Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll

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Last edited by MARC Bot
September 4, 2024 | History

Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll

  • 2 Want to read

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.

Publish Date
Publisher
Scarecrow Press
Pages
474

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Edition Availability
Cover of: Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll
Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll
Dec 14, 2012, Scarecrow Press

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Book Details


Classifications

Library of Congress
ML3477 .B47 2013, ML3477.B47 2013

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL26823027M
Internet Archive
beforeelvisprehi0000birn
ISBN 10
0810886294
ISBN 13
9780810886292
LCCN
2012032269
OCLC/WorldCat
806456332

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September 4, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
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March 30, 2019 Created by ImportBot Imported from amazon.com record