An essential work for rock fans and scholars, Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll surveys the origins of rock 'n' roll from the minstrel era to the emergence of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley. Unlike other histories of rock, Before Elvis offers a far broader and deeper analysis of the influences on rock music. Dispelling common misconceptions, it examines rock's origins in hokum songs and big-band boogies as well as Delta blues, detailing the embrace by white artists of African-American styles long before rock 'n' roll appeared. This unique study ranges far and wide, highlighting not only the contributions of obscure but key precursors like Hardrock Gunter and Sam Theard but also the influence of celebrity performers like Gene Autry and Ella Fitzgerald. Too often, rock historians treat the genesis of rock 'n' roll as a bolt from the blue, an overnight revolution provoked by the bland pop music that immediately preceded it and created through the white appropriation of music till then played only by and for black audiences. In Before Elvis, Birnbaum daringly argues a more complicated history of rock's evolution from a heady mix of ragtime, boogie-woogie, swing, country music, mainstream pop, and rhythm-and-blues-a melange that influenced one another along the way, from the absorption of blues and boogies into jazz and pop to the integration of country and Caribbean music into rhythm-and-blues. Written in an easy style, Before Elvis presents a bold argument about rock's origins and required reading for fans and scholars of rock 'n' roll history.

(Book). A classic, finally back in print British rock historian Barney Hoskyns (Hotel California, Across the Great Divide: The Band in America) examines the long and twisted rock 'n' roll history of Los Angeles in its glamorous and debauched glory. The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, the Doors, Little Feat, the Eagles, Steely Dan, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, and others (from Charlie Parker right up to Black Flag, the Minutemen, Jane's Addiction, Ice Cube, and Guns N' Roses) populate the pages of this comprehensive and extensively illustrated book.

Simon Frith has been one of the most important figures in the emergence and subsequent development of popular music studies. From his earliest academic publication, The Sociology of Rock (1978), through to his recent work on the live music industry in the UK, in his desire to 'take popular music seriously' he has probably been cited more than any other author in the field. Uniquely, he has combined this work with a lengthy career as a music critic for leading publications on both sides of the Atlantic. The contributions to this volume of essays and memoirs seek to honour Frith's achievements, but they are not merely 'about Frith'. Rather, they are important interventions by leading scholars in the field, including Robert Christgau, Antoine Hennion, Peter J. Martin and Philip Tagg. The focus on 'sociology and industry' and 'aesthetics and values' reflect major themes in Frith's own work, which can also be found within popular music studies more generally. As such the volume will become an essential resource for those working in popular music studies, as well as in musicology, sociology and cultural and media studies.

In 1974 the British progressive rock group Genesis released their double concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. The story was described by Genesis's then front-man Peter Gabriel as a 'moral fable' about Rael, a half-Puerto-Rican New York City street tough who is engulfed by a solid cloud into a series of strange adventures in a metaphysical realm. The album is a surreal allegory drawing its material from religious, literary and psychological themes. More than thirty years after its release, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway still enthralls listeners, earning the distinction of being Genesis's most consistently selling back-catalogue release. Kevin Holm-Hudson analyses The Lamb within the context of Genesis's recorded output, within the progressive rock genre as a whole, and within the context of social and political changes of the mid 1970s. The Lamb marked a conscious shift in their story setting to America, and for the first time the songs were oriented to the present rather than the past or future. Significantly, while 1974 marked the peak of music industry growth and consolidation through corporate mergers, it was also the year in which America was confronted with its limits: through the first of the OPEC energy crises, the resignation of Richard Nixon, the withdrawal from Vietnam, and the effects of runaway inflation. Genesis's native Britain was also to feel the effects of the energy crisis, intensified by a period of economic slowdown that ultimately led to the rise of Thatcherism. The Lamb is set in New York City during this time of uncertainty. Within a few years the economic constraints would affect the industry as a whole and as a result progressive rock would suffer a precipitous drop in industry support. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway thus makes a particularly rich subject for detailed study, providing compelling intersections between the musical, textual and socioeconomic aspects of an album.

