Elijah Wald – Writer, Musician

Welcome to my site. It includes a brief bio and pages about my various books (mostly music-related, though Riding with Strangers is about a cross-country hitchhiking trip). Also my new blog exploring immigration, borders, and history in preparation for a book project. And a performance blog exploring my musical repertoire with background and commentary on hundreds of songs. Plus information about my CD, Street Corner Cowboys, and other writing and album projects, including an instructional DVD on the Bahamian guitar style of Joseph Spence. There are pages about various aspects of blues, corridos, and popular music, appreciations of my father and the Japanese singer Mikami Kan, an archive with several dozen newspaper and magazine pieces on world and roots music among other topics, and whatever else seemed worth putting up here... Including a page on The Mayor of MacDougal Street, the source of the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis, one on my pop music history, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll, and one on The Dozens, the African American tradition of mother-insult-dueling, and its offshoots in American culture.

Ruth's passport
The Pursuit of Happiness: Immigration, Borders, and History blog

Songobiography:
an ongoing memoir and performance blog, with hundreds of songs

Josh White: Society Blues

Narcocorrido Escaping the Delta beatles Dave Van Ronk
Josh White:
Society Blues
Narcocorrido:
A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas

(página en español)

Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson
and the Invention of the Blues
How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll:
An Alternative History of American Popular Music
Dave Van Ronk:
The Mayor of MacDougal Street

Dylan Goes Electric!
Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties
Talking 'Bout Your Mama:
The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap

(reprint of The Dozens: A History of Rap's Mama

oxford intro to blues Riding with Strangers Global Minstrels River of Song Streetcorner Cowboys Joseph Spence Bio
The Blues:
A Very Short Introduction
Riding With Strangers:
A Hitchhiker's Journey
Global Minstrels:
Voices of World Music
Other books and
and writing
My CD and
other album project
s
Joseph Spence Instructional DVD Elijah Wald Bio

(en español)
(en francais)

Contact Elijah
Contact Elijah

For speaking requests, musical gigs, with questions, comments...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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