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Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music
 
 
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Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music [Paperback]

Rob Young
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 672 pages
  • Publisher: Faber and Faber (4 Aug 2011)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0571237533
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571237531
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 4.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 12,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Rob Young
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Product Description

Review

An authoritative account of British 20th-century folk music that is packed with obscure and delightful details. -- The Times

Electric Eden comes into its own as folk-rock capers over the horizon in the mid-1960s ... There are excellent accounts of the rise of bands such as Pentangle, The Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention, alongside pen-portraits of a stream of neglected figures ... Electric Eden makes a persuasive case for folk-rock s essentially liberating nature, and ingeniously links it with the utopian dreams of Britishness of earlier generations of 20th-century folk-revivalists. --
Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, Financial Times

In the face of British folk s sprawling diversity, Young s greatest achievement is to locate a real sense of continuity, a unifying flow that underpins decades, if not centuries, of artistry ... Prepare to wander down countless previously unpondered highways and byways. And prepare to consider Britain s satisfyingly strange and surprisingly hardy indigenous musical heritage afresh. A treat.
Phil Harrison, Time Out Book of the Week *****

Hugely ambitious ... What keeps it consistently readable is the happy marriage between Young s incisive observation and his talent for a vivid phrase ... A thoroughly enjoyable read and likely to remain the best-written overview [of the modern British folk phenomenon] for a long time ... I ve already made several precious musical discoveries thanks to this book and I expect to make more. -- Michel Faber, Guardian Book of the Week

A comprehensive and absorbing exploration of Britain s folk music, which serves, too, as a robust defence of the genre ... What [folk music] emerges as, in this impassioned and infectious rallying cry of a book, is a musical tradition that is about so much more than morris dancing and a determination to hold onto the past. Folk, be it traditional, mystical, mythical, radical or experimental, is a living, breathing form, Young believes. It is everywhere, in all the music we hear, in every song we sing. Electric Eden defies you to disagree. --
Dan Cairns, Sunday Times

Consistently absorbing ... After decades of opportunistic reportage, the modern publisher s catalogue positively crawls with big, serious and thoroughly well-intentioned books about English pop . This is one of the best. --
D J Taylor, Independent

Here is a masterpiece ... nothing less than a magical exploration of transcendent 20th Century British folk music and the folk imagination ... a book that, like the subject itself, redraws the map of cultural Britain, awakening long-dormant protectors, radical spirits and utopian dreamers. Like the revered and forgotten texts Young himself unearths, Electric Eden possesses the power to haunt and enchant for many years to come. --
Andrew Male, Caught by the River

What an incredible trip Rob Young takes us on through time, landscape and music in Electric Eden ... Young s immense narrative is both educative and gripping. -- Allan Jones, Uncut

Young is a fine writer ... [his] substantive achievement is to render folk Britannia as a thing of alluring, durable enigma a fecund, autonomous culture flourishing, for the most part, beyond the cold-hand of commerce and technology yet whose influence bleeds inexorably into the pop hegemony. Obligatory reading for anyone headed into Britain s green festival fields this summer. -- David Sheppard, MOJO *****

Perfectly timed, perfectly pitched alternative history of English folk music. It is wide-ranging, insightful, authoritative, thoroughly entertaining.' --Toby Litt, New Statesman

'A multitudinous, fascinating and beautifully written account of certain mainly short-lived but haunting developments in folk music ... Equally good to dip in and out of and just be carried along in, it describes commensurately what looks increasingly like another heroic age.' --Michael Hofman, TLS

Book Description

A groundbreaking history of more than a century of music making in the British Isles.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
The Observation 22 Sep 2010
Format:Paperback
Now I must confess that I'm still only part way through the book but I can see both sides of the reviews listed. I too was disturbed to see the errors about the Donovan recordings and took the trouble to write to Rob Young about the errors that I'd found. I am, afraid to say, old enough to have bought the original albums at their time of issue!
That said, I do like the way that the works of Arnold Bax, Granville Bantock and others of the period is linked into the exploration of the folk influence. So I'm prepared to give the author the benefit of the doubt as I am definitely enjoying the book and it has got me thinking even if I don't necessarily agree with every word.
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43 of 45 people found the following review helpful
A delight 10 Aug 2010
By emma who reads a lot TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
This is a handsome, heavy book, but don't worry, it's delightful reading that speeds by. English music is the subject matter, but one strain of English music in particular: the folky, countryside-ish music which spans the arc between Vaughan Williams, Kate Bush and Julian Cope. Rob Young has written extensively on the subject, most notably for Wire, and he has a lovely, idiosyncratic style of writing, bringing in elements from outside music and weaving together a wonderful tapestry. John Michell and his leylines, for example, in the chapter on Vashti Bunyan. Ssections pondering the influence of the country retreat on bands such as Traffic. A long meander into the world of William Morris. (In fact, one of the few criticisms I could make of the book would be that sometimes, he'll concentrate on social and cultural stuff at the expense of talking more about the music.)

As well as the main text, there's a carefully-chosen, interesting-to-argue-with-in-your-head discography, a fantastic index and copious footnotes. Highly, highly recommended.

(PS I should mention that for those who really want a book about folk, there is also plenty on Sandy Denny, Comus, Pentangle, Fairport Convention, etc.)
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42 of 44 people found the following review helpful
Magical History 30 Aug 2010
Format:Paperback
Have you ever had this experience? You really want to read a certain book; you look for it; you spend a certain amount of time investigating obscure titles; in the end you decide that the book just doesn't exist. Perhaps you even consider writing it. Then one day it turns up on the shelves.

