PHANTOM BANJO

Rating:
Summary: Very creative and enjoyable fantasy
Review: THE PHANTOM BANJO ---------------------Vol 1 in the "Songkiller Saga" Elizabeth Scarborough; Bantam-Spectra Books, ISBN 0-553-28761-3

This book made me laugh. It also, more often, made me cry, rage, and chilled me to the bone. It is fantasy-fiction, but some of the passages, and some of the plot-line, hits far too close to reality to make it a nice, casual and inoffensive read for me. You see, I am a professional singer and collector of folksongs. I was raised singing the songs of the Appalachian Mountains, discovered Mexican music, and then went nuts with the rest of the wonderful ethnic musics we have in America and Great Britain and Ireland....and this book tells all about the plot of the Devil to steal our -real- music from us; to take the one source of fun and comfort for the poor and hungry away.. ..and substitute the homogenized "corporate-pop" ("corporate-PAP!") culture...Sound familiar? Devil does it in little things...killing off the center of the folk revival, a tall, skinny, leftish banjo player that likes to lead his audiences in singing.....keeping foreign singers of folk music out of the country by pressures from the Unions (THAT is happening FOR REAL RIGHT NOW with the Dept. of Immigration!!!!).....making the Music Police get tough about royalty payments and Union membership (THAT is also happening for real right now in many places, and driving the small clubs out of the entertainment side of the business!!!!)....making the Music Police get overly tight-a**ed about copyrights....and taking away the memories of the words of the songs....destroying the collections in the Library of Congress and destroying personal collections too....many, many little things that (in the real world) are -really- happening.....scares me to death! But....see, that banjo player's banjo was made by a little old man in Appalachia who had "power," and he put that power into the banjo and all that singing for years and years put power into that banjo....and another folksinger has it now....and he, and several others, are fighting back! Fighting back against the Chairdevil, and the Bureaucrats and Buisnesspersons, and all the others that want to Take Control over something that can't really be "owned" by anybody because -everybody- owns it. So maybe all is not lost...the next book will take them to the British Isles; to the source of the music...where the devils haven't really touched....yet. There, they must re-live the old ballads, and bring them back! Supposedly, there will be a third book. I already have number two and three reserved at my local bookdealer! And if they ever come out in hardback, I intend to make them a permanent part of my library, right up there with Manly Wade Wellmann and Alan Lomax! GOOD STUFF, Maynard. And, as an absolute banjomaniac myself.... GREAT BOOK! And damn sobering in spots.