| Details | | Publication Date: | 1996-03-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 295 pages | | Height: | 9.3 in | | Width: | 6.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 20.8 oz |
Publisher's Note
The Big Ballad Jamboree is Donald Davidson's only novel. He set his story - the romance of country singer Danny MacGregor and ballad scholar Cissy Timberlake - in the fictional Appalachian town of Carolina City. It is the summer of 1949, midway between World War II and the full-scale birth of television. A state teachers college is preparing for its major folk music festival. Seen through the eyes of a young man with a musical gift descended from moutain people, this is definitive fiction about a community struggling to embrace a modern commercial economy without losing its folk heritage. As they are feeling the seismic cultural shift, Danny MacGregor's band is offered its big break to appear regularly on the Grand Ole Opry.
Industry Reviews
New Deal politics and social upheaval subsequent to World War II push civilization on the Appalachians of 1949 North Carolina, forcing the region's folk music to evolve from its roots in English balladry into slick, radio-driven hillbilly music. Raised with the folk tradition, Cissie Timberlake and Danny MacGregor, off-and-on sweethearts and one-time members in the same hillbilly band, struggle to bring some order to this musical evolution. Choosing academia as her arena, Cissie teaches at a local university and codifies regional folk songs for her master's degree, while Danny maintains a connection with traditional music by composing new ballads. Using humor and an intimate knowledge of the country music scene of the mid-1900s, Davidson (1893-1968), an Agrarian essayist and poet mentor to Robert Penn Warren, explored the negative effects of modernity on the South in this, his only novel, which was discovered by his granddaughter in the family files. Recommended for regional literature collections. Robert Jordan, Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City
Breitman
The country music industry is the focus of this charming but long-unpublished only novel by Davidson (1893-1968), written in the mid-'50s. Set in southwest North Carolina in 1949, the novel places a comic spin on the serious subject that Davidson explored as a Fugitive poet and Agrarian essayist: how urbanization can wreak havoc on rural society and the folk arts. Hillbilly music star Danny MacGregor finds himself caught "betwixt and between" two worlds as he woos his childhood sweetheart, Cissie Timberlake, former country music singer and now a folk-music scholar. Danny is torn between a lucrative career singing commercial jingles as one of the Turkey Hollow Boys and his determination to win over Cissie at any price even if it means lugging her recording equipment as she collects ballads from eccentric old-timers. When Cissie discovers Buck Kennedy, a bootlegger with a shoe box full of lyrics, she appears to be on her way to academic superstardom, until a group of hilariously unscrupulous scholars try to plunder her research. Although the novel sometimes seems dated (Danny courts Cissie by defending her honor and buying her Cokes), the colloquial speech and concert scenes ring true. According to an afterword by Curtis W. Ellison and William Pratt, both professors at Miami University, Davidson's novel was believed lost until his granddaughter discovered it; her find is good fortune for fans of country music and for anyone who enjoys a fast-paced read as unpretentious as a genuine mountain ballad. (Mar.)
Lopate
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