This book explores the very humblest of beginnings and, at times, heart-rending tale of a poor black boy's struggle to free himself from the shackles of the ghetto and make it to the top. Bo Diddley: Living Legend offers a fascinating insight not only into the life and times of one of rock's first superstars, but also into the soulless and frequently brutal machinations of the popular music industry.
By the time Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, the idea of a black man playing lead guitar in a rock band seemed exotic. Yet a mere ten years earlier, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley had stood among the most influential rock and roll performers. Why did rock and roll become “white”? Just around Midnight reveals the interplay of popular music and racial thought that was responsible for this shift within the music industry and in the minds of fans. Rooted in rhythm-and-blues pioneered by black musicians, 1950s rock and roll was racially inclusive and attracted listeners and performers across the color line. In the 1960s, however, rock and roll gave way to rock: a new musical ideal regarded as more serious, more artistic—and the province of white musicians. Decoding the racial discourses that have distorted standard histories of rock music, Jack Hamilton underscores how ideas of “authenticity” have blinded us to rock’s inextricably interracial artistic enterprise. According to the standard storyline, the authentic white musician was guided by an individual creative vision, whereas black musicians were deemed authentic only when they stayed true to black tradition. Serious rock became white because only white musicians could be original without being accused of betraying their race. Juxtaposing Sam Cooke and Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones, and many others, Hamilton challenges the racial categories that oversimplified the sixties revolution and provides a deeper appreciation of the twists and turns that kept the music alive.
"Billy Boy Arnold, born in 1935, is one of the few native Chicagoans who both cultivated a career in the blues and stayed in Chicago. His perspective on Chicago's music, people, and places is rare and valuable. Arnold has worked with generations of musicians-from Tampa Red and Howlin' Wolf and to Muddy Waters and Paul Butterfield-on countless recordings, witnessing the decline of country blues, the dawn of electric blues, the onset of blues-inspired rock, and more. Here, with writer Kim Field, he gets it all down on paper-including the story of how he named Bo Diddley Bo Diddley"--
Sun Records gave us rock and roll, Motown Records gave us pop soul, and Chess Records gave us the blues. Chess was label for Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry, Etta James, and Bo Diddley--and in this critcially acclaimed history we learn the full story of this legendary label. The greatest artists who sang and played the blues made their mark with Leonard and Phil Chess, whose Chicago-based record company was synonymous with the sound that swept up from the South, embraced the Windy City, and spread out like wildfire into mid-century America. Spinning Blues into Gold is the impeccably researched story of the men behind the music and the remarkable company they created. Chess Records--and later Checkers, Argo, and Cadet Records--was built by Polish immigrant Jews, brothers who saw the blues as a unique business opportunity. From their first ventures, a liquor store and then a nightclub, they promoted live entertainment. And parlayed that into the first pressings sold out of car trunks on long junkets through the midsection of the country, ultimately expanding their empire to include influential radio stations. The story of the Chess brothers is a very American story of commerce in the service of culture. Long on chutzpah, Leonard and Phil Chess went far beyond their childhoods as the sons of a scrap-metal dealer. They changed what America listened to; the artists they promoted planted the seeds of rock 'n' roll--and are still influencing music today. In this book, Cohodas expertly captures the rich and volatile mix of race, money, and recorded music. She also takes us deep into the world of independent record producers, sometimes abrasive and always aggressive men striving to succeed. Leonard and Phil Chess worked hand-in-glove with disenfranchised black artists, the intermittent charges of exploitation balanced by the reality of a common purpose that eventually brought fame to many if not most of the parties concerned. From beginning to end, as we find in these pages, the lives of the Chess brothers were socially, financially, and creatively entwined with those of the artists they believed in.
“Helm lays it all bare in vivid, impassioned prose, adding an earthly, backwoods tone that makes the book read like a Southern novel, like Thomas Wolfe writing about rock ’n’ roll.” —Boston Globe “One of the most insightful and intelligent rock bios in recent memory.” —Entertainment Weekly The Band, who backed Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965 and then turned out a half-dozen albums of beautifully crafted, image-rich songs, is now regarded as one of the most influential rock groups of the '60s. But while their music evoked a Southern mythology, only their Arkansawyer drummer, Levon Helm, was the genuine article. From the cotton fields to Woodstock, from seeing Sonny Boy Williamson and Elvis Presley to playing for President Clinton, This Wheel’s on Fire replays the tumultuous history of our times in Levon’s own unforgettable folksy drawl. This edition is expanded with a new epilogue covering the last dozen years of Levon's life. Levon Helm (1940-2012) met Ronnie Hawkins at the age of 17 and formed what would soon become The Band. He maintained a successful career as a singer and actor until his death. Stephen Davis is the author of Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga; More Room in a Broken Heart: The True Adventures of Carly Simon; Old Gods Almost Dead: The 40-Year Odyssey of the Rolling Stones; Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend; Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith; and others.
