When the Music Stopped: The Big Band Era Remembered

by Bernie Woods

Book by Woods, Bernie

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Mike Balsom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bernie Woods covered the big bands for Variety back when big bands were all that there was on the music scene in the US. By the time this book was published, in the 1990s, all Bernie Woods wanted was to have things get back to the way they used to be. He holds a special dislike for for rock music, and hated the fact that the song pushers of old were thrown by the wayside in the rock era, when singers and musicians wrote their own music and lyrics. The book amounts to a bit of a gossip column, whereby Bernie reveals which band leaders and music industry players received the most oral sex, and which of their wives were “nymphos” when their husbands were on the road. If you’re looking for a good history of the big bands, this ain’t it.