Background
Greene, Victor Robert was born on November 15, 1933 in Newark. Son of Jerome Harold and Sally (Colt) Greene.
(A Singing Ambivalence undertakes a comprehensive examinat...)
A Singing Ambivalence undertakes a comprehensive examination of the ways in which nine immigrant groups - Irish, Germans, Scandinavians, Eastern European Jews, Italians, Poles, Hungarians, Chinese, and Mexicans - responded to their new lives in the United States through music. Each group's songs reveal an abiding concern over leaving their loved ones and homeland and an anxiety about adjusting to the new society. But accompanying these feelings was an excitement about the possibilities of becoming wealthy and about looking forward to a democratic and free society. Distinguished historian Victor Greene surveys an extensive body of songs of known and unknown origins that comment on the problems immigrants faced and reveals the wide range of responses they made to the radical changes in their new lives in America. His selection of lyrics provides useful capsules of expression that clarify the ways in which immigrants defined themselves and staked out their claims for acceptance in American society. But whatever their common and specific themes, they reveal an ambivalence over their coming to America and a pessimism about achieving their goals. A Singing Ambivalence examines the familiar sentiments of new immigrants to the United States, while at the same time conveying from an aesthetic viewpoint how immigrants expressed their hopes and difficulties through a unique medium - song. This is an important volume that will be welcomed by scholars of music and U.S. immigration history.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0873387945/?tag=2022091-20
( Not so long ago, songs by the Andrews Sisters and Lawre...)
Not so long ago, songs by the Andrews Sisters and Lawrence Welk blasted from phonographs, lilted over the radio, and dazzled television viewers across the country. Lending star quality to the ethnic music of Poles, Italians, Slovaks, Jews, and Scandinavians, luminaries like Frankie Yankovic, the Polka King, and "Whoopee John" Wilfart became household names to millions of Americans. In this vivid and engaging book, Victor Greene uncovers a wonderful corner of American social history as he traces the popularization of old-time ethnic music from the turn of the century to the 1960s. Drawing on newspaper clippings, private collections, ethnic societies, photographs, recordings, and interviews with musicians and promoters, Greene chronicles the emergence of a new mass culture that drew heavily on the vivid color, music, and dance of ethnic communities. In this story of American ethnic music, with its countless entertainers performing never-forgotten tunes in hundreds of small cities around the country, Greene revises our notion of how many Americans experienced cultural life. In the polka belt, extending from Connecticut to Nebraska and from Texas up to Minnesota and the Dakotas, not only were polkas, laendlers, schottisches, and waltzes a musical passion, but they shone a scintillating new light on the American cultural landscape. Greene follows the fortunes of groups like the Gold Chain Bohemians, illuminating the development of an important segment of American popular music that fed the craze for international dance music. And even though old-time music declined in the 1960s, overtaken by rock and roll, a new Grammy for the polka was initiated in 1986. In its ebullience and vitality, the genre endures.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520075846/?tag=2022091-20
Greene, Victor Robert was born on November 15, 1933 in Newark. Son of Jerome Harold and Sally (Colt) Greene.
Bachelor cum laude, Harvard University, 1955. Master of Arts, University Rochester, 1960. Doctor of Philosophy, University Pennsylvania, 1963.
Assistant, associate professor Kansas State University, Manhattan, 1963-1971. Associate professor to professor University Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 1971—2003, professor emeritus, since 2003. Member history committee Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Committee, since 1989.
Member planning committee Harvard Encyclopedia of America Ethnic Groups, 1971-1979.
(A Singing Ambivalence undertakes a comprehensive examinat...)
( Not so long ago, songs by the Andrews Sisters and Lawre...)
(Book by Greene, Professor Victor)
(1st Ed.)
Member of Member Immigration and Ethnic History Society (editor 1968-1971, president 1985-1988, executive board 2004-2007).
Married Laura Judith Offenhartz. Children: Jessica, Geoffrey.