Steven Van Zandt remembers the moment: “It was the beginning of my life.” Adapted from _The Segmented Society - New York Times_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/opinion/20brooks.html?em&ex=1195707600&en=db8743281d410063&ei=5087 ) By _DAVID BROOKS_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html?inline=nyt-per) , Op-Ed Columnist, November 20, 2007 Van Zandt fell for the Beatles and discovered the blues and early rock music that inspired them. He played in a series of bands on the Jersey shore, and when a friend wanted to draw on his encyclopedic blues knowledge for a song called “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” Van Zandt wound up as a guitarist for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.... Van Zandt grew up in one era and now thrives in the other, but how long can mega-groups like the E Street Band still tour? “This could be the last time,” he says. He argues that if the Rolling Stones came along now, they wouldn’t be able to get mass airtime because there is no broadcast vehicle for all-purpose rock. And he says that most young musicians don’t know the roots and traditions of their music. They don’t have broad musical vocabularies to draw on when they are writing songs. As a result, much of their music (and here I’m bowdlerizing his language) stinks. He describes a musical culture that has lost touch with its common roots. And as he speaks, I hear the echoes of thousands of other interviews concerning dozens of other spheres.... Van Zandt has a way to counter all this, at least where music is concerned. He’s drawn up a high school music curriculum that tells American history through music. It would introduce students to Muddy Waters, the Mississippi Sheiks, Bob Dylan and the Allman Brothers. He’s trying to use music to motivate and engage students, but most of all, he is trying to establish a canon, a common tradition that reminds students that they are inheritors of a long conversation. And Van Zandt is doing something that is going to be increasingly necessary for foundations and civic groups. We live in an age in which the technological and commercial momentum drives fragmentation. It’s going to be necessary to set up countervailing forces — institutions that span social, class and ethnic lines. Music used to do this. Not so much anymore. ======================================================== Happy Thanksgiving to all
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