New York Times Bestseller • On the 40th anniversary of The Band’s legendary The Last Waltz concert, Robbie Robertson finally tells his own spellbinding story of the band that changed music history, his extraordinary personal journey, and his creative friendships with some of the greatest artists of the last half-century. Robbie Robertson's singular contributions to popular music have made him one of the most beloved songwriters and guitarists of his time. With songs like "The Weight," "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," and "Up on Cripple Creek," he and his partners in The Band fashioned a music that has endured for decades, influencing countless musicians. In this captivating memoir, written over five years of reflection, Robbie Robertson employs his unique storyteller’s voice to weave together the journey that led him to some of the most pivotal events in music history. He recounts the adventures of his half-Jewish, half-Mohawk upbringing on the Six Nations Indian Reserve and on the gritty streets of Toronto; his odyssey at sixteen to the Mississippi Delta, the fountainhead of American music; the wild early years on the road with rockabilly legend Ronnie Hawkins and The Hawks; his unexpected ties to the Cosa Nostra underworld; the gripping trial-by-fire “going electric” with Bob Dylan on his 1966 world tour, and their ensuing celebrated collaborations; the formation of the Band and the forging of their unique sound, culminating with history's most famous farewell concert, brought to life for all time in Martin Scorsese's great movie The Last Waltz. This is the story of a time and place--the moment when rock 'n' roll became life, when legends like Buddy Holly and Bo Diddley criss-crossed the circuit of clubs and roadhouses from Texas to Toronto, when The Beatles, Hendrix, The Stones, and Warhol moved through the same streets and hotel rooms. It's the story of exciting change as the world tumbled through the '60s and early 70’s, and a generation came of age, built on music, love and freedom. Above all, it's the moving story of the profound friendship between five young men who together created a new kind of popular music. Testimony is Robbie Robertson’s story, lyrical and true, as only he could tell it.
Prologue -- La Veinte: a Santa Monica barrio -- Rubén Ladrón de Guevara Sr., 1914-2006 -- 1742 22nd Street, Barrio La Veinte, Santa Monica -- Palm Springs / Cathedral City / Las Vegas -- Binnie -- La Gatita -- Las Vegas : breakup of the family -- Sue Dean -- Beverly -- Shindig! with Tina Turner and Bo Diddley, 1965 -- The Sunset Strip riots -- The southern belle -- LACC / The New Revelations Gospel Choir -- Miss Santa Barbara -- Frank Zappa / Ruben And The Jets / Rock 'n' Roll Angels / 1972-1974 -- Miss Pamela & the G.T.O.'s (Girls Together Outrageously) -- Miss Claremont -- Miss Chino -- The mutiny -- The movie star and Miss Blue Eyes -- We open for Zappa at Winterland, San Francisco, April, 1973 -- Con Safos the album -- Mexico / Hollywood / The Whisky / Eastside Revue / Zyanya Records -- La gypsy -- The Star Spangled Banner / America the Beautiful -- The Whisky / Con Safos the band, 1980 -- Miss Aztlán -- Gotcha -- Zyanya Records -- Cristina / Día de Los Muertos / Chicano Heaven -- Born in East L.A.--the movie -- HBO/Cinemax special -- Performance art : Mexico and France -- La quemada -- La rebel -- Jammin' with Johnny -- Arts 4 City Youth -- UCLA -- Journey to New Aztlán -- Miss San Francisco : the enchantress -- Miss Mongolia -- Metropolitan State Hospital -- Trinity Elementary School -- Teaching at UCLA -- Miss Tokyo -- Mexamérica the CD -- The Eastside Revue : a musical homage to Boyle Heights, 1922-2002 -- Boyle Heights, LA Times -- Collaborations with Josh Kun -- The Iraq war -- Collaborations with Nobuko Miyamoto / Great Leap / NCRR / MPAC -- Manzanar pilgrimage -- Yellow Pearl remix -- Minutemen protest in Baldwin Park -- Rock 'n' rights : rockin' for the mentally disabled -- Resistance & respect : Los Angeles muralism & graff art -- Miss Bogotá -- Word up! a performance and theater summit at the Ford, 2006 -- Meeting my Okanagan brothers from Westbank First Nation, B.C. Canada -- Epiphany at Joshua Tree -- Miss Altar in the sky -- Rubén Guevara & the Eastside Luvers -- The Tao of Funkahuatl -- The Tao of Funkahuatl the CD -- Mex/LA -- Opening for Los Lobos at the House of Dues -- Fifty years in show biz / The Madeleine Brand Show, NPR, 2011 -- Miss Beijing -- Miss Monterey Park -- End of ten year sex drought -- My 70th birthday party -- Platonic homegirls -- Joseph Trotter -- A Boyle Heights cultural treasure -- The new face of Boyle Heights -- ¡Angelin@s presente! -- Sara Guevara -- Confessions of a radical Chicano Doo Wop singer : the solo, multi-media theater piece -- The fall -- Reflections on L.A
The stunning story and exquisite illustrations in this Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Award–winning book can now be savored along with Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews reading the words and playing his trumpet in this readalong that will transport readers to New Orleans and beyond!
