Never Without a Song
Author | : Katharine D. Newman |
Publisher | : University of Illinois Press |
Total Pages | : 332 |
Release | : 1995 |
ISBN-10 | : 0252063716 |
ISBN-13 | : 9780252063718 |
Rating | : 4/5 (16 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: Never Without a Song focuses on the centrality of folksong in the life of Jennie Devlin, a woman who worked for fourteen years as a "bound-out girl" along the New York-Pennsylvania border and later lived in Philadelphia and Gloucester, New Jersey. Katharine Newman met Devlin in 1936 and compiled information about the older woman's life and music. Half a century later, Newman returned to her collection in retirement-with her own perspective of age. The result is a unique biography of an American working-class woman, told with depth and candor. It includes "I Wish I'd Been Born a Boy," "James Bird," "Martha Decker," "My Grandmother's Old Armchair," and other pieces, both British and American, most with tunes.