The first concept album in the history of popular music, the soundtrack of the Summer of Love or 'Hippy Symphony No. 1': Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is first and foremost the album that gave rise to 'hopes of progress in pop music' (The Times, 29 May 1967). Sgt. Pepper and the Beatles commemorates the fortieth anniversary of this masterpiece of British psychedelia by addressing issues that will help put the record in perspective. These issues include: reception by rock critics and musicians, the cover, lyrics, songwriting, formal unity, the influence of non-European music and art music, connections with psychedelia and, more generally, the sociocultural context of the 1960s, production, sound engineering and musicological significance. The contributors are world renowned for their work on the Beatles: they examine Sgt. Pepper from the angle of disciplines such as musicology, ethnomusicology, history, sociology, literature, social psychology and cultural theory.

The music industry has been waging some very significant battles in recent years, reacting to numerous inter-related crises provoked by globalization, digitalization and the ever more extensive commercialization of public culture. These struggles are viewed by many as central to the survival of the central mediators in the consumption of popular music. These battles are not just against piracy and the sharing of digital song files on the internet. The music industry is also struggling to find ways to compete or integrate with many other forms of entertainment, including films, television programmes, mobile phones, DVDs and video games in an extremely crowded communications environment. The battles currently being fought by the music industry are about nothing less than its continued ability to create and maintain specific kinds of profitable relationships with consumers. This book presents two inter-related cases of crisis and opportunity: the music industry's epic struggle over piracy and the 'Idol' phenomenon. Both are explicit attempts to control and justify the particular ways in which the music industry makes money from popular music through specific kinds of relationships with consumers. The battles over piracy have been fought with a remarkable collection of campaigns consisting of advice, coercion and argument about what is or is not the best way to consume music. From these complicated and often contradictory campaigns we form an unusually clear picture of what many within the music industry imagine their industry to be. In a complementary way, 'Idol' works to demonstrate the joy and pleasure of consuming popular music the 'right' way. By creating a series of intertwined relationships with consumers around multiple sites of consumption, incorporating television, radio, live performance, traditional print media campaigns, text messaging and all manner of internet-based systems of communication and 'fan management,' the producers of 'Idol' present an ideal relationship between musicians and audiences. Instead of focusing on selling CDs, the music industry's digital Achilles' heel, 'Idol' has given the music industry an integrated platform for displaying its expanded palette of products and venues for consumption. When understood in specific relation to the battle against piracy, Fairchild's analysis of 'Idol' and the emerging promotional cultures of the music industry it exhibits shows how multiple sites of consumption, and attempts to mediate and control the circulation of popular music, are being used to combat the foundational challenges facing the music industry.

Canons are central to our understanding of our culture, and yet in the last thirty years there has been much conflict and uncertainty created by the idea of the canon. In essence, the canon comprises the works and artists that are widely accepted to be the greatest in their field. Yet such an apparently simple construct embodies a complicated web of values and mechanisms. Canons are also inherently elitist; however, Carys Wyn Jones here explores the emerging reflections of values, terms and mechanisms from the canons of Western literature and classical music in the reception of rock music. Jones examines the concept of the canon as theorized by scholars in the fields of literary criticism and musicology, before moving on to search for these canonical facets in the reception of rock music, as represented by ten albums: Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, The Beatles' Revolver, The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground & Nico, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St., Patti Smith's Horses, The Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks: Here's the Sex Pistols, and Nirvana's Nevermind. Jones concludes that in the reception of rock music we are not only trying to organize the past but also mediate the present, and any canon of rock music must now negotiate a far more pluralized culture and possibly accept a greater degree of change than has been evident in the canons of literature and classical music in the last two centuries.

