Books
2019 | Duke University Press
2021 | Best Subsequent Book Prize (NAISA), Honorable Mention
“In addition to telling Hawaiian slack key guitar's remarkable history, Kevin Fellezs provides an excellent introduction to the political, social, and economic challenges endured by Hawaiians who live in a homeland dominated by people who have even appropriated the word ‘aloha’ to expedite material and cultural plunder. This book is a wonderful achievement and a significant intellectual feat.” — John W. Troutman, author of Kīkā Kila: How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed the Sound of Modern Music
“Listen but Don't Ask Question theorizes a ‘polycultural transPacific’ to highlight Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) as central participants in the cultural production of slack key guitar music while attending to the multiple lineages tradition. Kevin Fellezs illuminates the complications of cultural and material stewardship as they are bound up in the performance and perpetuation of the musical form, Hawaiian principles of reciprocity, cultural revival and the music industry, community and belonging, and aesthetics. This is bold, rich, and important work that is well researched, robustly conceptualized, and finely written.” — J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, author of Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty
“With Listen but Don’t Ask Question, Fellezs adroitly weaves together the many cultural, political, and social crosscurrents that have shaped a beautiful and enduring musical tradition. While slack key has been carried to lands far and wide, Fellezs convincingly demonstrates that in the right hands and with the right heart, this polycultural transPacific tradition is never far from the shore of its original 'āina.” — Chad S. Hamill, Native American and Indigenous Studies
“During a time when questions of cultural appropriation, authenticity, ownership, and the ongoing repercussions of settler colonialism are at the forefront of discussions within music scholarship—and academia in general—Fellezs provides a thoughtful and personal reflection on the sometime elegant, sometimes messy ways Kanaka Maoli have negotiated these issues.” — James Revell Carr, Notes
2011 | Duke University Press
2012 | Woody Guthrie Book Award (IASPM-US)
“Like all the best writing about music, Fellezs's book makes you want to seek out the recordings he writes about. I went out and bought the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Birds of Fire after encountering those of Fellezs. If you don’t know the music he writes about yet, you’ll want to soon. Recommended.” — Peter Mills, Volume
"Kevin Fellezs's Birds of Fire gives a detailed history of the fusion movement of the 1960s and 1970s. . . . This is an excellent and engaging study of this under-represented musical idiom. . . . Birds of Fire will appeal to scholars and fans alike, with enough scholarly engagement for the former, and enough biographical and musical detail for the latter.” — Katherine Williams, Popular Music
“More than a study of one underexplored market niche, Birds of Fire brilliantly illuminates how the market both inhibits and enables creativity, as well as how creative musicians challenge the music industry’s narrowing and naturalizing of complicated, constructed, conflicted, and deeply contradictory social identities.” — George Lipsitz, author of How Racism Takes Place
“What a pleasure it is to read this insightful, exciting, and extremely well listened analysis of fusion music. Kevin Fellezs suggests new ways of understanding the four artists he profiles, develops a productive framework for rethinking fusion, and helps us to understand why artists and audiences were stimulated by this music even as it was dismissed by purists. Birds of Fire is a major contribution to rethinking the place of fusion within jazz studies, as well as broader questions of genre across disciplines.” — Sherrie Tucker, co-editor of Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies
Co-edited with Andy R. Brown
2020 | Brill (2012 | Inter-Disciplinary)
Heavy Metal Generations is the fourth volume in the series of papers drawn from the 2012 Music, Metal and Politics international conference, which attracted scholars from around the globe, working within a diverse range of academic disciplines, to converge in Prague, Czech Republic, for three days of panel presentations, debate and conjecture about the past, present and future of metal music studies.
Prof. Fellezs cannot fully express his deep gratitude to Prof. Yan Liu (Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing/Tianjin Conservatory of Music) for all of her hard work and dedication in translating Birds of Fire into Mandarin Chinese. 謝謝你!