The Rose & the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad

by Dave Marsh, Robert Crumb, David Thomas, et al.

Book Overview

Praised by Robbie Robertson of The Band as "a classic & a ticket to ride," The Rose & the Briar assembles an astonishing group of writers and artists: Paul Muldoon, Stanley Crouch, R. Crumb, Jon Langford of the Mekons, Sharyn McCrumb, Luc Sante, Joyce Carol Oates, Dave Marsh, and more than a dozen other novelists, essayists, performers, and critics; to explore the ineffable power of the American ballad. From "Barbara Allen" through "The Wreck of the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393059545
• ISBN13: 9780393059540
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 406 Pages
• Weight: 1.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

I LOVED getting the inside scoop on some of the oldies

I bought this for the Handsome Family's Rennie Sparks chapter, and was not disappointed. I can read and re-read this tome and be entertained each and every time. Check it out.

the roses are worth the thorns

There are some really amazing essays here, notably, Greil Marcus's envoi. Dave Marsh on "Barbara Allen" lifts a lot of ancient stuff out of the shadows and sets it in a clean, well lighted place. Sarah Vowell on "John Brown's Body" tells us a lot more about the ballad than we might have imagined. Cecil Brown on "Frankie and Albert" is a delight. Frankie's life is worthy of several ballads. R. Crumb's graphics make this a classic. His letter to the editor slaps a few of the other essayists out of the fetid air like horse flies. The graphics are fine, so I don't know what a previous reviewer was complaining about. Maybe he got a bad a copy. There are some real clunkers here, however. Wendy Lesser's piece is lost at sea. This is such a dissappointment when there is so much to say about Dylan, and she is such a fine writer, and Greil Marcus has written such great stuff on Dylan. Stanley Crouch's essay is fine, but it has nothing to do with ballads. David Thomas is a high-fallootin intellectualizer. "An imperative that derives from a gestalt of geography, sound, and culture fixes and vitalizes and drives certain musics." Wouldn't you love to see this guy have a conversation with Bob Dylan? Would he know a ballad if he stepped on one barefoot?

An extraordinary literary and musical adventure

This is a wonderful book. The explorations of various folk songs (and what comprises a "folk" song) range from intriguing academic insights to fictional interpretations of the histories and even biographies of various songs: wonderful and inventive and satisfying. It was given to me by a friend and I am buying it for at least three more. Incredible

A great new book on some great old songs

Sean Wilentz and Greil Marcus have been listening to some great old songs, and some new ones too - songs about doomed lovers, highway shooters, and a nation lost and found. The essays they have put together are stunning -- my favorites are Dave Marsh on "Barbara Allen," which people have been singing for 500 years; Wendy Lesser on dancing to Dylan's "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" with her baby boy in her arms; and Sean Wilentz on the curse behind "One more round, Delia's gone." Greil's last word on the "embarrassment" of "folk music" is also terrific. And the companion CD is a must.

American hearts are broken all over and have been for years

So, I'm reading this amazing book, The Rose and the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad and it's smart and it's emotional and it makes *me* feel smart and also, emotional. It takes all these well-known ballads and makes you really think about how these songs have stood the test of time. What makes them resonate after all these years? I'm awed and utterly fascinated.