Czech Bluegrass: Notes from the Heart of Europe (Folklore Studies in Multicultural World)

Bidgood, Lee

ISBN 10: 0252041453 / ISBN 13: 9780252041457

Published by University of Illinois Press, 2017

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 385543219

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Czech Bluegrass: Notes from the Heart of Europe (Folklore Studies in Multicultural World)
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252041453
• ISBN 13: 9780252041457
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Bluegrass has found an unlikely home, and avid following, in the Czech Republic. The music’s emergence in Central Europe places it within an increasingly global network of communities built around bluegrass activities.
 
Lee Bidgood offers a fascinating study of the Czech bluegrass phenomenon that merges intimate immersion in the music with on-the-ground fieldwork informed by his life as a working musician. Drawing on his own close personal and professional interactions, Bidgood charts how Czech bluegrass put down roots and looks at its performance as a uniquely Czech musical practice. He also reflects on “Americanist” musical projects and the ways Czech musicians use them to construct personal and social identities. Bidgood sees these acts of construction as a response to the Czech Republic’s postsocialist environment but also to US cultural prominence within our global mediascape.
 

About the Author

Lee Bidgood is an associate professor of bluegrass, old-time, and country music studies in the Department of Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University.