Rock 'n' Roll 39-59

by Charlie Gillett, Peter Guralnick, David Halberstam

Snare drum backbeat plus electric guitar: the simple formula that launched the rock star, and contemporary teen culture along with it. Today, rock 'n' roll seems to define postwar American culture, especially in its impact abroad. Though its inception is often imagined as sudden and seismic, it was, of course, a gradual and complex transition from boogie-woogie to the stardom of Elvis Presley and Bill Haley. A thorough survey of rock 'n' roll's bloodline would even reach back as far as 1939, a time when the electric guitar's role was mostly played by piano or saxophone. "Rock 'n' Roll 39-59" does this, with the assistance of some of the genre's finest photographers. Bruce Davidson, Wayne Miller, Robert W. Kelley, Esther Bubley, Eve Arnold and Ernest C. Withers are all here, amid a wealth of visual props, including priceless period posters, records, rare souvenirs, photographs and film stills, and indices of the movement's key venues, events, artists, producers and people. This book describes a lively mess of genres, from boogie-woogie to blues, gospel, big band jazz, country and, most of all, rhythm and blues--interbreeding against a backdrop of colossal social change, and culminating in the rock 'n' roll explosion of the mid-1950s.

Genres: Music

432 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2008

About the author

Charles Thomas Gillett was a British author and radio presenter. He wrote the first scholarly history of rock'n'roll, and later was one of the group who coined and popularised the term "world music". He hosted 'Charlie Gillett's World of Music' on the BBC World Service from 1999 until his death in 2010.

Reviews

[Erdem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice photos, interesting explanations and exciting topics about rock'n roll culture. I learned more about Tampa Red the legend.