Download or read book Big Beat Heat written by John A. Jackson and published by Schirmer Trade Books. This book was released on 2000-12-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the riveting story of how one deejay -- Alan Freed -- brought the fresh sounds of rock and roll to the airwaves, introducing teenagers in New York and across America to the sounds of a generation. It is also the darker tale of the payola scandals of the late 50s that exposed the links between radio airplay, record promotion, and the mob.

Download or read book The Alan Freed Story written by Collectables and published by . This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Profiles the rise and fall of Cleveland DJ Alan Freed, who coined the term "rock & roll" and broadcast this new music to the masses.

Download or read book All Shook Up written by Glenn C. Altschuler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-08-07 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The birth of rock 'n roll ignited a firestorm of controversy--one critic called it "musical riots put to a switchblade beat"--but if it generated much sound and fury, what, if anything, did it signify? As Glenn Altschuler reveals in All Shook Up, the rise of rock 'n roll--and the outraged reception to it--in fact can tell us a lot about the values of the United States in the 1950s, a decade that saw a great struggle for the control of popular culture. Altschuler shows, in particular, how rock's "switchblade beat" opened up wide fissures in American society along the fault-lines of family, sexuality, and race. For instance, the birth of rock coincided with the Civil Rights movement and brought "race music" into many white homes for the first time. Elvis freely credited blacks with originating the music he sang and some of the great early rockers were African American, most notably, Little Richard and Chuck Berry. In addition, rock celebrated romance and sex, rattled the reticent by pushing sexuality into the public arena, and mocked deferred gratification and the obsession with work of men in gray flannel suits. And it delighted in the separate world of the teenager and deepened the divide between the generations, helping teenagers differentiate themselves from others. Altschuler includes vivid biographical sketches of the great rock 'n rollers, including Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Buddy Holly--plus their white-bread doppelgangers such as Pat Boone. Rock 'n roll seemed to be everywhere during the decade, exhilarating, influential, and an outrage to those Americans intent on wishing away all forms of dissent and conflict. As vibrant as the music itself, All Shook Up reveals how rock 'n roll challenged and changed American culture and laid the foundation for the social upheaval of the sixties.

Download or read book Rock n Roll Unravelled written by Derek Shelmerdine and published by . This book was released on 2016-06-01 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book It Ain t Nothin But the Blues written by Charles Bevel and published by Samuel French, Inc.. This book was released on 2002 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sizzling revue of the blues and blues infused songs that changed the way the world hears the human heartbeat took New York by storm. Ravishing songs trace the evolution of the blues from Africa to Mississippi to Memphis to Chicago.

Download or read book Popular Music Popular Myth and Cultural Heritage in Cleveland written by Brett Lashua and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2019-08-22 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a case study of popular music heritage to address why, and how, Cleveland, Ohio has claimed to be the "birthplace of rock 'n' roll" and became the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It explores the role of radio DJs, record stores, concerts and myths in shaping the relations between people, places, and the past.

Download or read book The House That Rock Built written by Norm N. Nite and published by Kent State University Press. This book was released on 2020-09 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The behind-the-scenes battle for the Rock Hall For 25 years, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has defined Cleveland's image as the "Rock and Roll Capital of the World." But while the Rock Hall has become an iconic landmark for the city of Cleveland and for fans of rock and roll around the world, it was just one missed phone call away from never being built in Cleveland. If the prominent singer and actress Leslie Gore hadn't contacted radio personality Norm N. Nite in August 1983, the Hall of Fame would not be in Cleveland--period. Earlier that summer, Gore had learned that the newly formed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation was looking for a city to house their planned museum honoring the history of rock. Gore knew that a year earlier, Nite had pitched an idea for a similar museum, so she reached out to let him know that other figures in the music industry were working to turn his dream into a reality. Nite immediately joined the project's Rules and Nominating Committee and spearheaded the campaign to bring the museum to Cleveland. At the time, the search committee was considering several other cities, including Memphis, Detroit, and New York, but Nite argued that the city's deep historical connection to rock music through Alan Freed and the Moondog Coronation Ball made Cleveland the perfect location. He began lobbying local and state politicians, fundraising with music moguls and civic leaders, and promoting the museum to the broader Cleveland public. As fans got involved, especially with their overwhelming response to a USA Today phone poll, Nite's campaign to bring the Hall to Cleveland was ultimately successful. This book, told from Nite's insider perspective, draws on both first-person accounts and exclusive interviews with influential business leaders, government officials, and giants of the music industry. A detailed record of the Rock Hall's inception and creation, The House That Rock Built becomes a true tribute to the people who made it happen--through Herculean efforts--and to the music it celebrates.

