Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers

As rock critics have noted in the past, Bruce Springsteen's songs exist in a world of their own--they have their own settings, characters, words, and images. It is a world that even those who know only a handful of Springsteen's lyrics can instantly recognize, a world of highways and factories, loners and underdogs, hot rods and patrol cars. And it is a world that stretches far beyond the New Jersey state line. Indeed, Springsteen's attention to the ideals and struggles of ordinary Americans has significantly influenced American popular culture and public debate. As a rock-and-roll troubadour, "the Boss" speaks not only for his many fans but to them, and often with a directness or sincerity that no other performer can match. But what can be said of the fans themselves? Why and how do they relate to Springsteen's words and music? Based on three years of ethnographic research amid Springsteen's fans, and informed by the author's own experiences and impressions as a fan, Daniel Cavicchi's Tramps Like Us is an interdisciplinary study of the ways in which ordinary people form special, sustained attachments to a particular singer/songwriter and his songs, and of how these attachments function in people's lives. An "insider's narrative" about Springsteen fans--who they are, what they do, and why they do it--this book also investigates the phenomenon of fandom in general. The text oscillates between fans' stories and ideas and Cavicchi's own anecdotes, commentary, and analysis. It challenges the stereotypes of fans as obsessive, delusional, and even mentally ill, and explores fandom as a normal socio-cultural activity. Ultimately, this book argues that music fandom is a useful and meaningful behavior that enables us to shape identities, create communities, and make sense of the world--both Bruce's and our own.

Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning among Springsteen Fans

Arts & Photography

Cavicchi, Daniel

Music

Oxford University Press

Book by Crafts, Susan D., Cavicchi, Daniel, Keil, Charles, Music in Daily Life Project

My Music: Explorations of Music in Daily Life (Music / Culture)

Keil, Charles

Crafts, Susan D.

Music in Daily Life Project

Wesleyan University Press

My Music is a first-hand exploration of the diverse roles music plays in people's lives. "What is music about for you?" asked members of the Music in Daily Life Project of some 150 people, and the responses they received ― from the profound to the mundane, from the deeply-felt to the flippant ― reflect highly individualistic relationships to and with music. Susan Crafts, Daniel Cavicchi, and Project Director Charles Keil have collected and edited nearly forty of those interviews to document the diverse ways in which people enjoy, experience, and use music. CONTRIBUTORS: Charles Keil, George Lipsitz.

Daily Life Project, Music in

Listening and Longing explores the emergence of music listening in the United States, from its early stages in the antebellum era, when entrepreneurs first packaged and sold the experience of hearing musical performance, to the Gilded Age, when genteel critics began to successfully redefine the cultural value of listening to music. In a series of interconnected stories, American studies scholar Daniel Cavicchi focuses on the impact of industrialization, urbanization, and commercialization in shaping practices of music audiences in America. Grounding our contemporary culture of listening in its seminal historical moment--before the iPod, stereo system, or phonograph--Cavicchi offers a fresh understanding of the role of listening in the history of music.

Listening and Longing: Music Lovers in the Age of Barnum (Music / Culture)

Winner of the Northeast Popular Culture Association’s Peter C. Rollins Book Award (2012)Winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award (2012)Listening and Longing explores the emergence of music listening in the United States, from its early stages in the antebellum era, when entrepreneurs first packaged and sold the experience of hearing musical performance, to the Gilded Age, when genteel critics began to successfully redefine the cultural value of listening to music. In a series of interconnected stories, American studies scholar Daniel Cavicchi focuses on the impact of industrialization, urbanization, and commercialization in shaping practices of music audiences in America. Grounding our contemporary culture of listening in its seminal historical moment—before the iPod, stereo system, or phonograph—Cavicchi offers a fresh understanding of the role of listening in the history of music.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cavicchi, Daniel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cavicchi, Daniel

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cavicchi, Daniel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning among Springsteen Fans

My Music: Explorations of Music in Daily Life (Music / Culture)

My Music: Explorations of Music in Daily Life (Music / Culture)

Listening and Longing: Music Lovers in the Age of Barnum (Music / Culture)

Listening and Longing: Music Lovers in the Age of Barnum (Music / Culture)