The first book concerns modernity, the American ‘Folk,’ and contemporary
singer/songwriters. Having been either directly or indirectly involved in
writing and performing in the genre that can loosely be called ‘folk music’ for
most of my adult life, I made a decision to direct the focus of my critical gaze
toward what Phillip Brett, in referring to the subjects of his own research
calls, “our own tribes.”
Periodically someone contacts me and says, "I just ordered your book and can't wait to read it." If you're not an academic I suggest you breeze over or skip the introduction altogether. Maybe come back to it after reading the rest of the book. The scholarly convention at the time (still?) was to present the book's theoretical concepts in the intro so that's what I did. Unfortunately, many non-academics get seriously turned off by this "ponderous academic" stuff and never make it to the rest of the book where all the fun stuff happens. There's enough in the book to turn off interested folkies without doing it from the get-go. This isn't a celebration of folkiness so don't expect warm and fuzzy. I enjoyed researching and writing it. If you get through it please feel free to let me know what you think.
Best,
Tom