Only a Miner: Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Songs

by Archie Green

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

504 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1972

Reviews

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rated this four stars because I'm a music history geek. Assembled from over 25 years of interviews, this is a book where "exhaustive" is an apt description of the work that went into this. There are only nine or ten original mining songs examined here, but it chronicles the complete history of each song- from the actual mines to the permutations and embellishments of the songs over the years. As always, I found many of these songs on music streaming services.
As with every good music history book, little know facts about the performers are detailed. For me this leads to the discovery of artists i knew nothing about before.

[G · Rating 5 out of 5]

A one-of-a-kind study, Archie Green has tracked down some pretty obscure songs....