Summer Travels

I am off this summer for conferences, lectures, research, and leisure in South Africa, Mozambique, Prague and Copenhagen. Before I left SFSU in the spring I recorded this youtube clip elaborating on the work I do there. Please enjoy.

Singing Out just out from Oxford University Press

SINGING OUT
An Oral History of America’s Folk Music Revivals
David King Dunaway and Molly Beer
Release date: March 17, 2010
Publication date: May 6, 2010
$27.95 | 288 pages | hardcover (01)
ISBN13: 9780195378344 | ISBN10: 0195378344
Editor: Nancy Toff | Publicist: Carolyn Petri | Marketer: Samara Stob


Intimate, anecdotal, and spell-binding, Singing Out offers a fascinating oral history of the North American folk music revivals and folk music.

Culled from more than 150 interviews recorded from 1976 to 2006, this captivating story spans seven decades and cuts across a wide swath of generations and perspectives, shedding light on the musical, political, and social aspects of this movement.

The narrators highlight many of the major folk revival figures, including Pete Seeger, Bernice Reagon, Phil Ochs, Mary Travers, Don McLean, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, Ry Cooder, and Holly Near. Together they tell the stories of such musical groups as the Composers' Collective, the Almanac Singers, People's Songs, the Weavers, the New Lost City Ramblers, and the Freedom Singers. Folklorists, musicians, musicologists, writers, activists, and aficionados reveal not only what happened during the folk revivals, but what it meant to those personally and passionately involved.

For everyone who ever picked up a guitar, fiddle, or banjo, this will be a book to give and cherish.

Extensive notes, bibliography, and discography, plus a photo section.

Read reviews and summaries or buy the book here.

Surviving the Elements

Like Hannibal crossing the Alps, I recently battled my way through three separate snow storms across the mountains while traveling from Albuquerque, NM to San Francisco, CA. This treacherous journey across mountain roads was inspired (or rather, required) by my semester long appointment at San Francisco State University as a distinguished visiting professor of Radio Studies. Perhaps this is just another prime example of the hard work professors willingly endure in order to inspire the minds of their collegiate pupils. I am looking forward to another Spring semester here at San Francisco State teaching Radio Documentary workshops.

A Three-Minute Interview

While I was out in San Francisco this past Spring, I was interviewed by the San Francisco Examiner for their "3-Minute Interview) series. You can read it here: S.F. State professor digs on Pete Seeger.

Greetings from the other side!

The other side of the pond, as they say. I'm spending some time in Europe before the fall semester starts up. At the moment I'm on a little (rainy) island off the coast of Scotland. In a few more days I'll be headed off to Copenhagen to meet up with some friends, old and new!

Happy Birthday, Aldous!

Today is the 115th birthday of Aldous Huxley, writer -- novelist, essayist, poet, screenwriter, and one of the great thinkers of our time.

If you are interested in learning more, I've written two books on Huxley: Huxley in Hollywood and Aldous Huxley Recollected: An Oral History

Both books are available in limited quantities from my website, davidkdunaway.com.

Back to the bosque

We're back in New Mexico now, getting settled back in. It seems strange; though I've lived in this house for so many years I find myself having to remember where things are.

Getting all of our computers up and running properly has been a minor nightmare, but I think we've finally got it fixed.(I hope!) Nonetheless, I'm enjoying the lovely view from my back yard, looking out over the bosque and the acquecias.

Of course, three days after we got back to Albuquerque I jetted back to California for the annual meeting of the Route 66 ARC. It was a great and informative time.

And now my collaborator, Molly Beer, and I are working intensely on final edits of our new book, Singing Out.