Birnbaum, Larry.
Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, 2013.
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Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references and index.
• That’s All Right. A white man sounds black Rock ‘n’ roll arrives The meaning of rock The revolution that wasn’t. — The Train Kept A-Rollin’. Stroll on Cow-cow boogie Johnny B. Goode Rolling on. — One O’ Them Things! Big Bill Handy vs. Morton Birth of the blues Recording the blues Roots of the blues Africa, Britain, and vaudeville. — The Rocks. The walking bass A dash of hokum Big band boogie Boogie-woogie fever Coda. — The Jumpin’ Jive. Jump jazz The backbeat and the Jitterbug Jug bands and hokum Scat, jive, and harmony signing Big bands and shuffle rhythms The blues-jazz nexus From hokum to rhythm-and-blues Jive Big band jump Jum, jive, an’ wail. — Get With It. Country origins Early country recordings Blues and hokum Western swing Hillbilly boogie Country and R&B. — Good Rockin’ Tonight. R&B is born The door opens Horn honkers String slingers Shouters Rhythm-and-blues women Doo- wop The crescent city. — Rock Love. Blue-eyed R&B Rock stars Mystery women Vocal groups Caribbean rhythms.
• This work surveys the origins of rock ‘n’ roll from the minstrel era to the emergence of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley. Unlike other histories of rock, it offers a far broader and deeper analysis of the influences on rock music. Dispelling common misconceptions, it examines rock’s origins in hokum songs and big-band boogies as well as Delta blues, detailing the embrace by white artists of African-American styles long before rock ‘n’ roll appeared. This study ranges far and wide, highlighting not only the contributions of obscure but key precursors like Hardrock Gunter and Sam Theard but also the influence of celebrity performers like Gene Autry and Ella Fitzgerald. Too often, rock historians treat the genesis of rock ‘n’ roll as a bolt from the blue, an overnight revolution provoked by the bland pop music that immediately preceded it and created through the white appropriation of music till then played only by and for black audiences. Here the author argues a more complicated history and rock’s evolution from a heady mix of ragtime, boogie-woogie, swing, country music, mainstream pop, and rhythm-and-blues, a melange that influenced one another along the way, from the absorption of blues and boogies into jazz and pop to the integration of country and Caribbean music into rhythm-and-blues. This work presents a bold argument about rock’s origins.

Subjects:

• Popular music — United States — 1931-1940 — History and criticism.
• Popular music — United States — 1941-1950 — History and criticism.
• Popular music — United States — 1951-1960 — History and criticism.
• Rhythm and blues music — History and criticism.
• Rock music — United States — To 1961 — History and criticism.

Requested by Kagin, R. & Heiderschiet, A.