A coal miner's daughter, Jackson grew up in eastern Kentucky, married a miner, and became a midwife, labor activist, and songwriter. Fusing hard experience with the rich Appalachian musical tradition, her songs became weapons of struggle. In 1931, at age fifty, she was discovered and brought north. There, she was sponsored and befriended by an illustrious circle of left-wing intellectuals and musicians that included Theodore Dreiser, Alan Lomax, and Charles and Pete Seeger. Along with Sarah Ogan Gunning, Jim Garland (two of Aunt Molly's half-siblings), Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, and other folk musicians, Jackson served as a cultural broker who linked the rural working poor to big-city, left-wing activism. Shelly Romalis combines interviews with archival materials to construct an unforgettable portrait of an Appalachian woman who remained radical, raucous, proud, poetic, offensive, self-involved, and in spirit the real pistol packin' mama of the song.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
University of Illinois Press
ISBN-13
9780252067280
eBay Product ID (ePID)
94974089
Product Key Features
Book Title
Pistol Packin' Mama: Aunt Molly Jackson and the Politics of Folksong
Author
Shelly Romalis
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Publication Year
1998
Number of Pages
272 Pages
Dimensions
Item Height
229mm
Item Width
152mm
Additional Product Features
Title_Author
Shelly Romalis
Series Title
Music in American Life
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States
Best Selling in Books
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Best Selling in Books