Where Dead Voices Gather

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Summary: Vintage Tosches
Review: "The mystery of Emmett Miller, I think, will never be penetrated." So wrote Nick Tosches nearly 25 years ago, in the first edition of his seminal book 'Country.' At that time, it seemed certain that Miller would go down as just another biographical cipher in popular music history.

Never say never. Miller's legend refused to be left alone, and the long-deceased minstrel man from a vanished era so haunted Tosches in the ensuing years that he, with the help of other researchers, finally began fleshing out the actual details of Emmett Miller's life and times. This book, a worthy companion and in many ways a sequel to 'Country,' is the result.

In 'Where Dead Voices Gather,' Tosches uses Emmett Miller's life as the foundation and starting point to an all-encompassing essay on the subject of race, music, and America. Along this 299-page journey we encounter minstrel men and shamen, Delta bluesmen and drag queens, gospel quartets and Mafioso, New York City society and "Georgia Crackers." If Papa Charlie Jackson shares a paragraph with Ezra Pound, if Ragtime Henry Thomas and Homer are discussed in similar terms, and if Bob Dylan, the Dorsey Brothers, William Faulkner, Scatman Crothers, Friedrich Nietzsche, Stephen Foster, Bob Wills, and Samuel Beckett all make guest appearances throughout, in Tosches's hands it all begins to make sense. Everything relates, nothing has essentially changed much -- "Primordium and continuum." Again and again, Tosches returns to this theme, illuminating his point with arguments and logic that would sound improbable or insane in a lesser writer's hands. The minstrel show never went away, he writes, it just took on new forms, new styles, some more covert than others.

"It went on," he writes, "the strange and gaudy medicine show of American culture: the secrets of its history, its revelations, lost beneath its sound and fury, like the secrets and revelations of an ancient mystery cult, lost to the dust of time, that endure, untelling, where dead voices gather, beneath the endless veils of passing."

Yes, there are some questionable aspects to the book. Relevant photographs and illustrations are inexplicably and inexcusably absent from 'Where Dead Voices Gather.' Occasionally, Tosches launches into personal biography for seemingly no reason at all; it certainly adds nothing to the book, and the ending in particular suffers from this tendency. Similarly, Tosches establishes his patented and tired "machismo" early on by assaulting virtually all academic studies of minstrelsy and, as if to prove that he's no academic sissy, provides no footnotes, bibliography, or anything else befitting a serious piece of historical research. Tosches desperately needs an editor who will stand up to him and say, "All this BS about your girlfriends is a waste of space and we're cutting it from the manuscript, along with the rest of your self-obsessed, egotistical rants that have nothing to do with the topic of this book."

But the strength of Tosches's prose is such that we must forgive him of his insufferable ego. These flaws are indeed minor in the vast fullness of 'Where Dead Voices Gather.'

Rating:
Summary: Almost Perfect....
Review: .... But not. When he's writing about Emmett Miller and the history of minstrelsy, he's brilliant. Not only did he do a ton of original research on Miller and minstrelsy and early American music (blues, jazz and country, before any of those three were genres; even the categories are foreign to us today), but he can tie it into modern musical ideas like no one else. He makes these shadows come alive for a minute, which is amazing; you can almost smell Miller in the room. And his exploration of these roots pulls together many previously ungathered threads.

However, he goes off the deep end, as usual for Tosches. Too many Ezra Pound discursions, for starters. If you're trying to impress us with your deep knowledge of foreign languages, you'd best not quote extensively from that old fraud, who "translated" buttloads of poetry from languages he couldn't read (with "help"); this taints Tosches with the suspicion of similar overreaching. It's great that he has read up on Greek word roots, but these links are too tenuous; it's a little bit of showing off and doesn't really illuminate anything. If he wants to write another book carrying his musical history ideas back from English ballads to ancient Greece, go for it, but here it just looks like dressing-up time. Stick to the blues.

And though Tosches is a great critic of the pop music of his time, like all of his contemporaries in that game (Meltzer, Marcus, ad infinitum) he's every bit as stuck in a particular rut as those he would criticize. He's quoting Iggy Pop and Patti Smith again, folks.

But while those complaints are serious, they don't detract from the fundamental brilliance of the story. It's a terrific, if languid, detective story, as well as an opening into a new world of understanding popular music. Tosches is the only "rock" critic ever who could have written it, which is a pity. I don't see how you can understand where our music came from without this book. Read it.

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Summary: Lively, entertaining look at American show business
Review: A wonderful examination not only of the life and career of an obscure minstrel-show performer, but a wildly entertaining exegesis on the whole of American show business, especially the routes in which ideas are passed down from generation to generation, transmuting all along the way. You'll never think of minstrelsy quite the same way again. If you read this book carefully and well, you will realize that blackface performances were more than just public displays of hate, as the current popular thinking would have it. It could not have been the dominant form of entertainment for the better part of a century if it were nothing more than an avenue for racist expression. Minstrelsy, in fact, became the first area of entrance for blacks into mainstream popular entertainment. But, as I mentioned before, the book is about a lot more than that---more than this review can contain. If you are interested in music, show business, language, history, ANYTHING---buy and savor this fine piece of work.

