Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Eck Robertson at the Crossroads of American Fiddling

Eck Robertson at the Crossroads of American Fiddling

Goertzen, Chris

Paperback

Series: American Made Music

MusiciansCountry & FolkMusic Reference

ISBN10: 1496857143
ISBN13: 9781496857149
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: May 2 2025
Pages: 272
Weight: 1.88
Height: 0.74 Width: 8.50 Depth: 11.00
Language: English
The Texas Panhandle's frontier days were fresh in memory when fiddler Eck Robertson (1887-1975) arrived. Cowboys still worked on ranches in the 1910s but barbed-wire fences abounded too. Robertson pursued a continually evolving strategy to profit from the feverish transformation of living history into marketable nostalgia. He adopted cowboy dress clothes for his first recording session in New York in 1922 and became known as a Famous Cowboy Fiddler. His stubborn vision spawned traditional-yet-transformed Texas fiddling.

Robertson criticized other fiddlers because their playing was just the same thing over and over. Robertson insisted that his fiddling--his balance of cleaving to tradition while adding new content--was the way of the future. Author Chris Goertzen traces Robertson's story through detailed biography, music transcriptions, and careful musical analysis. Though Robertson struggled to attain consistent financial success as a performer, he cultivated a varied repertoire that allowed him to balance offering the comfort of shared recollection with fresh excitement. His biggest hit, Sally Goodin, was a game changer, both as played live and as the very first country music recording. With his undeniable talent and forward thinking, Robertson took a musical practice that already had a broad reach and a distinguished history in a direction that would guarantee a niche in modern American culture.

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