Origins of the Popular Style: The Antecedents of Twentieth-Century Popular Music (Clarendon Paperbacks)
"Will have reprecussions not only on the study of popular music, but on those debates about cultural identity which are centred on blues and jazz....The range of scholarship here is extraordinary and, in its combination of available materials, unprecedented....A major intervention in the study of American popular music, and should be known not only to musicians and musicologists, but to anyone interested in the sociology of American culture."--Journal of American Studies"Exposes many fascinating facets of popular music and provides a clear insight into jazz' formative years."--JazzTimes"Contains a wealth of ingenious speculations....He seems to have an uncanny knack for drawing out musical patterns from an extraordinaryly diverse repertory....Anyone interested in exploring the musical syntax of popular genres would do well to take advantage of the insights presented so cogently here."--American Music"This ground-breaking study examines the split between 'classical' and 'popular' Western music in the 19th century...and imparts fascinating insights about the derivation of blues types, classic ragtime, and parlor music....A truly original contribution....Strongly recommended for both college and public libraries."--Choice"What an interesting book!  Van der Merwe has raised fundamental questions about twentieth-century music and has dealt with them provocatively, thoroughly, and, in some cases, conclusively.  His discussion of the origins of the blues form alone is invaluable."--Martin Williams