Download or read book Becoming the Beach Boys 1961 1963 written by James B. Murphy and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-06-08 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They were almost The Pendletones--after the Pendleton wool shirts favored on chilly nights at the beach--then The Surfers, before being named The Beach Boys. But what separated them from every other teenage garage band with no musical training? They had raw talent, persistence and a wellspring of creativity that launched them on a legendary career now in its sixth decade. Following the musical vision of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys blended ethereal vocal harmonies, searing electric guitars and lush arrangements into one of the most distinctive sounds in the history of popular music. Drawing on original interviews and newly uncovered documents, this book untangles the band's convoluted early history and tells the story of how five boys from California formed America's greatest rock 'n' roll band.

Download or read book Joe Papp An American Life written by Helen Epstein and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 803 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joseph Papp (1921-1991), theater producer, champion of human rights and of the First Amendment, founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival and Public Theater, changed the American cultural landscape. Born Yussel Papirofsky in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, he discovered Shakespeare in public school and first produced a show on an aircraft carrier during World War II. After a stint at the Actors’ Lab in Hollywood, he moved to New York, where he worked as a CBS stage manager during the golden age of television. He fought Parks Commissioner Robert Moses (as well as Mayors Wagner, Lindsay, Beame and Koch) winning first the right to stage free Shakespeare in New York’s Central Park, then municipal funding to keep it going. He built the Delacorte Theater and later rebuilt the former Astor Library on Lafayette Street, transforming it into the Public Theater. In addition to helping create an "American" style of Shakespeare, Papp pioneered colorblind casting and theater as a not-for-profit institution. He showcased playwrights David Rabe, Elizabeth Swados, Ntozake Shange, David Hare, Wallace Shawn, John Guare, and Vaclav Havel; directors Michael Bennett, Wilford Leach and James Lapine; actors Al Pacino, Colleen Dewhurst, George C. Scott, James Earl Jones, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Sam Waterston, and Denzel Washington; and produced Hair, Sticks and Bones, for colored girls, The Normal Heart, and A Chorus Line, the longest running musical in Broadway history. "This first biography of the late Joseph Papp will be a hard act to follow." — Booklist "The final portrait that emerges might have been jointly painted by Goya, Whistler and Francis Bacon." — Benedict Nightingale, front-page New York Times Sunday Book Review Playwright Tony Kushner called Papp "one of the very few heroes this tawdry, timid business has produced" and the book, a "nourishing and juicy biography." "Helen Epstein recounts [Papp's] career in [this] definitive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography. [...] It is a tribute to Epstein’s narrative skill that the detailed account of Papp’s decline and eventual defeat by cancer [...] reads as both riveting and horrifying." — Ellen Schiff, All About Jewish Theatre Oklahoma-born Paul Davis created 51 iconic posters for Joseph Papp, starting in 1975 with the New York Shakespeare Festival production of "Hamlet" starring Sam Waterston. "It was inspiring to work with Joe," says Davis. "We would discuss what he wanted to achieve in a production, and he trusted me to find a way to express it. And he respected the poster as its own dramatic form." The artist’s work has been exhibited in the U.S., Europe and Japan. He is a recipient of a special Drama Desk award created for his theater art. Davis was elected to the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame and the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, and is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.

Download or read book The Buzzard Inside the Glory Days of WMMS and Cleveland Rock Radio A Memoir written by John Gorman and published by Gray & Company. This book was released on 2008-08 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of Cleveland's WMMS radio station from 1973 to 1986, exploring how the station helped recreate rockradio and the city of Cleveland by showcasing new, influential musicians and inspiring listeners.

Download or read book Last Night a DJ Saved My Life written by Bill Brewster and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A riveting look at record spinning from its beginnings to the present day . . . A grander and more fascinating story than one would think.” —Time Out London This is the first comprehensive history of the disc jockey, a cult classic now updated with five new chapters and over a hundred pages of additional material. It’s the definitive account of DJ culture, from the first record played over airwaves to house, hip-hop, techno, and beyond. From the early development of recorded and transmitted sound, DJs have been shaping the way we listen to music and the record industry. This book tracks down the inside story on some of music’s most memorable moments. Focusing on the club DJ, the book gets first-hand accounts of the births of disco, hip-hop, house, and techno. Visiting legendary clubs like the Peppermint Lounge, Cheetah, the Loft, Sound Factory, and Ministry of Sound, and with interviews with legendary DJs, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life is a lively and entertaining account of musical history and some of the most legendary parties of the century. “Brewster and Broughton’s ardent history is one of barriers and sonic booms, spanning almost 100 years, including nods to pioneers Christopher Stone, Martin Block, Douglas ‘Jocko’ Henderson, Bob ‘Wolfman Jack’ Smith and Alan ‘Moondog’ Freed.” —Publishers Weekly