I've been looking for years for a good volume on British folk music, which took the tradition from the first, Edwardian revival right through to the present, with a particular emphasis on the revivals of the 50s/60s and 70s. Even better if it could link them with that strain in British culture which turns naturally towards the past, and is also interested in everything from ley lines, Wicca and folklore to real ale, self sufficiency and the preservation of rural crafts.

Well, here it is. Rob Young has done us all an enormous favour. This is a fabulous book, and, in the current climate, is destined to attract huge attention. One of those sprawling works that truly deserve the description `panoramic survey', it takes us from the early collecting activities of Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams and the Edwardian collectors, through to the rediscovery of folk in the 50s and 60s (Davy Graham, Shirley Collins, Pentangle/Jansch/John Renbourn, Martin Carthy etc) and its metamorphosis into folk rock and acid folk (Fairport Convention/Sandy Denny, Steeleye Span, Incredible String Band, Mr Fox, Trees etc). Along the way different chapters take us off into such diversions as modern witchcraft and the free festival movement. The trip is exciting, interesting and enlightening.

As a guide to this material, Rob Young has got to be hard to beat. Fantastically knowledgeable, he arranges his material intelligently, writes well, draws out fascinating connections and implications, all the while telling a good story full of personal detail and anecdotes.

OK, it's not perfect. Some other reviews have mentioned mistakes, and they are right. A couple of examples: Young describes (p.263) how a mishearing (by Ashley Hutchings) of Bert Lloyd caused Sandy Denny's Arnold/Darnell slip, and then slips himself saying it occurred in Tam Lin (it was, of course, Matty Groves. Since Liege & Lief is widely considered the most influential folk album of the century, that's a trifle embarrassing). Elsewhere he mentions a `twelfth Century Saxon' church (p.399). I offer these for the inevitable second edition. However, this is a monumental book, over 600 pages of densely packed material. It would be amazing if there were no mistakes, and to say it's littered with mistakes is an exaggeration. My own feeling is that the book as a whole is of such a quality that, while the mistakes may be irritating (especially to notoriously fractious folkies) they don't seriously detract.

Secondly, there's the selection of material. Inevitably, I don't agree with all his judgements. He clearly has a higher opinion of the Incredible String Band than I do, and a lower opinion of Steeleye Span (a brilliant touring band). For him, the writers of broadside ballads were low quality hacks bowdlerising much better folk songs; for me they were frequently talented song writers whose existence places a question mark over the whole idea of `authenticity' in the folk tradition. Then there are the inevitable omissions. John Tams has been mentioned. I think an even greater omission is Frankie Armstrong, probably our greatest contemporary interpreter of the long ballad and every bit as important as Anne Briggs. I'm surprised too that Leon Rosselson doesn't merit a mention, given that he represents a strand of militantly left wing folk music that links back to Ewan MacColl (as well as how often his songs have been covered). But these, too, are unimportant criticisms - a writer has to select his or her material and others will inevitably disagree. It's just evidence of how interesting that material is.

There are two criticisms that I think have teeth. One is the low production standards. The copyediting really is poor and the indexing is dreadful. Faber should be ashamed of themselves for letting down their writers in this way. Secondly, Young does seem to lose the plot after the end of the 70s - his chapter on the 80s really is eccentric and peters out before it gets to what will be exciting a lot of his readers - the folk revival going on around us right now.

I'm aware that I've spent a lot of time on what I disagree with in Electric Eden. I hope people will take this for what it is - a measure of the huge respect and admiration for it and its author. The truth is, I have been waiting a long time for someone to write this book, and I was not let down. I enjoyed it enormously and learned a lot. This will be the definitive history for many years.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Electric Eden or a biography of my life.
When I found this book listed I was overjoyed, though this was tempered somewhat by the comments of others re: mistakes in the research. Read more
Published 3 months ago by A. Norris
A masterpiece
I don't profess to know enough about the vast genre that Rob Young writes so well about, but I do know that as I read this, I spent a small fortune on cds ranging from Vaughn... Read more
Published 3 months ago by F. A. Smith
It's not alright Ma, it's only Witchcraft (maybe)
A book that's hard to put down; it's well-written, has attractive subject-matter, and a wide scope. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mr. Mrs. W. G. Krouwel
Maybe too ambitious
I looked in the Index for the City Waites who have more to do with folk music than many of the names dropped here. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Richard
I loved it.
Not being a "folkie" I was unsure as to whether I would enjoy this book. However, within a few pages I was completely sold and the end of the book came far too soon. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Malcolm C. Porter
Unapologetic nostalgia
Fantastic book. Read it from end to end in a week. Brilliant to read about visionary music from from mainly the 19th Century onwards, and to have it analysed and portrayed so... Read more
Published 7 months ago by F. J. Court
Not perfect, but pretty exhaustive Anglo-centric overview
This is some mighty tome. At 600+ pages, Rob Young's investigation into 'Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music' covers so much music and culture that it's difficult to begin to... Read more
Published 12 months ago by R. Turner
A Really Important Book - Buy It!
This book should be compulsory reading in all schools. It has helped bring together a lot of the history of the music I love. Read more
Published 13 months ago by David Lusher
Eden Indeed
This is a well written review of English music of the folk idiom extremely good gpverage from Vaughan Williams Holst through CJ Sharp to Dave Swarbrick Shirley Collins Ashley... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Mr. Roger J. Gifford
NEITHER 'SEMINAL NOR...
At nearly 800 pages Rob Young's "personal view of folk music in the British 20th Century"(according to Fabers)has attracted its fair share of criticism, and not without... Read more
Published 16 months ago by M. Prendergast
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