The Roots of Texas Music.

The Roots of Texas Music. Edited by Lawrence Clayton and Joe W. Specht. Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students, Texas A&M University, no. 93. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2003. Pp. xii, 235. $29.95, ISBN 1-58544-221-6.)

Since the mid-nineteenth century, Texas has played a significant role in the development of an astonishing variety of America's popular sounds, including blues, jazz. Tejano, zydeco, polka, and western swing. These inusical genres, which emerged largely as a result of the state's distinctive history and cultural diversity, have not only come to define Texas culture but have also indelibly influenced mainstream American popular music. Indeed, the state's vibrant musical traditions have attracted a great deal of attention from historians, folklorists, and ethnomusicologists, in works ranging from John A. Lomax's pioneering anthology Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (New York, 1910) to the Texas State Historical Association's encyclopedic survey The Handbook of Texas Music (Austin. 2003). Now comes The Roots of Texas Music, a collection of nine essays that, according to coeditor Joe W. Specht, is intended to "bring a flesh look to the subject of Texas music" (p. xi). Unfortunately, most of the essays in this collection fall far short of that ambitious goal.

The Roots of Texas Music contains an introductory overview and eight thematic essays, each of which examines a particular genre of the state's musical heritage. Gary Hartman, in a solid introductory essay, briefly surveys the music of seven Texas ethnic groups and, along the way, highlights several of the major themes that emerge in the rest of the collection. Written by a wide range of Texas scholars from a variety of disciplines, the eight succeeding essays trace the development of various genres of Texas music from their origins to approximately 1950 (thus rock 'n' roll is not covered). Included, predictably, are essays on country music, jazz, blues, and Chicano music. Other essays, however, cover less conventional topics such as classical music, religious music. Czech and Polish polkas, and zydeco. Still, the volume is far from being a comprehensive survey.

A couple of essays stand out in The Roots of Texas Music. Dave Oliphant, in a wonderfully concise and informative piece, discusses the evolution of Texas jazz between 1920 and 1950, devoting significant attention to native sons Jack Teagarden, Charlie Christian, and Ornette Coleman, among others. Roger Wood, in another fine essay, examines the origin and development of zydeco among French-speaking black Creoles in Houston. The essays in The Roots of Texas Music are, for the most part, well written and wide-ranging. However, most of them rely too heavily on secondary sources, and thus few break much new ground. Particularly disappointing are Joe W. Specht's essay on country music and John Lightfoot's contribution on blues, both of which unimaginatively rehash the existing literature. Lightfoot, for example, limits his discussion of prewar blues to only four Texas blues guitarists--Blind Lemon Jefferson, Huddle "Lead Belly" Ledbetter, Mance Lipscomb, and Sam "Lightning" Hopkins--and, while his analysis of blues lyrics is worthwhile, his track-by-track discussion of Lead Belly's Library of Congress recordings, which Rounder Records released in the early 1990s, is tedious. Also disconcerting is the omission of African American gospel music in Kenneth W. Davis's otherwise satisfactory essay. Finally, several of the contributors, including Hartman himself, overstate the case for Texas exceptionalism as a unique musical wellspring. Arguably, other states, particularly neighboring Louisiana, have contributed just as significantly to American popular music. Historians of Texan and southwestern music will find precious little new information in this anthology, but for general readers and music fans interested in Texas's musical heritage, The Roots of Texas Music offers a good starting point.

University of Missouri at Rolla

PATRICK HUBER