To date, there has been a significant gap in work on the social history of music in Britain from 1950 to the present day. The three volumes of Live Music in Britain address this gap and do so through a unique prism-that of live music. The key theme of the books is the changing nature of the live music industry in the UK, focused upon popular music but including all musical genres. Via this focus, the books offer new insights into a number of other areas, including the relationship between commercial and public funding of music, changing musical fashions and tastes, the impact of changing technologies, the changing balance of power within the music industries, the role of the state in regulating and promoting various musical activities within an increasingly globalised music economy, and the effects of demographic and other social changes on music culture. Drawing on new archival research, a wide range of academic and non-academic secondary sources, participant observation and a series of interviews with key personnel, the books have the potential to become landmark works within Popular Music Studies and broader cultural history. The second volume covers the period from Hyde Park to the Hacienda (1968-84).

When he died suddenly at the age of twenty-six, Otis Redding (1941-1967) was the conscience of a new kind of soul music. Berry Gordy built the first black-owned music empire at Motown but Redding was doing something as historic: mainstreaming black music within the whitest bastions of the post-Confederate south. As a result, the Redding story-still largely untold-is one of great conquest but grand tragedy. Now, in this transformative work, Mark Ribowsky contextualises Redding's life within the larger cultural movements of his era. What emerges in Dreams to Remember is not only a triumph of music history but also a reclamation of a visionary who would come to define an entire era.

"The new Chris Cornell biography is the book his legacy deserves." -Kerrang! "Reiff unearths plenty of unexpected details and novel anecdotes...but the book is perhaps most valuable for the way it rounds out and humanizes this man who managed to keep so many of his cards close to the vest despite decades in the spotlight." -Variety "Total F*cking Godhead brings Chris Cornell, the voice of a generation, alive on the page. Impressively researched and compulsively readable, Godhead pulls no punches in recounting Cornell's remarkable life and prolific career. It's an inspired chronicle of an impassioned soul. Read it!"-Greg Renoff, author of Van Halen Rising With input from those who knew and worked with him-together with his own words-Total F*cking Godhead recounts the rise of Chris Cornell and his immortal band Soundgarden as they emerged from the 1980s post-punk underground to dominate popular culture in the '90s alongside Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, and Nirvana. "From his days as a struggling Seattle musician at the forefront of the grunge scene to becoming a global icon, Total F*cking Godhead thoroughly chronicles the life story and prolific output of one of the greatest and most influential singers of all time. You will discover the man and his music all over again."-David de Sola, author of Alice in Chains: The Untold Story Seattle resident and rock writer Corbin Reiff also examines Cornell's dynamic solo career as well as his time in Audioslave. He delves into his hard-fought battle with addiction, and the supercharged reunion with the band that made him famous before everything came to a shocking end. "For those of us still trying to sort out the tragedy of Chris Cornell's death comes this loving look back at the man's life and music. I wrote my own book about grunge, and I still learned a lot from this excellent biography." -Mark Yarm, author of Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge

* The first book to analyse every Queen song - giving equal weight to album tracks alongside the hits . * Includes analysis of about 20 classic songs using the original 24 track master tapes. * Queen remain ever popular and active, and continue to tour despite the death of Freddie Mercury in 1991. This book examines Queen's music, album by album, track by track, in detail. Where possible, recourse to the original multi-track master tapes has provided extra insight. Those familiar hits are revisited, but those classic album cuts - like `Liar', `March of the Black Queen', `Death on Two Legs', and `Dragon Attack', `are given equal precedence. The book also examines the changes that these same four musicians went through - from heavy and pomp rock to pop as the chart hits began to flow - with a keen and unbiased eye. Whether as a fan your preference is for the albums `A Night at the Opera', `Jazz' or `Innuendo' this detailed and definitive guide will tell you all you need to know. Queen had strength in depth. These are the songs on which a legend was built.

