LONGTIME PROVIDENCE JOURNAL WRITER RICK MASSIMO PRESENTS
MANY NEW INTERVIEWS, INCLUDING PETE SEEGER, GEORGE WEIN, JIM JAMES, JAY SWEET,
JEFF TWEEDY, ETC.
On June 6, 2017, Wesleyan University Press will publish I Got A Song: A History of The Newport Folk
Festival, by Rick Massimo. Eight years in the making, the first-ever book
exclusively devoted to the history of the Newport Folk Festival, I Got a Song documents the trajectory of
an American musical cornerstone over its 58 years.
Rick Massimo’s historical research is complemented by
extensive new interviews with the people who were there and who made it all
happen, including festival producers George Wein, Bob Jones and Jay Sweet;
artists such as Pete Seeger, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Judy Collins, Peter
Yarrow (of Peter, Paul, and Mary), Colin Meloy (of the Decemberists) and Wilco’s
Jeff Tweedy, and audience members from every era. Massimo presents an oral
history of Bob Dylan’s famous electric performance in 1965 as well as its
50th-anniversary celebration in 2015.
Massimo says, “I was fascinated by how it endured and how it
had changed, as well as the controversy over what folk music really was. I
wanted to write a book that tells a story and isn’t just padded with facts.”
He collected a lot of stories in the process. “Everyone was
very willing to talk about Newport; I was particularly impressed with Jim
James’ breadth and depth of knowledge of what Newport is about. He is much more
clued into the history of Newport than people think. And so many of the modern
acts see themselves as descendants of old performers.”
Massimo also spent hours talking with current producer Jay
Sweet, who has wrought more changes at Newport than anyone since the early days
of the festival, but has done so from a background well versed in the history:
“The first thing he did when he came on board was to read the [board members’
early 1960s] manifesto.”
Massimo, a native of Providence, RI, and a longtime
Providence Journal writer, covered the Folk Fest for nine years and wrote
extensively on arts, media and beyond.He has won awards from the Rhode Island
Press Association and the New England Associated Press News Editors.
Newport Folk Festival sells out every year with Saturday and
Sunday tickets gone in two hours for 2017. In recent years, it has reached a
peak of cultural relevance with a nationwide media, industry, and fan
spotlight.
Paper, $24.95 [T]
978-0-8195-7703-0
Ebook, $19.99 Y
978-0-8195-7704-7
Wesleyan University Press has an editorial program that
focuses on poetry, music, dance, science fiction studies, film-TV, and
Connecticut history and culture.
Publishing in its current form since 1957, Wesleyan
University Press has published an internationally renowned poetry series,
collecting five Pulitzer Prizes, a Bollingen, and two National Book Awards in
that one series alone.
The mission of Wesleyan University Press is to develop and
maintain a sound and vigorous publishing program that serves the academic ends
and intellectual life of the University.
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