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Downhome Gospel: African American Spiritual Activism in Wiregrass Country by Jerrilynn McGregory (review)

throughout his career—a retrospective practice if there ever was one. Swayne’s stripes as an academic musicologist surface most conspicuously when he assesses Schuman’s attitudes on the subjects of race, sexuality, and gender. Was Schuman racist? Homophobic? Sexist? No, no, and not by the standards of the time, although he once disingenuously wrote to the violinist Louise Rood to explain that she was not invited to join the Juilliard String Quartet on account of her advanced age, even though she was only thirty-five years old—the same age as Schuman (5, 199, 189). Since these analyses seem most coherently situated as a reflection of current interest in identity politics within the field of American music studies, one might quibble that they are at cross purposes with Swayne’s stated goal to “gauge [Schuman’s cultural impact] at the time it was first felt” (6). But they constitute important and appropriate discussions to include in a work that is not only a thoroughgoing biography but also a work shaped by current issues in musicology. In all, Swayne’s biography seems poised to provide the definitive scholarly account of Schuman for the foreseeable future and articulates the kinds of issues that make a figure like Schuman such a compelling biographical subject. By meticulously piecing together the disjunct parts of Schuman’s life, Swayne denies the reader any easy conclusions about Schuman’s significance and impact. Therein lies the book’s chief strength, and Swayne should be admired for assembling such a masterful and multifaceted portrait of one mid-twentieth-century Manhattan’s most important musical figures.