London, 1820. The British capital is a metropolis that overwhelms dwellers and visitors alike with constant exposure to all kinds of sensory stimulation. Over the next two decades, the city's tumult will reach new heights: as population expansion places different classes in dangerous proximity and ideas of political and social reform linger in the air, London begins to undergo enormous infrastructure change that will alter it forever. It is the London of this period that editors Roger Parker and Susan Rutherford pinpoint in this book, which chooses one broad musical category--voice--and engages with it through essays on music of the streets, theaters, opera houses, and concert halls; on the raising of voices in religious and sociopolitical contexts; and on the perception of voice in literary works and scientific experiments with acoustics. Emphasizing human subjects, this focus on voice allows the authors to explore the multifaceted issues that shaped London, from the anxiety surrounding the city's importance in the musical world at large to the changing vocal imaginations that permeated the epoch. Capturing the breadth of sonic stimulations and cultures available--and sometimes unavoidable--to residents at the time, London Voices, 1820-1840 sheds new light on music in Britain and the richness of London culture during this period.

Black Sea Sketches is a portrait of some of the diverse musical cultures surrounding the Black Sea and in its hinterlands. Its six separate chapters follow a very broad trajectory from close-ups of traditional music (chapters 1-4) towards wide-angle studies of art music (chapters 5-6), and each of them opens windows to big, border-crossing themes about music and place. A wide variety of repertoires is discussed: ancient layers of polyphonic music, bardic songs, traditional music from the coasts and mountains, the sacred music of Islam and Orthodox Christianity, the art music of Europe and West Asia, and present-day popular music 'scenes'. The usual practice is for each chapter to begin with a Black Sea coastal location before reaching out into the hinterlands. The result is a collection of six relatively discrete essays on different locations and topics, but with underlying thematic continuities, and offering a wide-ranging commentary on cultural difference. Firmly grounded in ethnographic and documentary research, this is an important study for scholars and researchers of Ethnomusicology, as also of Caucasian and Russian/East European Studies.

Rory Gallagher is regarded as one of the greatest guitarists of all time. He was a dazzling showman, an accomplished songwriter, and a champion of blues music. His career began in an Irish showband at age fifteen, before forming Taste, one of the great Irish bands. He went on to achieve even greater success as a solo artist in the 1970s. After his success peaked, Gallagher's later life was troubled, ending in disillusionment and early death. He remains a legend, with musicians like the Edge, Johnny Marr and Joe Bonamassa among the legions of fans who still revere him. Drawing on extensive interviews, Julian Vignoles casts new light on the familial, musical and other influences that inspired Gallagher, and on the complex personality that drove his career. Crucially, Vignoles shows how many of Gallagher's songs speak eloquently - and poignantly - about the person who penned them. Meticulously researched, this portrait is the insightful biography that Rory Gallagher deserves. 'An exemplarily well-researched biography' R n' R 'A rich, fitting tribute to Gallagher's enormous talent' Beat

The theme of this Research Companion is 'connectivity and the global reach of electroacoustic music and sonic arts made with technology'. The possible scope of such a companion in the field of electronic music has changed radically over the last 30 years. The definitions of the field itself are now broader - there is no clear boundary between 'electronic music' and 'sound art'. Also, what was previously an apparently simple divide between 'art' and 'popular' practices is now not easy or helpful to make, and there is a rich cluster of streams of practice with many histories, including world music traditions. This leads in turn to a steady undermining of a primarily Euro-American enterprise in the second half of the twentieth century. Telecommunications technology, most importantly the development of the internet in the final years of the century, has made materials, practices and experiences ubiquitous and apparently universally available - though some contributions to this volume reassert the influence and importance of local cultural practice. Research in this field is now increasingly multi-disciplinary. Technological developments are embedded in practices which may be musical, social, individual and collective. The contributors to this companion embrace technological, scientific, aesthetic, historical and social approaches and a host of hybrids - but, most importantly, they try to show how these join up. Thus the intention has been to allow a wide variety of new practices to have voice - unified through ideas of 'reaching out' and 'connecting together' - and in effect showing that there is emerging a different kind of 'global music'.

Expression in Pop-Rock Music is a collection of critical and analytical essays written by todaya (TM)s top scholars on pop and rock music. Applying a wide variety of analytical techniques and critical approaches in the study of songs by artists such as Tori Amos, David Bowie, James Brown, the Cure, Genesis, Radiohead, and Frank Zappa, these essays tackle the musical text itself in coming to terms with political, social, cultural, and stylistic issues expressed in the most popular music of the past half-century. It has been expanded in its second edition to include three new essays and other additions accounting for the changes to the popular music landscape since its first edition, with particular attention paid to the rise of hip-hop and country music.

