Pop music gave birth to countless numbers of singers, bands, one-hit-wonders and music producers. Until the early 1960s, however, there were very few important producers the size of Phil Spector; who, to use author Tom Woolfe’s phrase, was the “fist tycoon of teen.” His many pop “projects” that often left a lasting impression in the […]
You are browsing archives for
Category: B. R. Music
Yodeling and Meaning in American Music by Timothy E. Wise (2016)
Only for very short periods of time have yodeling and yodeling artists received critical attention and commercial success in the US. For most people, yodeling is not even close to singing; although the two forms of musical expression are very similar in a number of ways. And there are accounts of yodeling in (European) literature […]
Quadrophenia and Mod(ern) Culture by Pamela Thurschwell (ed.) (2018)
Now, this is probably the best book on Mod culture so far. If not, it is the one with the best academic approach to it and a real understanding of the subculture that goes beyond pure distanced sociological writing and simplifying banalities (that are used too often in other publications on the topic). The British […]
Don’t Give Your Heart to a Rambler: My Life with Jimmy Martin… by Barbara Martin Stephens (2017)
There are several unusual aspects of this very honest and at times hard to read biography nut not because the author Barbara Martin Stephens, once the wife of famous bluegrass musician Jimmy Martin (1927-2005), chose to write in incomprehensible sentences or wrote her story very badly. The reason this title has some very difficult parts […]
Music in the Age of Anxiety: American Music in the Fifties by James Wierzbicki (2016)
What may come to mind first when we think about the music of the 1950s in the US are probably the styles of Rock’n’Roll, Doo Wop and Rhythm and Blues. Wierzbicki however, in his study points to the many other musical forms that evolved in that decade, since changes and developments in American politics, society, […]
The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon by Cary Fleiner (2017)
Apart from a few stylistic irritations (like some explorations in country rock in the early 1970s), the musical output of the Kinks always was famous for particularly one thing: it was English, very much so. And it enlarged on aspects of everyday life in Britain “…such as work play, buying a house, driving a car, […]
Vaudeville Melodies: Popular Musicians and Mass Entertainment in American Culture… by Nicholas Gebha
While in the last part of the 19th century so-called “high art,” opera, theater, classical music and the like were deemed “too good” for the average working audience, these forms of entertainment ended up being controlled by the elite in the US. Controlled namely by those who wanted to solidify their own standing by attending […]
The Jan & Dean Record by Mark A. Moore (2016)
Jan Berry, one half of the mid-sixties pop duo “Jan and Dean” (Torrence) possessed a very precious and rich talent for arranging pop tunes and producing records, a fact that too often has been overlooked, as the band was known for its surf sound and maybe songs about teenage activities firstly. Their competitors in this […]
Bill Clifton: America’s Bluegrass Ambassador to the World by Bill C. Malone (2016)
The careers of most classical bluegrass musicians in the US more or less resemble each other, except for a few details. The typical biography finds them raised essentially in poverty, born into a family of four or five children, equipped only with the most basic schooling and after some amateur nights in between shifts in […]