The B Side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and the Rebirth of the Great American Song
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.56 (641 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1594488495 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 320 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-06-10 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Excellent history of American popular music in the 20th Century Ted Lehmann Ben Yagoda's The B Side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and the Rebirth of the Great American Song (Riverhead/Penguin, 2015, 304 pages, $27.95/11.99) provides an invaluable overview, crammed with names and details, describing the the development, degeneration, and rebirth of the song in American popular music. Written by a scholar who is also an avid fan, the book explores the ups and downs of the popular song in American music reflecting changes in taste, copyrig. I enjoyed the book but there were some disappointments I enjoyed the book but there were some disappointments. The book seemed to lose focus in the last half, almost as the writer was rushing to meet a publication deadline and started throwing in his unstructured notes, ending inexplicably on the Beatles (who have nothing to do with the subject). I did however greatly enjoy learning about the sweet versus the hard jazz bands, and the inadvertent negative side to the integration of song lyrics deeply into the story. "Mostly history, not much analysis" according to The Cat Family. In mid 2015 had a conversation with a friend who is into music and got to thinking it would be interesting to talk to a musical historian about how music has changed so much, particularly since the end of ww2 and during the 50's. Shortly after that I read a pre-review about this upcoming book and based on that placed an order. Got the book about a month ago. It's interesting and full of a bunch of history but ultimately it never fully, or even halfway,answers
It is anecdotal, illuminating, and persuasive." — Gary Giddins, author of Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams and Visions of Jazz"The B Sideis an entertaining and thoroughly researched exploration of America’s songwriting history. With deftness of pen and skill, Yagoda has produced a work that will appeal to both musicologists and fans." — Library Journal"Essayist Yagoda energetically conducts a journey through the development of popular music in this vibrant piece of cultural history” — Publishers Weekly“Actually, this wonderful chronicle is a B-side .This will be one big revelation for anyone steeped in a rock-centric understanding of pop history, and validation for those who treasure the Songbook in all
But it’s a bit less widely understood that in about 1950, this stream of great songs more or less dried up. All of a sudden, what came over the radio wasn’t Gershwin, Porter, and Berlin, but “Come on-a My House” and “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” Elvis and rock and roll arrived a few years later, and at that point the game was truly up. It’s destined to become a classic of American musical history.. What happened, and why? In The B Side, acclaimed cultural historian Ben Yagoda answers those questions in a fascinating piece of detective work. Drawing on previously untapped archival sources and on scores of interviews—the voices include Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb, Linda Ronstadt, and Herb Alpert—the book illuminates broad musical trends through a series of intertwined stories. Among them are the battle between ASCAP and Broadcast Music, Inc.; the revolution in jazz after World War II; the impact of radio and then television; and the bitter, decades-long feud between Mitch Miller and Frank Sinatra. The B Side is about taste, and the particular economics and culture of songwriting, and the potential of popular art for greatness and beauty. From an acclaimed cultural critic, a narrative and social
Yagoda lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, with his wife. Ben Yagoda is a journalism professor at the University of Delaware. He contributes to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Lingua Franca” blog and has written for Slate, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and The American S