Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War (Music in American Life)

If you are looking for a light read, this is not the book for you. This is a well researched, well written tome of the music of people brought to the western hemisphere as slaves from 1619 to the Civil War. I would not be surprised that this book is used as a text book in certain college courses such as Black History, Ethnology, Music, etc. This book, for me, has triggered further exploration of this subject with interesting side trips into folk crafts and music. I am enjoying this book very much.

Dena Epstein was a Chicago Librarian. She wasn't a paid musicologist, but she was determined to find out the story of African American music from the time we got off the slave ships until the Civil War. She emerged with a triumph. No one who has not read this book really knows anything about African American, or for that matter American culture and music, worth knowing. Rather than the abstract dwelling on Africanism in this or that part of Black culture, she refutes the idea that the slaves were robbed of their culture she shows how the musical culture of West Africa was carried here and how it was modified and added to. One of the most interesting aspects of Epstein's book for me is the record of the many different African instruments that were brought to the New World or were remade by Africans in the New World. The common idea that African instruments were limited to drums is refuted here strongly with her references to descriptions of different instruments found in the US and the West Indies. Along the way, Epstein was one of the first to reassert the AFricanness of the banjo and document it. One interesting question which with the easiness of hindsight and futher research I raise is the issue of fiddling. Epstein documents that contrary to the popular stereotype that AFricans in the America were primarily banjoists or drummers, in the US until the point in the 19th Century when banjos became generally available and popular among most black and poor folks, African American musicians were most closely indentified with the fiddle. This is true not only in the US but in the West Indies. Epstein does document how quickly after being "imported" African born musicians became excellent players of the fiddle, makers of fiddles, and even teachers of fiddling. She points out that the fiddle was so essential to the lives of planation African Americans that the question of whether the slave master should provide his slaves with a full time fiddler for slave dances was debated in circles who discussed how to manage slaves. The question is really posed that such quick mastery of a very difficult instrument, and the rather rapid way it was used to play African based music could not be just a coincidence or a product of some kind of general African musical ability, but the product of retention of traditions that come from West African bowed instruments. Blacks who were fiddlers already in AFrica on African fiddle like instruments were enslaved, and their rapid progress another feature of transmission of AFrican culture into this country. Of course, I am looking back from advances pioneered by Epstein and those who followed her. Read this books and celebrate that triumph and learn what must be known about Black music and American culture.

Classic book that dispels the racist views which were previously promoted about the history of African American music in general, and the banjo in particular.

This is a very detailed, in-debth study of early Afro-American music. Dena Epstein spent decades tracking down original source material. Her book is a facinating look at pre Civil War attitudes and social practices. This is not a quick read--it is like reading a masters thesis--but anyone interested in early banjo music and/or the early history of Afro-Americans, will find this book essensial reading.

I'm a vocalist and vocal music teacher and looked around for a while for an informative, yet not boring book for me to read and use as a reference guide for some of my classes. This book is all that I'd been looking for. In fact, it's the best book that I been able to find about the history of black american folk music. It's also not an easy book to find. I've been so impressed by the books that Amazon carries.

This book was a labor of love by Ms. Epstein. Well reasoned, written and thoroughly researched it represents a more accurate historical account the the Banjo found it's origins in Africa. Until this book was written the Banjo was though to be an instrument of European dissent. If you play the Banjo this book will send you on your way to historical accuracy.

Excellent book for those who want to understand the history of folk music in the US.

This is one of the most thoroughly researched books I ever read.