Interviews with Scholars of Music about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music
https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/arts-letters/music/
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 26 days 10 hours 56 minutes
Will Hermes, “Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York that Changed Music Forever” (Faber and Faber, 2011)
“New York City tends to erase its history, endlessly reinventing itself: that is its way, ” writes Will Hermes on the final page of his book Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York that Changed Music Forever (Faber and Faber, 2011).
Robert Pielke, “Rock Music in American Culture: The Sounds of Revolution” (2nd Edition; McFarland, 2012)
If, as John Lennon reportedly stated, “Before Elvis there was nothing,” then after Elvis there had to be something, right? That something, argues Robert Pielke in Rock Music in American Culture: The Sounds of Revolution, 2nd Edition (McFarland, 2012),
Carolyn Burke, “No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf” (Knopf, 2011)
Edith Piaf’s story is rife with drama. The daughter of an acrobat and a singer, she was the first French superstar and sang with wild abandon in a voice that rivaled Judy Garland’s. And yet, so often Piaf’s high-spirits are used against her and her lif...
Andy Neill, “Had Me a Real Good Time: Faces Before, During, and After” (Omnibus, 2011)
In Had Me a Real Good Time: Faces Before, During, and After (Omnibus 2011) Andy Neill provides a detailed account of Faces, one of the most popular and critically acclaimed groups of the early seventies. Neill begins his story with biographies of those...
Kevin Avery, “Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson” (Fantagraphics, 2011)
Paul Nelson, the Rolling Stone writer and Mercury Records A & R guy who signed the New York Dolls, is quoted in Kevin Avery‘s Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson (Fantagraphics, 2011) as saying,
Alice Bag, “Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage, a Chicana Punk Story” (Feral House, 2011)
I saw “The Decline of Western Civilization,” Penelope Spheeris’s film documenting the late seventies punk scene in Los Angeles, when it was first released in 1981/82. Performances by the “popular” bands like Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, X,
Roberto Avant-Mier, “Rock the Nation: Latin/o Identites and the Latin Rock Diaspora” (Continuum, 2010)
In Rock the Nation: Latin/o Identites and the Latin Rock Diaspora (Continuum, 2010), Roberto Avant-Mier challenges the traditional historical notion of rock and roll and rock being the result of the converging of white and African-American musics only....
Sean Wilentz, “Bob Dylan in America” (Doubleday, 2010)
From carrier of the folk torch to electric rebel, lyrical genius to literary thief, white-faced minstrel to born-again Christian-Jewish singer of Christmas carols, Bob Dylan is an enigmatic giant of American popular music.
Lester K. Spence, “Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics” (University of Minnesota Press, 2011)
Hip-hop has, within a short time span, moved from a free-flowing expression of urban youth to a global–and highly marketable–musical genre. Its influence in culture, fashion, film, and music is ubiquitous, and theories about hip-hop’s importance in the...
Kevin Fellezs, “Birds of a Fire: Jazz, Rock, Funk, and the Creation of Fusion” (Duke UP, 2011)
To introduce his book Birds of Fire: Jazz, Rock, Funk, and the Creation of Fusion (Duke, 2011),Kevin Fellezs quotes Jeff Beck: “For Christ’s sake, I wish somebody would make up a name for this kind of music, ’cause it ain’t jazz and it ain’t rock.