Elijah Wald (born 1959) is an American

folk blues Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in ...

guitarist and music historian. He is a 2002

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pr ...

winner for his

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes. Origin Liner notes are desc ...

to ''The Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Box: The Journey of Chris Strachwitz''.

Life

Wald was born in 1959 in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

.Elijah Wald
P.O.V. Borders – Border Talk, PBS, 2002. Accessed online 2009-10-01. His parents were George Wald (co-recipient of the 1967

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...

) and Ruth Hubbard, a biologist, with whom Elijah co-authored '' Exploding the Gene Myth''. At age 18, Wald departed for Europe to try to make a living as a folk-blues guitarist. For approximately the next 12 years, he traveled the world. He fronted a blues band in

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

, Spain, a swing trio in Antwerp, Belgium, and a rock band in

Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo m ...

, Sri Lanka, and studied with Congolese guitarist Jean-Bosco Mwenda. Returning to the United States, he played in "low dives and honky-tonks", and recorded two albums: the LP ''Songster, Fingerpicker, Shirtmaker'' on his and Bill Morrissey's short-lived label Reckless Records and the CD ''Street Corner Cowboys'' (Black Rose Records, 2000). He also arranged and played guitar on one track of

Dave Van Ronk David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002) was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of Ma ...

's album of Bertolt Brecht songs, and performed as a sideman with

Eric Von Schmidt Eric Von Schmidt (May 28, 1931 – February 2, 2007) was an American singer and guitarist, songwriter, painter and illustrator, and Grammy Award recipient. He was associated with the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s and a key part o ...

and for several years with the legendary black string band leader Howard Armstrong. For many years he wrote for the ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' on " roots music" and " world music"; he also wrote on American and international music for various magazines. In 2000, he was one of many freelancers who left the ''Globe'' in a dispute over reprint rights. By the time he and the ''Globe'' parted ways, he was already becoming an increasingly established writer. He had been a major collaborator in the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

's multimedia project '' River of Song'', a survey of contemporary music along the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

, and had just finished ''Josh White: Society Blues'', a biography of the folk-blues singer

Josh White Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914 – September 5, 1969) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names Pinewood Tom and Tippy Barton in the 1930s. White grew up in the Sout ...

. Since 2000, he has written numerous books; several of them had CDs as companion pieces. His subject matter has included Mexican ''

corrido The corrido () is a popular narrative metrical tale and poetry that forms a ballad. The songs are often about oppression, history, daily life for criminals, the vaquero lifestyle, and other socially relevant topics. Corridos were widely popular ...

s'' and ''

narcocorrido A narcocorrido (, "narco-corrido" or ''drug ballad'') is a subgenre of the Regional Mexican corrido (narrative ballad) genre, from which several other genres have evolved. This type of music is heard and produced on both sides of the Mexico� ...

s'', hitchhiking, the blues musician

Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generati ...

and, in ''How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll'', American popular music for roughly the first three-quarters of the 20th century. He co-authored

's posthumously published memoir, ''The Mayor of MacDougal Street'' (the main inspiration for the Coen Brothers movie ''Inside Llewyn Davis''), wrote the Grammy-winning liner notes for ''The Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Box: The Journey of

Chris Strachwitz Chris Strachwitz (born July 1, 1931) is a German-born American record label executive and record producer. He is the founder and president of Arhoolie Records, which he established in 1960 and which became one of the leading labels recording a ...

'', made an instructional DVD for guitarists on the music of Joseph Spence (part of a series issued by Stefan Grossman), and has curated and/or written liner notes for numerous CD compilations and re-releases. After teaching on and off in the musicology department of the

University of California Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

for several years, he moved back to the Boston area and got a doctorate in ethnomusicology and sociolinguistics from

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

. He now lives in Philadelphia with his wife, ceramic artist Sandrine Sheon.

Confronting myths

A recurring theme in Wald's work is to identify and confront myths, especially but not exclusively those that have come to surround prominent figures in

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...

. "Myths", Wald remarked in 2002, "are marvelous things, the keys to understanding a culture. Indeed, his first book was a collaboration with his biologist mother entitled ''Exploding the Gene Myth'', in which they wrote that "The myth of the all-powerful

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "... Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a b ...

is based on flawed science that discounts the environment in which we and our genes exist." "There are no definitive histories," he would come to write in ''How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll'' (2009) "because the past keeps looking different as the present changes."Elijah Wald, ''How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music'', 2009, Oxford University Press, .

