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Garth Cartwright is an award winning journalist and author. As a teen Garth was inspired to write on (and promote) Kiwi punk bands, thus a career in words/music beckoned by the age of 21 he was New Zealand's foremost music and visual arts journalist. Leaving in 1990 to explore the US, he purchased a rusty Buick Skylark for $500, hit the road and, in some ways, has never stopped. Since 1991 he has lived and worked in London. He regularly contributes to the Guardian and FinancialTimes andis the author of seven nonfiction books, while his Substack has an international readership. A passion for sharing musical enthusiasms has never dimmed from 2005- 2022 he hosted a monthly Balkan/folk music night in Brixton. When not writing or travelling, Garth likes to collect records and DJ.
Get on board for a wild road trip with the best soundtrack ever -- Cerys Matthews Garth takes us on a journey through Roma greats, through history, through cinematic representation, and into the mahalas themselves. The writing is vivid. It vividly conjures regions, and I can imagine myself there, back in basic Romanian accommodations made cheerful with bright painted walls and heated by wood fires, or bumping along in the back of a Macedonian minibus. This isn't just a story of people, but also of place... [this] isn't just a book about music: it's a history of a people and their culture, and how they live, the struggle. -- Jennie Blythe * Substack: World Stories, Told My Way * A minor classic of twenty-first-century travel literature - passionate, perceptive, and alert - but it is Cartwright's insight into the music and interest in the people who make it that really charges the writing... the book is sensitive to the history of a besieged people and hears the thread of sadness in the most joyous music. -- Matthew Lyons, The Broken Compass A classic book by my favourite expert on Balkan music; a must for the shelves of any music buff -- Joe Boyd The best book yet written about the Gypsies. Tough, entertaining, informative and refreshingly free of the bullshit outsiders often bring to the subject. A real achievement -- Professor Ian Hancock
