Not at first glance the first book you’d pick up to learn a little more about blues, soul or R&B, but impressions can be deceiving. Emerson’s primary interest is in providing a portrait of a brilliant group of songwriters – all couples, all loosely tied to the famous Brill Building era but (nearly) all impacting significantly on the development of the music of black America.
Subtitled “Fats Domino and The Lost Dawn of Rock ‘n’ Roll” this is decidedly more than a biography of an R&B legend – it also puts Fats at the heart of the birth of rock ‘n’ roll as one of the greats of black American music. The book highlights just how little credit Fats has previously received for his role in the development of R&B and its rock ‘n’ roll sibling.
Another port from the original site and the second offering from Guralnick. But, given it’s length and quite dense prose, is it a stretch too far? Most visitors to Shades of Blue will know that the site is a big fan of Peter Guralnick and his ability to combine a frighteningly detailed knowledge of American popular music with such a lucid and effortless writing style. So it’s a major event when he puts pen to paper again, especially when the subject matter is such an icon of the R&B; and early soul music of the late 1950s and 1960s.
Arthur Alexander is a long time favourite of mine and I believe this is the first attempt to analyse at length the life and work of a complex and incredibly talented individual. Younger illustrates the highs, lows and inconsistencies of the man and his music and, in telling the story of this great performer and writer, he also provides the reader with the wider context.
Nager’s book (subtitled “The Lives and Times of America’s Musical Crossroads”) paints on a broader canvas than many books about southern music and is therefore an excellent introduction to the wider aspects of the Memphis sound. A cultural mixing board, where black and white folk have done musical business for two centuries or more.
Autobiographies can be a hit and miss affair, especially when they’re co-written with a jobbing author, no matter how good that writer is. I’ve never been a particularly big fan of a lot of Ritz’ other work – “Divided Soul” (Marvin Gaye) and, particularly, “Brother Ray” (Ray Charles) were OK, but I was disappointed with the B.B. King bio, preferring the earlier Charles Sawyer effort. This, however, is worth your money, but then you’d have to work hard to screw up a life this interesting!
Or to give it its full title “The Record Men: Chess Records and the Birth of Rock & Roll“, this has been described as a tour-de-force history of Chess Records and the business of Rock & Roll. On the south side of Chicago in the late 1940s two immigrants – one a Jew born in Eastern Europe, the other a black blues singer from Mississippi – met and changed the course of musical history. Interesting as a starter for ten don’t you think.
He was around at the start of one of the great periods in American popular music. He had a direct and leading influence on some of the most exciting music ever recorded. He was a partner in Atlantic Records, which is possibly the greatest example of an independent record company that was run by music enthusiasts but managed to be commercially viable.
Grammy Award-winning historian Rob Bowman discloses the behind-the-scenes deals and business transactions that contributed to the rise and fall of Stax Records. It appears to tell the real inside story of the landmark label. Written with such authority that you feel you’re almost there in the studios which produced all that great music.
If you read one work about Rhythm and Blues (and rock and roll), this probably has to be it. The book has its origins in a Masters thesis as far back as 1966. This background probably accounts for the fact that it is structurally sound and possessed of proper depth which is often lacking in publications of this type – but don’t be put off, the book is immensely readable.
Peter Guralnick is a writer of some of the finest books on popular music – I could just as easily have recommended “Feel Like Going Home” and “Lost Highway”, profiles of some of the most interesting musicians in American popular music. This one is subtitled ‘Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom’, which aptly sums up the book’s heart.