Download or read book Big Beat Heat written by John A. Jackson and published by Schirmer Trade Books. This book was released on 1991 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Alan Freed, premier rock & roll disc jockey in New York City in the 1950s.

Download or read book A House on Fire written by John A. Jackson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-11-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "If You Don't Know Me By Now," "The Love I Lost," "The Soul Train Theme," "Then Came You," "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now"--the distinctive music that became known as Philly Soul dominated the pop music charts in the 1970s. In A House on Fire, John A. Jackson takes us inside the musical empire created by Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell, the three men who put Philadelphia Soul on the map. Here is the eye-opening story of three of the most influential and successful music producers of the seventies. Jackson shows how Gamble, Huff, and Bell developed a black recording empire second only to Berry Gordy's Motown, pumping out a string of chart-toppers from Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, the Spinners, the O'Jays, the Stylistics, and many others. The author underscores the endemic racism of the music business at that time, revealing how the three men were blocked from the major record companies and outlets in Philadelphia because they were black, forcing them to create their own label, sign their own artists, and create their own sound. The sound they created--a sophisticated and glossy form of rhythm and blues, characterized by crisp, melodious harmonies backed by lush, string-laden orchestration and a hard-driving rhythm section--was a glorious success, producing at least twenty-eight gold or platinum albums and thirty-one gold or platinum singles. But after their meteoric rise and years of unstoppable success, their production company finally failed, brought down by payola, competition, a tough economy, and changing popular tastes. Funky, groovy, soulful--Philly Soul was the classic seventies sound. A House on Fire tells the inside story of this remarkable musical phenomenon.

Download or read book Godfather of the Music Business written by Richard Carlin and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Association of Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence Best Historical Research in Record Labels – Best History (2017) This biography tells the story of one of the most notorious figures in the history of popular music, Morris Levy (1927-1990). At age nineteen, he cofounded the nightclub Birdland in Hell's Kitchen, which became the home for a new musical style, bebop. Levy operated one of the first integrated clubs on Broadway and helped build the careers of Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell and most notably aided the reemergence of Count Basie. In 1957, he founded a record label, Roulette Records. Roulette featured many of the significant jazz artists who played Birdland but also scored top pop hits with acts like Buddy Knox, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Joey Dee and the Starliters, and, in the mid-1960s, Tommy James. Stories abound of Levy threatening artists, songwriters, and producers, sometimes just for the sport, other times so he could continue to build his empire. Along the way, Levy attracted "investors" with ties to the Mafia, including Dominic Ciaffone (a.k.a. "Swats" Mulligan), Tommy Eboli, and the most notorious of them all, Vincent Gigante. Gigante allegedly owned large pieces of Levy's recording and retail businesses. Starting in the late 1950s, the FBI and IRS investigated Levy but could not make anything stick until the early 1980s, when Levy foolishly got involved in a deal to sell remaindered records to a small-time reseller, John LaMonte. With partners in the mob, Levy tried to force LaMonte to pay for four million remaindered records. When the FBI secretly wiretapped LaMonte in an unrelated investigation and agents learned about the deal, investigators successfully prosecuted Levy in the extortion scheme. Convicted in 1988, Levy did not live to serve prison time. Stricken with cancer, he died just as his last appeals were exhausted. However, even if he had lived, Levy's brand of storied high life was effectively bust. Corporate ownership of record labels doomed most independents in the business, ending the days when a savvy if ruthless hustler could blaze a path to the top.