In this, the first book to take a big-picture view of the entire post punk period, acclaimed author and music journalist Simon Reynolds recreates a time of tremendous urgency and idealism in pop music. Full of anecdote and insight, and featuring the likes of Joy Division, The Fall, Pere Ubu, PiL and Talking Heads, Rip It Up And Start Again stands as one of the most inspired and inspiring books on popular music ever written.

The intimate and long-awaited memoir of guitar legend Carlos Santana. In 1967 at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium, a young guitarist played a blistering solo that announced a prodigious talent. Two years later he played a historic set at Woodstock, and the world came to know Carlos Santana by name. THE UNIVERSAL TONE is a tale of musical self-determination and self-discovery. It traces his journey from his teen days playing in Tijuana, and the establishment of his signature guitar sound; his roles as husband, father and rock star; and his recording of some of the most influential rock albums of all time, up to and beyond the sensational SUPERNATURAL, which garnered nine Grammy awards. The book abounds with a fearlessness that finds humour in the world of high-flying fame, speaks plainly of personal revelations, and celebrates the divine and infinite possibility Santana sees in each person he meets.

In this book, Julian Hellaby presents a detailed study of English piano playing and career management as it was in the middle years of the twentieth century. Making regular comparisons with early twenty-first-century practice, the author examines career-launching mechanisms, such as auditions and competitions, and investigates available means of career sustenance, including artist management, publicity outlets, recital and concerto work, broadcasts, recordings and media reviews. Additionally, Hellaby considers whether a mid-twentieth-century school of English piano playing may be identified and, if so, whether it has lasted into the early decades of the twenty-first century. The author concludes with an appraisal of the state of English pianism in recent years and raises questions about its future. Drawing on extensive research from a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, this book is structured around case-studies of six pianists who were commencing and then developing their careers between approximately 1935 and 1970. The professional lives and playing styles of Malcolm Binns, Peter Katin, Moura Lympany, Denis Matthews, Valerie Tryon and David Wilde are examined, and telling comparisons are made between the state of affairs then and that of more recent times. Engagingly written, the book is likely to appeal to professional and amateur pianists, piano teachers, undergraduate and postgraduate music students, academics and anyone with an interest in the history of pianists, piano performance and music performance history in general.

Ray Davies: Not Like Everybody Else is a critical biography of Ray Davies, with a focus on his music and his times. The book studies Davies' work from the Kinks' first singles through his 2006 solo album, from his rock musicals in the early 1970s to his one-man stage show in the 1990s, and from his films to his autobiography. Based on interviews with his closest associates, as well as studies of the recordings themselves, this book creates the most thorough picture of Davies' work to date. Kitts situates Davies' work in the context of the British Invasion and the growth of rock in the '60s and '70s, and in the larger context of English cultural history. For fans of rock music and the music of the Kinks, this book is a must have. It will finally place this legendary innovator in the pantheon of the great rock artists of the past half-century. Thomas M. Kitts, Professor of English and Chair of the Division of English/Speech at St. John's University, NY, is the co-editor of Living on a Thin Line: Crossing Aesthetic Borders with The Kinks, the author of The Theatrical Life of George Henry Boker, articles on American literature and popular culture, reviews of books, CDs, and performances, and a play Gypsies. He is the book review editor of Popular Music and Society and the editor of The Mid-Atlantic Almanack.

