The Music Shelf

Only Wanna Be with You
Tim Sommer
University of South Carolina Press
718 Devine Street, Columbia, SC 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
Tantor Media
https://tantor.com
9781643362755, $26.99, HC, 296pp

https://www.amazon.com/Only-Wanna-Be-You-Blowfish/dp/1643362755

Synopsis: In 1985, Mark Bryan heard Darius Rucker singing in a dorm shower =
at the University of South Carolina and asked him to form a band. For the n= ext eight years, Hootie & the Blowfish (completed with the addition of bass= ist Dean Felber and drummer Soni Sonefeld) played every frat house, roadhou= se, and rock club in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast, becoming one of the bi= ggest independent acts in the region.

With the publication of "Only Wanna Be with You: The Inside Story of Hootie=
& the Blowfish", Tim Sommer (the ultimate insider who signed Hootie to Atl= antic Records), pulls back the curtain on a band that defied record-industr=
y odds to break into the mainstream by playing hacky sack music in the age =
of grunge.

Sommer chronicles the band's indie days; the chart-topping success (and nea= r-cancelation) of their major-label debut, cracked rear view; the year of H= ootie (1995) when the album reached no. 1, the "Only Wanna Be with You" mus=
ic video collaboration with ESPN's SportsCenter became a sensation, and the=
band inspired a plotline on the TV show Friends; the lean years from the l= ate 1990s through the early 2000s; Darius Rucker's history-making rise in c= ountry music; and one of the most remarkable comeback stories of the centur=
y. Of special note is the inclusion of extensive new interviews with the ba=
nd members, some of their most famous fans, and stories from the recording = studio, tour bus, and golf course.

Critique:, Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "Only Wanna=
Be with You: The Inside Story of Hootie & the Blowfish" is must be conside= red essential reading for the legions of Hootie fans and rock music buffs. = While especially and unreservedly recommended for professional, community, = and academic library American Music History collections. It should be noted=
personal reading lists that "Only Wanna Be with You" is also available in =
a digital book format (Kindle, $20.49) and as a complete and unabridged aud=
io book (Tantor Audio, 9798212170031, $41.99, CD).

Editorial Note: Tim Sommer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Sommer), is a=
widely published music journalist, and has enjoyed stints as an Atlantic R= ecords A&R representative and an MTV and VH1 news VJ and producer.

Outlaw Music in Russia: The Rise of an Unlikely Genre
Anastasia Gordienko
University of Wisconsin Press
728 State Street, Suite 443, Madison, WI 53706-1418
www.uwpress.wisc.edu
9780299340100, $89.95, HC, 336pp

https://www.amazon.com/Outlaw-Music-Russia-Unlikely-Genre/dp/0299340104

Synopsis: Russian chanson is a neologism for a musical genre covering a ran=
ge of Russian songs, including city romance songs, author song performed by=
singer-songwriters, and blatnaya pesnya or "criminals' songs" that are bas=
ed on the themes of the urban underclass and the criminal underworld. (Wiki= pedia)

The Russian shanson can be heard across the country today, on radio and tel= evision shows, at mass events like political rallies, and even at the Kreml= in. Yet despite its ubiquity, it has attracted almost no scholarly attentio=
n.

With the publication of "Outlaw Music in Russia: The Rise of an Unlikely Ge= nre", Anastasia Gordienko (an Assistant Professor of Russian and Slavic Stu= dies at the University of Arizona) provides the first full history of the s= hanson, from its tenuous ties to early modern criminals' and robbers' folk = songs, through its immediate generic predecessors in the Soviet Union, to i=
ts current incarnation as the soundtrack for daily life in Russia.

It is difficult to firmly define the shanson or its family of song genres, = but they all have some connection, whether explicit or implicit, to the cri= minal underworld or to groups or activities otherwise considered subversive=
.. Traditionally produced by and popular among criminals and other marginali= zed groups, and often marked by characters and themes valorizing illegal ac= tivities, the songs have undergone censorship since the early nineteenth ce= ntury. Technically legal only since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the s= hanson is today not only broadly popular but also legitimized by Vladimir P= utin's open endorsement of the genre.

With careful research and incisive analysis, Professor Gordienko deftly det= ails the shanson's history, development, and social meanings. Attempts by i= mperial rulers, and later by Soviet leaders, to repress the songs and the l= ifestyles they romanticized not only did little to discourage their popular= ity but occasionally helped the genre flourish. Criminals and liberal intel= ligentsia mingled in the Gulag system, for instance, and this contact intro= duced censored songs to an educated, disaffected populace that inscribed it=
s own interpretations and became a major point of wider dissemination after=
the Gulag camps were closed.

Professor Gordienko also investigates the shanson as it exists in popular c= ulture today: not divorced from its criminal undertones (or overtones) but = celebrated for them. She argues that the shanson expresses fundamental them=
es of Russian culture, allowing for the articulation of anxieties, hopes, a=
nd dissatisfactions that are discouraged or explicitly forbidden otherwise.

Critique: A seminal work of simply outstanding scholarship, "Outlaw Music i=
n Russia: The Rise of an Unlikely Genre" will have a special value to reade=
rs with an interest in Russian popular culture and history as expressed in = its underclass oriented music and musical heritage. Informatively enhanced = for the reader with the inclusion of Illustrations, 'A Note on Translation = and Transliteration', a two page Glossary, sixty-eight pages of Notes, a th= irty page Bibliography, and a twenty-six page Index, "Outlaw Music in Russi=
a: The Rise of an Unlikely Genre" is a unique and highly recommended additi=
on to personal, professional, community, and academic library Ethnomusicolo=
gy collections and supplemental curriculum Russian Studies lists.

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