That Old-Time Rock & Roll
About the Book
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.
About the Author
Richard Aquila is a professor of history and American Studies at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. His books include Wanted Dead or Alive: The American West in Popular Culture.Also by this author
Reviews
"A nostalgic, trivia-laden book that looks at the early years of rock 'n' roll and the societal context in which it was formed. . . . A fine compendium on the subject, certain to make misty-eyed all those who came of age in the 1950s."--Booklist"[A] perfect bridge between the puff that often characterizes studies of the period and the scholarly tomes that can bore all but the dedicated student of the era."--Chattanooga Times
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