Eck Robertson at the Crossroads of American Fiddling
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University Press of Mississippi
Published:16th Jun '25
£22.99
Supplier delay - available to order, but may take longer than usual.
The Texas Panhandle’s frontier days were fresh in memory when fiddler Eck Robertson (1887-1975) arrived. Cowboys still worked on ranches in the 1910s but barbed-wire fences abounded too. Robertson pursued a continually evolving strategy to profit from the feverish transformation of living history into marketable nostalgia. He adopted cowboy dress clothes for his first recording session in New York in 1922 and became known as a "Famous Cowboy Fiddler." His stubborn vision spawned traditional-yet-transformed Texas fiddling.
Robertson criticized other fiddlers because their playing was "just the same thing over and over." Robertson insisted that his fiddling—his balance of cleaving to tradition while adding new content—was the way of the future. Author Chris Goertzen traces Robertson’s story through detailed biography, music transcriptions, and careful musical analysis. Though Robertson struggled to attain consistent financial success as a performer, he cultivated a varied repertoire which allowed him to balance offering the comfort of shared recollection with fresh excitement. His biggest hit, "Sally Goodin," was a game changer, both as played live and as the very first country music recording. With his undeniable talent and forward thinking, Robertson took a musical practice that already had a broad reach and a distinguished history in a direction that would guarantee a niche in modern American culture.
"Eck Robertson at the Crossroads of American Fiddling is a masterwork in the genre of vernacular American music." - Andrew Kuntz, contributor to Fiddler Magazine and editor of the Traditional Tune Archive Robertson was an extraordinarily influential figure in the world of American fiddling—indeed, in the larger picture of American music as a whole—who more than deserves a book of his own." - Paul F. Wells, director emeritus of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University
"Eck Robertson was both a great traditional fiddler and the inspiration for modern Texas contest fiddling. This is as complete, readable, and playable documentation of Eck Robertson’s life and music as we are ever likely to have the pleasure to read. The answers are all here. Goertzen has done it again!" - Harry Bolick, fiddler and coauthor of Mississippi Fiddle Tunes and Songs from the 1930s and Fiddle Tunes from Mississippi: Commercial and Informal Recordings, 1920–2018
"Goertzen’s abundant research into family history, archives, and discussion of Eck Robertson’s mentees and musical inheritors offers a gold mine of detail on numerous facets of Robertson’s biography and kaleidoscopic career, ranging from 1800s minstrelsy to modern ‘hot’ fiddling. The richness of this valuable documentation helps today’s readers understand the historical and evolving cultural landscapes of America." - Howard Wight Marshall, author of Keep It Old-Time: Fiddle Music in Missouri from the 1960s Folk Music Revival to the Present
ISBN: 9781496857149
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
272 pages