Shout-Out to Alex Ross and Ted Gioia

My heartiest congratulations to Alex Ross! His great book The Rest is Noise has won the Guardian First Book Award.

I’ve lately been thinking about Alex’s book as I have read Ted Gioia’s brilliant account of the Delta Blues. The highest compliment I can give to any writing about music is that it makes me want to listen. Both books by that standard rate as resounding successes… my wallet is considerably lighter from the recordings I’ve bought because of them.

The two books make for interesting comparison because of the radically different yet parallel stories they tell of the twentienth century: one plays across a vast geographical and cultural canvass, while the other narrates the insular and obscure; one gives us music that is relentlessly pushing forward into new terrain (and often, in the process, alienating much of its audience), while the other describes a genre that greets innovation with trepidation and is constantly looking to the past for authenticity. Perhaps most surprising is that one tells the story of music of great refinement and sophisitication, much of which (always with important and significant exceptions) becomes culturally marginalized, while the other relates the emergence of a music that would become culturally dominant and ubiquitous in its influence from the poorest, least educated, and most systematically marginalized regional population of twentieth-century America.

I’ll be writing more about this comparison later. But for now, I’ll just say that both of these books will repay multiple readings and will inspire much thoughtful listening.