Late Voice

Richard Elliott is Senior Lecturer in Music at Newcastle University, UK. He is the author of Fado and the Place of Longing (2010).

Elliott (popular music, Univ. of Sussex, UK) has written a complex analysis of ‘the late voice’ of a number of musicians. The first chapter, "Time, Age, Experience, and Voice," is analytical, drawing on numerous theoretical studies. In chapter 2, Elliot provides an interesting discussion of Ralph Stanley, known now for his performance of “O Death” in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) but whose country music recording career began in the 1940s. Elliott places Stanley within the southern musical tradition of ‘cultural isolation that preserved the old ways and the old songs and that projected the region onto the national imaginary as a place of backwardness.’ Subsequent chapters discuss a variety of performers —Frank Sinatra, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Judy Collins—focusing on the substance and meaning of their songs and providing some biographical background. In his conclusion, Elliott writes that his aim in writing the book was ‘not so much to remove value from the metaphysics of age but to locate it at various points in the life course.’ Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

• IntroductionChapter 1: Time, Age, Experience and VoiceChapter 2: Won't You Spare Me Over till Another Year? Ralph Stanley’s Late VoiceChapter 3: September of My Years: Age and Experience in the Work of Frank Sinatra and Leonard CohenChapter 4: Time Out of Mind: Bob Dylan, Age and Those Same Distant PlacesChapter 5: Both Sides Now: Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and the Innocence and Experience of the Singer-SongwriterConclusion: Late ThoughtsBibliographyDiscographyFilmographyIndex