Book Reviews

Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop, and Rap
edited by Evelyn McDonnell and Ann Powers
Cooper Square Press ISBN 0-8154-1018-2 (1995; reissued 1999); $16.95 (paper)

In her introduction to Rock She Wrote, Evelyn McDonnell of the Village Voice asserts that because women have been marginalized by the boys' club of publishing, they've been freer to color outside the lines — to create new ways of expressing the relationships between music, its creators, and its listeners. Rock She Wrote contains some clear examples of highly idiosyncratic commentary, and while I'm glad the field is large enough to encompass them, I'm not in a hurry to revisit, for example, Patti Smith's pipe-rattling stream of consciousness on Dylan or Tracie Morris' all-caps rant on the early days of rap MCs. Still, the wronged woman writer in me wants to shake this volume in the face of the last editor who accused me of violating some ledger of literary law that never got delivered to my mailbox.

I guess you could say I took this book personally, just as the writers in this collection take the music personally. Two of the book's most successful essays are written in the first person. Gretchen Phillips of the punk group 2 Nice Girls gives us an unvarnished but affectionate insider's view of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival: "I decided that the next year I would lead a moshing workshop for the curious yet uninitiated. Wimmin had already shown their ignorance by referring to it as 'the mush pit' and 'the nosh pit.' Or perhaps they were just redefining language again."

Jann Uhelszki lives out a teen dream by donning a full costume and appearing onstage with Kiss: "I approached Larry Harris, the vice president of Casablanca Records, with my plan... Sure, they were eager for a feature on the band but this scheme was just a little bizarre. I pushed the point and they told me disturbing tales of other fresh faced females who were transformed into raging teenage nymphs after attending a Kiss concert. 'But I don't want to see the show, I want to be in it!' I persisted."

Wanting to be in the show is what drives a lot of women, as well as men, to write about music. Sometimes, music journalists use the profile format to highlight what makes musicians tick. Mim Udovitch presents k.d. lang as a reverb-loving, softball-hitting overgrown child: "I'm going to look like the biggest geek in this interview. But that's okay, I sort of am." Daisann McLane accompanies Heart's Ann and Nancy Wilson to their childhood home. (The introduction to this piece claims that editor Jann Wenner's displeasure at McLane's "feminist-powered portrait" led to her dismissal from the Rolling Stone staff.) Gerri Hirshey laughs a bit at James Brown's expense, but only because the man is so powerful he can afford it.

Most of the artist profiles could probably have been written by men as well as women. One notable exception is Karen Durbin's visit with the Rolling Stones, in which she is cognizant of the sexism that pervades their world — a place where a woman can be a blow-up doll or a mutant male, but seldom a normal person — yet she's simultaneously seduced by their antiquated rock charms.

I refused to accept that men and women were different — in other than the obvious biological ways — until, just a few years ago, I recognized that certain men were reading my words differently because they were the words of a woman. I could, I suppose, bemoan the very real sexism that underlies these assumptions and threatens to limit my options. But hey, it cuts both ways. I've gotten kudos from other women for being a woman writer, as if somehow my gender has given me some extra insight. And maybe it has. It's not about ovaries or X chromosomes; it's about what life teaches a woman about being on the edge of something huge, and about whether or not you'll fall, or leap. Sometimes it's talking to a superstar who's trying to convince you she buys her plums at Safeway like everyone else; sometimes it's standing at the foot of a stage and realizing that you've just been airborne, riding the wail of a guitar and, in the recognition, landed solidly on earth once more — a feeling that, once it's noticed, you canreclaim any more than you can reenter a fantastic dream. Sometimes it's being an artist, alchemizing your alienation into three chords and a hook. Woman or man, if you've ever been outside looking in, you know what it's like to write about music.

— Pamela Murray Winters
(Arlington, VA)

The Rough Guide to World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East
edited by Simon Broughton, Mark Ellingham, and Richard Trillo
The Rough Guides ISBN 1-85828-635-2 (1999); $26.95

When this book's first edition was published in 1994, it instantly became the premier guide to world music, and no other source has surpassed it. This new edition, equally as well written as the first, has contributions from over 80 writers and is split into two volumes. Its coverage has grown so much that the new 784-page Volume One, which deals with Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, is 62 pages longer than the initial edition, which covered the entire globe.

World Music: The Rough Guide is not an exhaustive alphabetical litany of artist biographies and recording reviews from A to Z. Sources like that are fine and important to have, but what the Rough Guide does so well is place the music within its social, political, historical, and cultural surroundings. This will help the reader learn more about both the "big picture" of the music and the specifics of genres and artists.

Virtually all of the great features of the first edition are maintained, but refinements to them have created an improved source. A subtle but important alteration to the arrangement of entries has made the book easier to use. The new edition is divided into three parts: Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, with each region subdivided into chapters by country or ethnic group, and is arranged in alphabetical order within each region. The new alphabetical arrangement, along with clearer, more thorough guides along the side edge of the pages, makes it simpler to locate any country. Chapter titles are more straightforward: "A Wild, Savage Feeling: The Roots and Revival of Flamenco" in edition one is now called "Spain — Flamenco: A Wild, Savage Feeling," thus easier for browsing. Selected discographies at the end of each chapter, with mini-reviews and suggestions for first purchases, are more clearly divided between compilations and individual-artist albums, with artist names printed in larger type on a colored background, making them easier to read.

There is more content in every respect, and some of it was expanded, revised, or rewritten. More cultural background on the music. More photographs. Expanded discographies. Longer articles and more information on sub-genres. For example, the chapter on Cape Verde is now 10 pages long versus seven before, and while the first edition has one-half page on Cape Verdean styles other than morna, each sub-genre has its own section in the new book, for a total of two pages. Some countries have multiple chapters, such as the new "Algeria — Kabylia: Bards of Immigritude" joining "Algeria — Rai: Music Under Fire." There are more sidebar articles, usually focusing on instruments ("Organetti — Italy's Accordions"), specific styles ("New Nubian, Old Nubian"), and groups or individual performers (Master Musicians of Jajouka, Chava Alberstein, Angelique Kidjo). Best yet, more countries/ethnic groups are added this time, with new chapters on Italy, Iran, Uganda, Greenland, Mozambique, Germany, Kurdish music (upgraded from a sidebar under Turkey), and Israel among them.

I had trouble finding errors: The entry on Ireland was omitted in the table of contents, and the text in that article implies that the Bothy Band was a working group in the 1990s. I found no other problems. The first edition featured convenient glossaries of terms in each section, and those are not present here. Although most of the terms are defined within the text of the articles now, it would be nice to have glossaries reappear in the third edition. There are sections in the back with record company addresses, a list of record shops, internet and mail-order retailers, and a helpful index. Anyone interested in world roots music should get this source, even if you already have the first edition. I eagerly await Volume Two: the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific.

— Al Riess (Buffalo, NY)