One of the greatest but least researched American record labels, Paramount from Grafton, Wisconsin, is the subject of Scott Blackwood’s title at hand, that introduces itself as a blend of solid historical research, good artist presentation and a bit of fiction. Maybe it has to do with Blackwoods’s first calling as a writer of novels, […]
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Category: B. R. Music
The Jordanaires: The Story of the World’s Greatest Backup Vocal Group by Gordon Stoker … (2022)
The list of famous singers with biographies is huge and gets longer almost every day. Even so, there are just a few books on those voices that built the solid, reliable and harmonic background for countless hits. It is hardly possible to imagine songs such as Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog,” “Don’t be Cruel,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” […]
Paul Weller and Popular Music. Identity, Idiolect and Image by Andrew West (2023)
There is hardly another active English musician who can look back on a catalog of great music and social comment like Paul Weller, former front man of significant bands of the 1970s, 1980s and well-known solo artist of the 2000s, and also as a political voice addressing important issues. On roughly 160 pages author Andrew […]
Hollywood Eden: Electric Guitars, Fast Cars, and the Myth of the California Paradise by Joel Selvin ...
By introducing numerous future songwriters, musicians, and music producers, Joel Selvin presents a very colorful and intense picture of a California long gone. When with what he calls the “University High School class of 1958” the groundwork for the powerful American pop music of the 1960s and 1970s was laid, as some of that group […]
Rock’n’Roll Plays Itself: A Screen History by John Scanlan (2022)
When in the mid-1950s rock’n’roll as both commercial force and incarnation of teenage style invaded the charts and cinema screens, the new category was a bit too much for most common and well-aged (British and American) entertainment shows and representations on screen. In the early days, neither TV nor the film industry would grasp the […]
Rural Rhythm: The Story of Old-Time Country Music in 78 Records by Tony Russell (2021)
The label “Old-Time Music” refers to American-made music, instrumental and with vocals, that was performed nationwide in public and privately from roughly the early 1800s until the early 1940s, although it became mostly a regional style in the early 20th century. Those (basically all white) musical groups usually featured string instruments such as mandolins, banjos, […]
The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold by Billy Boy Arnold and Kim Field (2021)
There are very few masters of the harmonica (or “harp” as the instrument is called colloquially by musicians) that had a lasting impression on rock music, as English and American groups in the 1960s during the Beat era covered many blues originals that featured a harp. Among the most prominent players, we find Little Walter […]
Music in Cinema by Michel Chion (2021)
For those interested not only in the finished product “motion picture,” but to the students and fans who consider movie audio and its use an art form, the name Michel Chion will definitively sound familiar. The French scholar, filmmaker, and composer who has written more than thirty titles on the topics sound, film and music […]
Broadcasting Hollywood: The Struggle Over Feature Films on Early TV by Jennifer Porst (2021)
Even if the topic of Porst’s book, with regard to today’s video watching agenda that includes streaming media, Netflix, or any Internet-based platform consulted to watch movies, documentaries or series, may look a bit outdated at first sight, Broadcasting Hollywood actually is a highly interesting study, as it chronicles how we, as audiences, originally “learned” […]