Invisible Republic (book): Difference between revisions

| image = File:InvisibleRepublic.jpg

| caption = PaperbackFirst title: '''''The Old, Weird America'''''edition

| release_date = 1997 (Revised 2011)

'''''Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes''''' (1997) is a book by [[music critic]] [[Greil Marcus]] (born 1945) about the creation and cultural importance of ''[[The Basement Tapes]]'', a series of recordings made by [[Bob Dylan]] in 1967 in collaboration with Thethe Hawks, who would subsequently become known as [[Thethe Band]]. ({{ISBN |0-8050-5842-7}})

WhenThe subsequentlyupdated publishedpaperback inedition paperback(2011, the[[Picador book(imprint)|Picador]]) wasis retitled '''''The Old, Weird America''''', a term coined by Marcus to describe the often eerie [[country music|country]], [[blues]], and [[folk music]] featured on the ''[[Anthology of American Folk Music]]'' (1927-1932; released 1952). In his opinion, the sensibility of ''Anthology'' is reflected by the ''Basement Tapes'' recordings. The term has been revived via the [[musical genre]] called [[New Weird America]].

Marcus quotes [[Robbie Robertson]]’s memories of recording the ''Basement Tapes'': "[Dylan] would pull these songs out of nowhere. We didn’tdidn't know if he wrote them or if he remembered them. When he sang them, you couldn’tcouldn't tell."<ref>Marcus, p. xvi</ref> Marcus called these songs "palavers with a community of ghosts."<ref>Marcus, p. 86</ref> He suggests that "these ghosts were not abstractions. As native sons and daughters they were a community. And they were once gathered in a single place: on the ''Anthology of American Folk Music'', a work produced by a 29-year-old of [[no fixed abode|no fixed address]] named [[Harry Everett Smith|Harry Smith]]."<ref>Marcus, p. 87</ref> Marcus argues Dylan’sDylan's basement songs were a resurrection of the spirit of ''Anthology'', originally published by [[Folkways Records]] in 1952, a collection of blues and country songs recorded in the 1920s and '30s1930s, which proved very influential in the folk revival of the 1950s and '60s1960s. ''Anthology'', initially titled ''American Folk Music'', was reissued by [[Smithsonian Folkways]] as a [[box set]] of [[compact disc]] in the same year as the book's publication, with portions of the book excerpted as [[liner notes]].

Marcus links the [[First Great Awakening]], the folk music revival of the 1950s, the [[Civil Rights Movement]], and the [[Battle of Matewan]] in [[West Virginia]], with Bob Dylan's 1966 tour with Thethe Hawks.

[[Category:{{Bob Dylan]]}}