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Summary: It's about time.
Review: Emmett Miller's name has been whispered in hallowed tones for years in serious music circles. He is a true source point for the "blue yodel' so populorized by Hank Williams and countless others which came in his wake. This book delivers the goods with style and sincerity. Buy It! Also, get the cd of Emmet's outstanding work. it's really something to yodel about.

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Summary: thank you
Review: finding stuff on emmett miller is very hard
i bought The Minstrel Man from Georgia and fell in love with his voice right away and emotion behind it thank you for providing info behind the voice and the man, i am far from a racist and anybody who claims emmett was a racist is covering up their own problems.
this book is perfect for anybody who likes roots and blues and early country wish there were pictures though

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Summary: Nick - Good . Really !!!!!
Review: I went on a bit of a Nick Tosches binge , reading this book , THE DEVIL & SONNY LISTON , and TRINITIES , in one week's time . The two non-fiction books , I read them in , basically , anyway , the same day !!!!!!!!!
As has been said elsewhere , Nick doe tend to have his ----- um , schtick . We hear how bad he is , how he dislikes hippies and the Summer Of Love , once again !
Really , I DO like Nick , and , in fact , I have a Yahoo! group dedicated to him , and his generational cohort , Richard Meltzer -
Merrie Dick And Nickster Society . Url:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/merriericknnickstersociety

Or , just go to Yahoo! groups and enter " Nick Tosches " and " Richard Meltzer " .
Ya know , in this book , Nick calls John Hammond , etc. , " minstrels " ( In the blackface sense . ) Fair enough , but , since he's spent the whole book telling us how minstels - not just Emmett Miller , but , in general - weren't all that bad , were , in fact , often fairly good - Isn't he , then , making " minstrel " not an insult , thus making it not so much an instant put-down to cll Hammond , etc. , that he , preumably-like , intended ? Ah well . Just me . Hah hah . Perhaps , invoking Christianity just as Nick does , I will be forgiven for such perverseness/bitchiness !!!

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Summary: Unconvincing and possibly racist
Review: If you are the type that likes your lines of writing clearly drawn then dont read this. Tosches blurs the lines between fiction/diary/criticism/biography. That's what makes him so unique (for me). As such what is primarily a bio of Emmett Miller turns into a crazy exploration of American music with all sorts of digressions and detours. I dont mind that...HOWEVER...I aint left convinced that Miller is THAT special. He had modest success and virtually no one remembers the guy. Surely if he were THAT influential....someone, anyone, would remember him better.

More disturbing still are Tosches' brief musings on racism. His comparison of Italian American portrayals in Hollywood to minstrel parodies is a more than a bit disconcerting as is his claim (backed by scientific research no less) that race doest not exist and so none of us has any right to be making claims in the name of race. We're all mongrels essentially...and yes..there is validity in that but it does not change the history of bloodshed and hate that have (and are) been based largely on race. To just wash it down the drain of science is ignorant and more than a little frightening.

I dunno...Tosches is one of my favourite writers but lately he seems more concerned with being stylish and cool than with being stylish, smart and relevant.

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Summary: the best book on emmett miller there is
Review: If you read only one book about Emmett Miller, make it this one.

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Summary: Beyond the Valley of Dead Horses
Review: It's hard to know if Virgil sat and wondered, dismayed, at the withering of the Word, listened to words crumble from the mouths of fools with all the decay of ruined cities but none of their beauty. In the heaps of books written about everything, badly, and about things whose innate qualities make anything about them from the start dubious, to find, to trust a writer with your/our time is a thing not easily done. Music today defies critique like a handicapped person being graded on a test that's beyond their ability. This is not to equate them, for a handicapped person has far more substance, intelligence, beauty, honesty, in short, true humanity, than the music being made today and the pawns playing it; but, it is to say that something incapable of a certain level of intelligence and responsibilty, will never meet the requisits of worthy criticism. Through Emmet Miller, Nick defines what these requisits are.
Like Ezra Pound and Picasso taught us last century, the true critic is the artist. These are the people that take the soil, fertile from the dead that lived before, and create life; who take the changes of old and make the rock of new that is always filled with the ancient and holy ghost, soul, living now. Through Nick's eyes and ears, we are escorted beyond the walls that keep our songs and poems, our muti-colored peoples seperate, into a realm where everything corresponds and reverberates in relation to everything else, no matter how distant.
Where Dead Voices Gather is not just a book about Emmett Miller, the great minstrel singer, but about all the living and all the dead and how we conceive of ourselves and the surruounding world. From the blackened face of these performers to the ladders of dna that will ever climb and entwine through our bodies and limbs, we find answers that rework what we thought before.

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Summary: a real bad book
Review: Most writers write to convey information to the reader while a few write to display their knowledge and their vocabulary. Mr Touches does the later. If you met him he would begin spouting everything and fact that he knew in the same way he does in this book simply to astound you. I f you like Emett Miller, buy his CD and skip this book.
This writer is a boor.