mišljenju, ovu knjigu bi morao da pročita svaki ljubitelj popularne muzike dvadesetog veka.

[Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have a confession to make. I have only read the first 100 pages of this book.
"This is an idiosyncratic history of the American alternate voice, the countervoice to the materialist mainstream of American thought, which sees instead the essence of the American idea as centring on the pursuit of freedom."
Having recently attempted to read Dean Alger's incomprehensible babblings on the great Lonnie Johnson and Paul Garon's pseudo-intellectual blatherings on Memphis Minnie I felt fairly certain that I had plumbed the depths of gobbledegook and lived to tell the tale. Alas, no. Dennis McNally has come along with an equally scrambled thesis that would appear to defy any form of articulation, certainly on his part.
His opening sentence (above) sets the scene. Garbled nonsense that no amount of close reading can unravel. Sentences, paragraphs baffled this reader. McNally never has any control of his subject. If you throw enough shit at a wall, I am told, some of it will stick. And so it is with this book.

I'll persevere with this book for no other reason than it cost a packet.

I persevered. It didn't get much better. The book is a regurging of known facts on various individuals and movements. The dubious grammar and punctuation means that everything in the book has been covered more coherently elsewhere. That aside, I couldn't see where the author had corralled his facts and figures to back his thesis of an "alternate voice .. centring on the pursuit of freedom". For Dylan, the author claimed, "spiritual freedom in the arts was the focus, and it was doing very well indeed". The only evidence put forward by McNally for this was Allen Ginsberg shedding a tear after hearing "Hard Rain". Give me a break.
The "evolution of cultural freedom" (what does that even mean?) could possibly have been kicked into some kind of shape by someone as articulate and analytical as Griel Marcus. Mr McNally doesn't come close.

[Lisa Herlocker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good thesis, very thoroughly explored BUT the book needs some tighter editing. The final 75+ pages about Bob Dylan seem out of proportion to other artists. Beginning with Thoreau and Twain intrigued me but that section too was a bit too detailed.
The central chapters of musical history were interesting but again too full of obscure details for the average reader. The history was interesting but without a strong music history background I was often lost in the details. Finally, it would have been great to have access to samples of music — perhaps a link to an annotated website? Not sure how to do it. I found myself searching for music clips in order to understand the changes and connections the author was pointing out.

[Rick B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I was expecting, but a fulfilling read anyhow. I was hoping for more of a geographic journey of the varied music genres arising from Highway 61. While there were certainly a number of references, I would have preferred a more detailed focus on those local factors along Highway 61 and less on Chicago and New York's contributions.

While I enjoyed reading this book, near the conclusion I began to come away with the feeling the entire text was written as a buildup towards the chapters on Bob Dylan. Upon conclusion, I am even more convinced of this. While that does not bother me, I think a better (or more accurate) title would have been "How Highway 61 Created Bob Dylan."

[Thomas J · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems well written so I'll give it 3 stars - I'm not sure I'm qualified, since I only read about the first third of the book. I was looking for more references to the highway itself and I don't have the knowledge or interest in early blues musicians to appreciate all the names and references to syncopation and 2 beat vs 4/4, etc. It prompted me to look to Wikipedia for more information on the Mississippi Delta and on Louis Armstrong - both topics were quite interesting. There was probably more later in the book but I didn't get that far.

BTW I was reading the e-book

[zarkmoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
Like McNally's sprawling Grateful Dead history, there's simply too much ground to cover in one book without the results being an inch deep and a mile wide. As a student of the music and culture, this was like returning to the freshman survey textbook after spending years in a deep dive on the subject. And there's nothing wrong with a survey if a quick overview is what you're looking for. I found it frequently frustrating on that account. YMMV.

[James Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the work because I am very interested in music as a force for social change. However, this book makes very questionable connections between the key individuals and their pursuit of what McNally calls "cultural freedom". I do suggest to give it a read because I do not want to give any of it away, but other than that it is a good history of the evolution of black music.

[June · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved how the history and the place and time led naturally to an explanation of the evolution of the blues music. The book helped me understand more connections between musicians and styles. Good book!

[Brian White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written and very well researched. Love his books. My only wish was there was a little more about the blues bands I grew up with - Canned Heat, Johnny Winter, Steve Miller and a little less on Dylan. But a great read

[Mark Singer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book at the Library sale for $2.

Interesting. He traces a string from Thoreau to Mark Twain to Louis Armstrong to Robert Johnson to Bob Dylan. And a lot of stops in between. Keep your Spotify or YouTube handy indeed.

[Stephen Perez · Rating 4 out of 5]

McNally offers a comprehensive examination of the influence of African-American culture on American pop culture. Simply put, American pop culture is African-American culture.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long, involved history of the appropriation of black music with a lengthy chapter on Bob Dylan.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/3 stars

[Kevin Mckinnon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good anecdotal history, but he really doesn’t provide much support for his vague thesis.

[Tim Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. Of more interest possibly to Bob Dylan fans than to even semi-serious blues fans.

[Sarah D Bunting · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://tomatonation.com/culture-and-c...

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend (and fellow Dylan nut)wrote this, and I felt a bit of obligation to read it. But I was very glad I did. The book's thesis is that there has always been a dissident outsider voice in America, and African American music has been in the forefront of that. The book does not always stick to the thesis, but what it does present is a comprehensive chronicling of 100 years of of music going form minstrelsy, jazz, blues, ragtime, rhtym and blues - with brief musical and biographical histories of every musician you ever heard from and many you have not. I can never get enough of reading the story of how Louis Armstrong went form a new Orleans reformatory to basically inventing jazz. It like reading a hundred well-written and informative album covers, which to me is heaven. The book ends with a 100 page concluding section,"The Man Who Brought It all Back Home" - - Bob Dylan. Its a little weird to have a book on African American music end with Dylan, but Dennis makes the case that Dylan arrived in New York not just with Woodie Guthrie and folk music on his mind, but with a through grounding in blues and rhythm and blues. In any event, 100 pages of Dylan from birth to Highway 61 Revisited, with a lot of new stuff to me about hi high school years, was fine with me.

[Jerry Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing and important book in so many ways. Tracing both the history of black music and the civil rights movement and the intermingling of African roots with European white culture especially through literature and music, this book shows where the barriers of racism can crumble through the arts.
Starting with Thoreau and his support of freedom, abolitionism and African-American culture and Mark Twain's subversive masterpiece Huckleberry Finn, McNally then explores ragtime, blues and jazz and their impact on popular music to this day. As the next generation of bop and r&b artists attracted a huge following of white followers like the beats and rock and rollers, the separation of American music by race would vanish, especially with the emergence of Bob Dylan during the height of the civil rights movement in the early 60's.
I appreciate this book more than ever in light of the arrival of my beautiful mixed race grandson being born to my son and daughter in law and the success of their interracial marriage.