Taking as its starting point Simon Frith's call to take the study of popular music into cultural and social fields (p. 183), this book provides an ethnographic study of the open mic night. It also fills a much-needed gap in the field of popular music studies, with relatively little having been written on the open mic night up to now. Consisting of seven chapters that examine the open mic scene in New York, this book puts forward the idea that the open mic night operates as a kind of ‘fourth’ place (p. 125), a location in which activities associated with the domestic sphere (such as musical practice) are blended with social activities typically ascribed to places such as music venues, bars and social clubs (such as musical performance).

The opening two chapters discuss definitions and histories of the open mic, locating the social structures and dynamics of these events within broader discussions of democracy, race, gender and the emergence of the creative class. Aldredge argues that the open mic bears a similarity to amateur poetry events and karaoke nights and developed out of the participatory folk hootenannies and anti-folk movement that emerged in New York in the mid-1980s. Despite the wide array of influences and connections cited, Aldredge does not discuss the open mic element of hip hop culture. Also emerging in New York in the 1980s, hip hop similarly blurs musical practice and performance and employs open, democratic social structures that are akin to those discussed by Aldredge. The exclusion of hip hop from Aldredge's historical survey has the danger of privileging particular types of musical expression (and thus communities). This is seen in Aldredge's discussion of the venues selected for study: ‘very few to none ongoing events were found in the Bronx and Staten Island, the other two city boroughs, likely due to the small frequency and density of musicians living in those areas’ (p. 15). While it might be argued that these areas host fewer musicians that would describe themselves as acoustic singer-songwriters, I don't believe it can be argued that these areas have fewer musicians.

Chapter 3 provides an overview of the ethnographic study. Focusing on two venues in Manhattan and two in Brooklyn, it discusses these open mics in relation to night-time economies, cultural geographies and local demographics. Dedicating the best part of the study to a discussion of the role played by the host at the open mic, Aldredge argues that the host can have a considerable effect on the nature and demographic make-up of the event. Through on-stage banter, their relationship with newcomers and regulars, and the way in which they organise and structure performances and performance space, the host, according to Aldredge, has the potential to influence who attends the open mic, what type of music is performed and what participants expect to get out of the event. Extending Bourdieu's concept of social capital, Aldredge argues that open mics are places to build ‘performance capital’ through the establishment of relationships with other performers and through musical development and learning, the building of social capital leading to the development of a professional music career.

Chapters 4–7 present a more detailed and analytical account of the observations made in Chapter 3. The fourth chapter considers the relationship between the venue, its demographic make-up and the role of host, and shows how each constituent part is interrelated. Aldredge discusses the white, male bias of the open mic and how this relates to the type of music that is performed, arguing that the structure of the open mic results in inequalities in terms of both race and gender. Observing that there is a tendency at open mic nights for participants to discuss performances in terms of musical authenticity and originality, Aldredge proposes that open mic nights are imbued with a nostalgic and romantic longing for a lost ‘roots’ music which is addressed by performers through the resurrection and reformulation of a primarily ‘masculine’ blues experience. Given the central role women have played in blues music in particular, it would be interesting to investigate further the extent to which the open mic perpetuates male-centred notions of pop music history.

Chapter 5 focuses on the idea of the performer as participant and discusses the book's two key claims: that the open mic night is representative of a ‘fourth’ space and that open mic has a DIT (rather than DIY) ethos. According to Aldredge, DIT stands for ‘Do It Together’ and in the context of the open mic describes the way in which musicians learn from one another and interact at these events. While Aldredge states that musicians frequently congregate ‘to talk all things musical’ (p. 156), he does not provide sufficiently detailed examples of these types of conversations. It would perhaps have been helpful to have included a close analysis of some of these off-stage discussions to see how they relate to ideas of shared learning and practice. This would have strengthened the argument and provided scholars of musical pedagogy with a useful resource.

One of the weaknesses of this book is that much of the raw data is not presented. Although perhaps an unfair criticism, it does seems that in an attempt to keep venues and interviewees anonymous, much detail and nuance that one might expect from an ethnographic study is lost. We don't get a feel for the places discussed, or Aldredge's experience of these venues; as Aldredge claims in the final chapter, the notion of ‘vibe’ is central to the way in which attendees describe their experience at these events. A greater level of detail would certainly have helped the reader to better understand the social dynamics and structures of these events and to determine whether the findings presented here are representative of open mics in general, or whether they are particular to New York's cultural geography and history.

All in all, Singer-Songwriters and Musical Open Mics provides an important foundation for studying the open mic. By connecting musical genre, cultural history and local geography, it asks us to think about how social scientists, historians and musicologists might work together and how a study of events such as the open mic can help us to better understand issues such as race and gender within geographical and cultural locales, as well as the role of night-time economies and the effects the emerging creative class is having on urban areas.