American Jukebox

Author (Beat; The Late Great Allen Ginsberg; The Importance of Being) and filmmaker (John Cage Talks About Cows; Cecil Taylor) has made a career of being one of the most eclectic photographers of American cultural figures of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. His latest visually stimulating offering includes more than 240 photographs of people from the classical and avant-garde, rock, jazz, blues, R&B, folk, and country music genres. Several writers and photographic subjects, such as Ray Manzarek, Michael McClure, Ed Sanders, and David Amram, contribute essays of various lengths, which help to put the photos and the overlap among musicians of diverse genres into context. This reviewer can think of no other book in which one can find such vivid photos of such a wide range of subjects, including Cyndi Lauper, Philip Glass, John Cage, Keb' Mo', Marian McPartland, Aaron Neville, Odetta, Lou Harrison, Laurie Anderson, Willie Nelson, Doc Watson, and Ozzy Osbourne. The volume focuses on Felver's work of the 1990s to the present, although it contains examples dating back to the 1970s.