Bibliography

Books

* ''Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties'', 2015, . *''The Dozens: A History of Rap's Mama'', Oxford University Press, 2012, . *''The Blues: A Very Short Introduction'', Oxford University Press, 2010, . *''How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music'', Oxford University Press, 2009, . *''Global Minstrels: Voices of World Music'', Routledge, 2006, . *''Riding With Strangers: A Hitchhiker's Journey'', Chicago Review Press, 2006, . *''Dave Van Ronk: The Mayor of MacDougal Street'' (with Van Ronk), Da Capo, 2005, . *''Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues'', Amistad, 2005, . *''Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns and Guerrillas'', HarperCollins, 2002, , also published in Spanish as ''Narcocorrido: Un viaje dentro de la música de drogas, armas, y guerrilleros'', Rayo, 2001, . *''Josh White: Society Blues'',

University of Massachusetts Press The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts a ...

, 2000, . *''River of Song: A Musical Journey Down the Mississippi'' (co-authored with John Junkerman), St. Martin's Press, 1998, . * ''Exploding the Gene Myth: How Genetic Information Is Produced and Manipulated by Scientists, Physicians, Employers, Insurance Companies, Educators, and Law Enforcers'' (with Ruth Hubbard), Beacon Press, 1993, 1997, 1999; 1999 edition .

Discography

* ''Street Corner Cowboys'' (CD, Black Rose Records, 2000) * Dominic Kakolobango, ''African Acoustic'' (CD, Africassette, 2001); producer, acoustic guitar, liner notes * ''Elijah Wald: Songster, Fingerpicker, Shirtmaker'' (LP, Reckless)

Liner notes, curatorship, etc.

This is a very partial list. * ''Snooks Eaglin: New Orleans Street Singer'' (Smithsonian/Folkways; supervised 2005 reissue) * ''The Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Box: "The Journey of Chris Strachwitz"'' (Arhoolie, 2002; co-produced and wrote liner notes) * ''Dave Van Ronk: The Mayor of MacDougal Street'' (Rootstock, 2005; curated as a companion piece to the book of the same title) * ''Back to the Crossroads: The Roots of Robert Johnson'' (Yazoo Records, 2005; curated as a companion piece to ''Escaping the Delta'') * ''Corridos y Narcocorridos'' (Fonovisa, 2002; curated as a companion piece to ''Narcocorridos'') * ''Josh White: Free and Equal Blues'' (Smithsonian/Folkways, 2000; curated as a companion piece to ''Josh White: Society Blues'') * ''The Mississippi: River of Song'' (Smithsonian/Folkways, 1999; two-CD set curated as a companion piece to the four-part television series and book of the same title)

Videography

* ''The Guitar Stylings of Joseph Spence'' (instructional DVD, Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop)

Notes

External links

Elijah Wald – Writer, Musician
Wald's official web site
The 'Mayor of MacDougal Street'

KUOW-FM KUOW-FM (94.9 MHz) is a National Public Radio member station in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest of the three full-fledged NPR member stations in the Seattle and Tacoma media market, with two Tacoma-based stations, KNKX and KVTI being t ...

, 2005-04-20. Segment about

begins at 00:06:00, including interview of Wald by Megan Sukys, 00:07:30–00:26:30.
Escaping the Delta
KUOW-FM, 2004-02-10. Interview of Wald by Dave Beck about

, 00:01:30–00:20:00.
A Hitchhiker's Guide to America

Talk of the Nation ''Talk of the Nation'' (''TOTN'') is an American talk radio program based in Washington D.C., produced by National Public Radio ( NPR) that was broadcast nationally from 2 to 4 p.m. Eastern Time. It focused on current events and controversial i ...

, NPR, 2006-07-06. Interview of Wald by

Neal Conan Neal Joseph Conan III (November 26, 1949August 10, 2021) was an American radio journalist, producer, editor, and correspondent. He worked for National Public Radio for over 36 years and was the senior host of its talk show ''Talk of the Nation'' ...

; page also includes an excerpt from Wald's ''Riding with Strangers: A Hitchhiker's Journey''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Wald, Elijah Living people 1959 births American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Musicians from Cambridge, Massachusetts Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts American music historians American acoustic guitarists American male guitarists Grammy Award winners Jewish American historians American male non-fiction writers Jewish American musicians UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music faculty American music journalists Guitarists from Massachusetts Record producers from Massachusetts 20th-century American guitarists Historians from Massachusetts 20th-century American male musicians Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences alumni Historians from California 21st-century American Jews