| I very much enjoyed my outings and talks in Tennessee and Dallas. In Tennessee I gave one of my "economics of music" talks, this time about old-timey music, country and western, and gospel; in short the talk was about how music evolved in Tennessee and nearby parts (I've done the same in Mississippi), and the centrality of market forces to that evolution. The fun thing about the talk is using actual music samples, and then discussing how economic forces shaped the musical innovation. So I was able to play Roscoe Holcombe, Elvis Presley, and Mahalia Jackson, among others, for people, and then explain how those ideas came about.
I disagree with Charles Murray's recent contention that the twentieth century shows fewer aesthetic peaks than previous times (I'll post more detailed comments on Murray's new book soon). We simply need to look for them in different places, and in different ways. And we observe a far greater "aesthetic division of labor." So no single "old-timey" star has the cache of Bach, or anything close to it. Nor are many contemporary musicians so prolific as a composer. But old-timey music, taking numerous individual contributions as a whole, is something wondrous, startling, often scary, and most of all deep. Try this CD, American Primitive, selected by the late, great John Fahey, if you are looking for a place to start. You need to listen to each cut individually, just don't through it into your car CD player. -- Posted by Tyler Cowen to The Volokh Conspiracy at 10/25/2003 10:06:52 AM Powered by Blogger Pro |
