Obviously, the Beats were nothing like the Popular Front writers. SEAN WILENTZ: It’s in the intriguing little cultural circuit that opens the chapter. The succeeding chapters take different approaches.ĪLEX ROSS: The chapter that we’re running on deals with Dylan and Ginsberg, but starts with Copland. In the Copland chapter, I’m interested in making other kinds of connections, not just between Dylan’s work and an individual or several individuals, but between his work and a larger cultural congeries of the nineteen-thirties and nineteen-forties. They will be disappointed, and the book’s introduction tries to ward off such expectations. Readers expecting a standard biography, which this book is not, may anticipate learning about how Copland had some direct and profound influence on Dylan’s early work. Then I ran across an enthusiastic review in the Daily Worker of Copland’s early work, written by Charles Seeger, Pete’s father. I had a hunch that, somewhere, there must be links between Copland and Dylan.įor a while after 9/11, I recalled, Dylan opened many of his shows by playing recorded bits of Copland’s music. I’d written an essay on Copland for a wholly different occasion, and started coming to grips with Copland’s Popular Front affiliations, which had helped spur his elevation of American folk music. SEAN WILENTZ: I wanted to explore Dylan’s roots in the musical world of the Popular Front, but didn’t want to retell the stories about Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. ALEX ROSS: I was fascinated by your decision to begin your book with a chapter on Aaron Copland.
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