Download or read book Going into the City written by Robert Christgau and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-02-24 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of our great essayists and journalists—the Dean of American Rock Critics, Robert Christgau—takes us on a heady tour through his life and times in this vividly atmospheric and visceral memoir that is both a love letter to a New York long past and a tribute to the transformative power of art. Lifelong New Yorker Robert Christgau has been writing about pop culture since he was twelve and getting paid for it since he was twenty-two, covering rock for Esquire in its heyday and personifying the music beat at the Village Voice for over three decades. Christgau listened to Alan Freed howl about rock ‘n’ roll before Elvis, settled east of Manhattan’s Avenue B forty years before it was cool, witnessed Monterey and Woodstock and Chicago ’68, and the first abortion speak-out. He’s caught Coltrane in the East Village, Muddy Waters in Chicago, Otis Redding at the Apollo, the Dead in the Haight, Janis Joplin at the Fillmore, the Rolling Stones at the Garden, the Clash in Leeds, Grandmaster Flash in Times Square, and every punk band you can think of at CBGB. Christgau chronicled many of the key cultural shifts of the last half century and revolutionized the cultural status of the music critic in the process. Going Into the City is a look back at the upbringing that grounded him, the history that transformed him, and the music, books, and films that showed him the way. Like Alfred Kazin’s A Walker in the City, E. B. White’s Here Is New York, Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel, and Patti Smith’s Just Kids, it is a loving portrait of a lost New York. It’s an homage to the city of Christgau’s youth from Queens to the Lower East Side—a city that exists mostly in memory today. And it’s a love story about the Greenwich Village girl who roamed this realm of possibility with him.

Download or read book Rock Concert written by Marc Myers and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “fascinating, intimate” oral history of the golden age of the rock concert based on nearly 100 interviews with musicians, fans, and others (Publishers Weekly). Decades after the rise of rock music in the 1950s, the rock concert retains its power as a unifying experience—and as a multi-billion-dollar industry. In Rock Concert, acclaimed music writer Marc Myers delves into the history of this cultural phenomenon, weaving together ground-breaking accounts from the people who were there. Myers combines the tales of icons like Joan Baez, Ian Anderson, Alice Cooper, Steve Miller, Roger Waters, and Angus Young with the disc jockeys, audio engineers, and music journalists, and promoters who organized it all, like Michael Lang, co-founder of Woodstock, to create a rounded and vivid account of live rock’s stratospheric rise. Rock Concert offers a backstage view of rock ‘n’ roll as it evolved through live performance—from the rise of R&B in the 1950s, to the hippie gatherings of the ‘60s, and the growing arena tours of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Elvis Presley’s gyrating hips, the “British Invasion” of the Beatles, the Grateful Dead’s free flowing jams, and Pink Floyd’s The Wall are just a few of the defining musical acts that drive this rich narrative.

Download or read book What Is It All but Luminous written by Art Garfunkel and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Poetic musings on a life well-lived—one that is still moving forward, always creating, always luminous. This isn't your typical autobiography. Garfunkel's history is told in flowing prose, bounding from present to past, far from a linear rags-to-riches story." —Bookreporter "It's hard to imagine any single word that would accurately describe this book . . . an entertaining volume that's more fun to read than a conventional memoir might have been." —The Wall Street Journal "A charming book of prose and poetry printed in a digitalized version of his handwriting . . . witty, candid, and wildly imaginative . . . A highly intelligent man trying to make sense of his extraordinary life." —Associated Press From the golden-haired, curly-headed half of Simon & Garfunkel, a memoir (of sorts)—moving, lyrical impressions, interspersed throughout a narrative, punctuated by poetry, musings, lists of resonant books loved and admired, revealing a life and the making of a musician, that show us, as well, the evolution of a man, a portrait of a life-long friendship and of a collaboration that became the most successful singing duo in the roiling age that embraced, and was defined by, their pathfinding folk-rock music. In What Is It All but Luminous, Art Garfunkel writes about growing up in the 1940s and ‘50s (son of a traveling salesman, listening as his father played Enrico Caruso records), a middle-class Jewish boy, living in a redbrick semi-attached house on Jewel Avenue in Kew Gardens, Queens. He writes of meeting Paul Simon, the kid who made Art laugh (they met at their graduation play, Alice in Wonderland; Paul was the White Rabbit; Art, the Cheshire Cat). Of their being twelve at the birth of rock’n’roll (“it was rhythm and blues. It was black. I was captured and so was Paul”), of a demo of their song, Hey Schoolgirl for seven dollars and the actual record (with Paul’s father on bass) going to #40 on the charts. He writes about their becoming Simon & Garfunkel, ruling the pop charts from the age of sixteen, about not being a natural performer but more a thinker, an underground man. He writes of the hit songs; touring; about being an actor working with directors Mike Nichols (“the greatest of them all”), about choosing music over a PhD in mathematics. And he writes about his long-unfolding split with Paul, and how and why it evolved, and after; learning to perform on his own . . . and about being a husband, a father and much more.