Chosen as one of the Best Architecture and Design books Summer 2022 by the Financial Times. Why British record store carrier bags are graphic design icons: While they've never carried the kudos of sleeve designs and music posters, record shop bags offer a fascinating insight into 20th century British music culture, high-streets and more. - Creative Review Jonny Trunk's extensive collection of record shop bags weaves together a less conventional history of British music, celebrating the shops where musicians and fans bought and sold their first LPs. This book is a love letter to these forgotten spaces, accompanied by a juicy selection of anecdotes and little known facts about the record shops and their bags. Readers, gear up for a "brilliant ride down the old British high streets and low streets too." - It's Nice That Jonny Trunk and FUEL present A-Z of Record Shop Bags - a publication celebrating the humble record store bag. This exhaustive collection of the record shop bag provides a unique perspective of record shopping in the UK over the last century, bringing together over 500 incredible bags (some possibly the only surviving examples) to document the fascinating story of British high street record shopping. Bags from famous chains such as NEMS, Our Price and Virgin (the amazingly rare Roger Dean bags), sit alongside designs from local shops run by eccentric enthusiasts. Packed with stories such as the first Jewish ska retailer, the record sellers who started the premier league, famous staff (David Bowie, Dusty Springfield, Morrissey, etc.) and equally infamous owners, these anecdotes of mythical vinyl entrepreneurs will entertain and delight. With vinyl record sales at their highest ever for decades (outselling CDs in the US), this publication acts as an amazing insight into the history, culture and visual language of record collecting. Following Own Label, Wrappers Delight and Auto Erotica - A-Z of Record Shop Bags: 1940s to 1990s is the next book in the series by Jonny Trunk and FUEL, examining overlooked aspects of our collective past.

The Go-Go's were the first all-female rock group in history to write their own songs, play their own instruments, and reach the top of the Billboard charts with their #1 album, Beauty and the Beat. Made In Hollywood is drummer Gina Schock's personal account of the band, which includes a treasure trove of photographs and memorabilia collected over the course of her 40-year career. The Go-Go's debut album, Beauty and the Beat, rose to the top of the charts in 1981 and their hit songs "We Got the Beat", "Our Lips Are Sealed", "Vacation", and "Head Over Heels" (to name a few) served as a soundtrack to our lives in the '80s. Now, after the release of their Critics Choice Award-winning Showtime documentary, and in anticipation of their forthcoming induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and their 2021 West Coast shows, Gina takes fans behind the scenes for a rare look at her personal images documenting the band's wild journey to the heights of fame and stardom. Featuring posters, photographs, Polaroids, and other memorabilia from her archives, Made In Hollywood also includes stories from each member of the Go-Go's, along with other cultural luminaries like Kate Pierson, Jodie Foster, Dave Stewart, Martha Quinn, and Paul Reubens. With a style as bold and distinctive as any Go-Go's album, Made In Hollywood is the perfect tribute to one of the world's most iconic groups.

In Britain during the late 1970s and early 1980s, a new phenomenon emerged, with female guitarists, bass-players, keyboard-players and drummers playing in bands. Before this time, women's presence in rock bands, with a few notable exceptions, had always been as vocalists. This sudden influx of female musicians into the male domain of rock music was brought about partly by the enabling ethic of punk rock ('anybody can do it!') and partly by the impact of the Equal Opportunities Act. But just as suddenly as the phenomenon arrived, the interest in these musicians evaporated and other priorities became important to music audiences. Helen Reddington investigates the social and commercial reasons for how these women became lost from the rock music record, and rewrites this period in history in the context of other periods when female musicians have been visible in previously male environments. Reddington draws on her own experience as bass-player in a punk band, thereby contributing a fresh perspective on the socio-political context of the punk scene and its relationship with the media. The book also features a wealth of original interview material with key protagonists, including the late John Peel, Geoff Travis, The Raincoats and the Poison Girls.

Expression in Pop-Rock Music is a collection of critical and analytical essays written by todaya (TM)s top scholars on pop and rock music. Applying a wide variety of analytical techniques and critical approaches in the study of songs by artists such as Tori Amos, David Bowie, James Brown, the Cure, Genesis, Radiohead, and Frank Zappa, these essays tackle the musical text itself in coming to terms with political, social, cultural, and stylistic issues expressed in the most popular music of the past half-century. It has been expanded in its second edition to include three new essays and other additions accounting for the changes to the popular music landscape since its first edition, with particular attention paid to the rise of hip-hop and country music.