SONGS, GANGSTER RAP, AND WILLIE NELSON

Where does music come from. Sometimes we know, and sometimes we don't. When
we listen to classical music, like Beethoven or Mahler or Bach, it's easy
to picture how the music got from someone's pen to our ears. The same can
be said for much of rock and roll: We understand the genesis of music from
The Beatles and U2. But there are some genres of music whose origins remain
mysteries. Who can tell where "I Got Rhythm," "Body and Soul," or "Mack the
Knife" -- the great standards -- come from.

Will Friedwald can. In his delightful new book, Stardust Melodies: The
Biography of Twelve of America's Most Popular Songs (Pantheon $27.50, 397
pages, illus.), Mr. Friedwald gives miniature histories of some of our best
loved pop standards from the '20s and '30s.

For instance, "Mack the Knife," made famous for successive generations by
Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and McDonald's commercials, began as a
German song, "Moritat." In August, 1928, German composer Kurt Weill and
lyricist Bertolt Brecht were putting the final touches on a musical, "Die
Dreigroschenoper," an update of John Gay's 1728 "The Beggar's Opera." They
decided that their main character, a murderous gangster named MacHeath, was
too charming and not quite evil enough.

So they wrote a song for the opening of the show that would catalogue
MacHeath's crimes: A corpse is found, a wealthy man and his cashbox
disappear, a woman turns up dead with a dagger in her breast, a fire is set
in Soho that kills seven, and a young girl is raped in the middle of the
night. At every turn, MacHeath is just off-stage, smiling and claiming not
to know anything about the crimes. "Die Dreigroschenoper" was a mild
success, but "Moritat" became a sensation in Berlin.

Years passed and American producer George Avakian decided to bring
"Moritat" to the States, believing that it would make a great jazz song. He
got the sheet music and took it to Turk Murphy, a West Coast jazz band
leader. Murphy instantly knew the song was ideal for another musician
- --Armstrong. Avakian and Murphy went to see Armstrong to pitch the song to
him. After 40 seconds, Armstrong said, "Well I'll be! I used to know some
cats like that in New Orleans!" He agreed to record "Mack the Knife," and
gave Avakian's sheet music to his valet.

But when Armstrong and his band showed up at the recording studio a few
weeks later, the valet had lost the sheet music. So Armstrong and his
All-Stars cut the track cold. "Mack the Knife" would go on to become an
enormous hit and one of Armstong's signature songs. It would be recorded by
everyone from Bobby Darin to Ella Fitzgerald to Bing Crosby.

In one of Mr. Friedwald's asides he relates that Armstrong opened his
version by saying "Dig, there goes Mack the Knife," while Crosby opened
with "Lay way back, you cats! Dig in! Bivouac! Mr. Mack is movin' in."
"Stardust Melodies" is full of such loving details. Mr. Friedwald has given
us a literate, engaging, "Behind the Music" for the Jazz Age.

Like it or not, Willie Nelson is the living embodiment of country music.
He's a fine tunesmith but not a stellar musician. He is, however, like Paul
Cantor's Gilligan, the democratic man, par excellence. The secret of his
success is that he is the quintessential 20th-century American.

It is to Mr. Nelson's credit that his book, The Facts of Life: and Other
Dirty Jokes (Random House, $21.95, 232 pages), was not ghost written.
Instead, it is pure Willie Nelson -- a loosely assembled amalgam of travel
notes, meditations on life, autobiography, song lyrics, and dirty jokes.
Mr. Nelson is equal parts minstrel, scoundrel, and cowboy -- and all of
it's genuine. When he talks about his ex-wives, there's love and remorse.
When he talks about his music, there's unaffected wonder. When he talks
about life, there's no nonsense.

An inveterate dope smoker, Mr. Nelson gives four reasons not to toke up:
"1) It's too expensive. It costs more than gold. 2) Over usage will cause
you to get bronchitis. 3) You'll smell like a skunk. 4) Everytime someone
says anything negative about smoking pot, you become somewhat hostile and
start yakking about how hemp could save the world, and you start quoting
page after page of The Emperor Wears No Clothes, and you wind up only
sounding like a pothead trying to justify your habit."

In his songs and his writing, Mr. Nelson calls 'em like he sees 'em.

Some day a great novel will be written about gangster rap. Everything about
the music lends itself to fiction, from the bluster and cruelty of its
lyrics to the desperation and ambition of its performers. Mark Goldblatt
has taken a first crack at the gangster-rap novel with Africa Speaks
(Permanent Press, $24, 176 pages) and while he comes up short, it's an
admirable failure.

"Africa Speaks" is a series of first-person monologues, given mostly by
Africa Ali, a young gangster from New York City. The conceit of the book is
that Africa has consented to being part of a study, and is speaking into a
tape recorder while being interviewed by a white sociologist. Africa talks
about his father and Islam and life on the streets. He talks about dealing
drugs and his gang, the 149th Street Crew. Periodically, his friends appear
to give short monologues of their own.

Every so often, Africa raps, singing: "You face the wrath of the Nubian
past--talking 'bout outerspace, " The math gods that filled the caves with
a pale face."

Mr. Goldblatt, a columnist and Bible studies professor, is white. "Africa
Speaks" is filled with "authentic" language, which is to say that it is
filled with anti-Semitism, misogyny, and lots of bad words. But while Mr.
Goldblatt gets the idiom down, he misses out on the bigger picture of what
motivates the young black men who turn to the gangster life. He draws
Africa as more Leonard Jeffries than Tupac Shakur, and consequently misses
the awful, compelling beauty of gangster rap music.

At its best, gangster rap is the last authentic bastion of American
tragedy. The men who pioneered the form, such as, Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre,
and the Notorious B.I.G., started out in life as criminals. They joined
gangs and dealt drugs for a living, in an attempt to make enough money to
lift themselves out of poverty. Many of them spent time in prison. They
eventually found success in music by making records about their lives.
Suddenly these men were accepted into civilized society and showered with
riches. They had been given the winning lottery ticket that they always
longed for.

But they could leave the gangster life behind. They treated the music
business as if it were gang warfare, traveling in heavily armed convoys,
making threats and starting fights. They started shooting at each other,
and eventually some of them died.

There is a terrible authenticity to gangster rap which is missing from
"Africa Speaks." Mr. Goldblatt has the language right, but the subjects and
the posture wrong. He understands how men like Africa might talk, but not
what they would talk about, or how they would view their world and their
actions. But his inauthenticity -- his whiteness -- isn't what dooms Mr.
Goldblatt; it's his misunderstanding of classical drama.

A gangster who does not know himself is just a thug, but a gangster with
self-knowledge is, like Macbeth and hundreds of figures in literature
before him, a tragedy. For all of his tough talk and pretentious
philosophizing, Mr. Goldblatt's Africa is just a thug.