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4 books match the query 'Roll'

cover of From Presley to Springsteen: Ten Songs That Defined Rock and Roll

From Presley to Springsteen

Ten Songs That Defined Rock and Roll

Louis P. Masur

Rutgers University Press, 2027

The first decades of the rock and roll era changed popular music forever and introduced songs that remain beloved standards over a half-century later. But what did it feel like in the rooms where those songs were being written, recorded, and mixed? What creative alchemy and happy accidents transpired to turn these records into classics?

This book examines ten of the rock era’s most iconic songs, including Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” Along the way, it reveals how singers like Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin reimagined “Hound Dog” and “Respect” through their sheer force of personality. It also takes you inside the studio to see how producers George Martin, Phil Spector, and Brian Wilson created a symphony of sounds. Other chapters explore how the lyrics of “Satisfaction,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” and “What’s Going On” gave voice to the feelings of a new generation. Writing with a historian’s careful attention to detail and a fan’s love for music, Louis Masur invites us to hear these enduring songs anew.  

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cover of Present Tense: Rock & Roll and Culture

Present Tense

Rock & Roll and Culture

Anthony DeCurtis, ed.

Duke University Press, 1992

The most compelling art form to emerge from the United States in the second half of the twentieth century, rock & roll stands in an edgy relationship with its own mythology, its own musicological history and the broader culture in which it plays a part. In Present Tense, Anthony DeCurtis brings together writers from a wide variety of fields to explore how rock & roll is made, consumed, and experienced in our time.
In this collection, Greil Marcus creates a collage of words and pictures that evokes and explores Elvis Presley's grisly fate as an American cultural image, while Robert Palmer tells the gripping tale of the origins and meanings of the electric guitar. Rap music, MTV, and the issue of gender identity in the work of Bruce Springsteen all undergo thorough examination; rock & roll's complex relationship with the forces of censorship gets a remarkably fresh reading; and the mainstreaming of rock & roll in the 1980s is detailed and analyzed. And, in an interview with Laurie Anderson and an essay by Atlanta musician Jeff Calder, the artists speak for themselves.

Contributors. Jeff Calder, Anthony DeCurtis, Mark Dery, Paul Evans, Glenn Gass, Trent Hill, Michael Jarrett, Alan Light, Greil Marcus, Robert Palmer, Robert B. Ray, Dan Rubey, David R. Shumway, Martha Nell Smith, Paul Smith
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cover of Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans

Roll With It

Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans

Matt Sakakeeny

Duke University Press, 2013

Roll With It is a firsthand account of the precarious lives of musicians in the Rebirth, Soul Rebels, and Hot 8 brass bands of New Orleans. These young men are celebrated as cultural icons for upholding the proud traditions of the jazz funeral and the second line parade, yet they remain subject to the perils of poverty, racial marginalization, and urban violence that characterize life for many black Americans. Some achieve a degree of social mobility while many more encounter aggressive policing, exploitative economies, and a political infrastructure that creates insecurities in healthcare, housing, education, and criminal justice. The gripping narrative moves with the band members from back street to backstage, before and after Hurricane Katrina, always in step with the tap of the snare drum, the thud of the bass drum, and the boom of the tuba.
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cover of That Old-Time Rock & Roll: A Chronicle of an Era, 1954-63

That Old-Time Rock & Roll

A Chronicle of an Era, 1954-63

Richard Aquila

University of Illinois Press, 1989

Elvis Presley and Bill Haley. Sam Cooke and the Shirelles. The Crows and the Chords. American Bandstand and Motown. From its first rumblings in the outland alphabet soup of R&B and C&W, rock & roll music promised to change the world--and did it. 

Combining social history with a treasure trove of trivia, Richard Aquila unleashes the excitement of rock's first decade and shows how the music reflected American life from the mid-1950s through the dawn of Beatlemania. His year-by-year timelines and a photo essay place the music in historical perspective by linking artists and their hits to the news stories, movies, TV shows, fads, and lifestyles. In addition, he provides a concise biographical dictionary of the performers who made the charts between 1954 and 1963, along with the label and chart position of each of their hit songs.

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