An essential work for rock fans and scholars, Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll surveys the origins of rock 'n' roll from the minstrel era to the emergence of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley.
* 2018 12 best books to give this holiday season TODAY (Elizabeth Acevedo)* A Best Book of 2017 Rolling Stone(2018), NPR, Buzzfeed,Paste Magazine,Esquire,Chicago Tribune, Vol.
During the century of British rule of the Indian subcontinent known as the British Raj, the rulers felt the significant influence of their exotic subjects.
Covering works by popular figures like Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst as well as less familiar English composers, Eric Saylor's pioneering book examines pastoral music's critical, theoretical, and stylistic foundations alongside its creative manifestations in the contexts of Arcadia, war, landscape, and the Utopian imagination.
No band has ever been able to demonstrate the enduring power of rock and roll quite like the Rolling Stones, who continue to enthrall, provoke, and invigorate their legions of fans more than fifty years since they began.
In The Contradictions of Jazz, Paul Rinzler takes a new approach to jazz aesthetics and theory by exploring four pairs of opposites present in jazz: individualism and interconnectedness, assertion and openness, freedom and responsibility, and creativity and tradition.
Shakespeare's texts have a long and close relationship with many different types of dance, from dance forms referenced in the plays to adaptations across many genres today.
This guide introduces concertgoers, serious listeners, and music students to Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony, one of the composer's most popular and most powerful works.
In People Get Ready, musicians, scholars, and journalists write about jazz since 1965, the year that Curtis Mayfield composed the famous civil rights anthem that gives this collection its title.
An incisive new look at the pivotal modernist composerAlban Berg and His World is a collection of essays and source material that repositions Berg as the pivotal figure of Viennese musical modernism.
Pro Mundo - Pro Domo: The Writings of Alban Berg contains new English translations of the complete writings of the Viennese composer Alban Berg (1885-1935) and extensive commentaries tracing the history of each essay and its connection to musical culture of the early twentieth century.
American director Robert Altman (1925-2006) first came to national attention with the surprise blockbuster M*A*S*H (1970), and he directed more than thirty feature films in the subsequent decades.
In 1972, a group of creative Brazilian musicians and poets informally led by singer-songwriter Milton Nascimento recorded a landmark double-LP titled Clube da Esquina (Corner Club).
In Shapes of American Ballet: Teachers and Training before Balanchine, Jessica Zeller introduces the first few decades of the twentieth century as an often overlooked, yet critical period for ballet's growth in America.
A swinging cultural history of the instrument that in many ways defined a centuryThe twentieth century was barely under way when the grandson of a slave picked up a trumpet and transformed American culture.
Examining the roots of the classical fugue and the early history of non-canonic fugal writing, Paul Walker's Fugue in the Sixteenth Century explores the three principal fugal genres of the period: motet, ricercar, and canonza.
At the height of Tim Maia's soaring fame, he joined a radical, extraterrestrial-obsessed cult and created two plus albums of some of Brazil's-and the globe's-best funk and soul music.
Funeral Games in Honor of Arthur Vincent Louri explores the varied aesthetic impulses and ever-evolving personal motivations of Russian composer Arthur Louri.
Steel Drums and Steelbands: A History is a vivid account of the events that led to the "e;accidental"e; invention of the steel drum: the only acoustic musical instrument invented in the 20th century.
Sebastien Erard's (1752-1831) inventions have had an enormous impact on instruments and musical life and are still at the foundation of piano building today.
California Gold offers a compelling cultural snapshot of a diverse California during the 1930s at the height of the New Deal, drawing on the career of folk music collector Sidney Robertson and the musical culture of often-unheard voices.
From the very beginning of the nineteenth century, many elements of Spanish culture carried an air of 'exoticism' for the French-and nothing played more important of a role in shaping the French idea of Spain than the country's musical tradition.
Despite the Modernist search for new and innovative aesthetics and rejection of traditional tonality, several twentieth century composers have found their own voice while steadfastly relying on the aesthetics and techniques of Romanticism and 19th century composition principles.
Between the seventh and eleventh centuries, Christian worship on the Iberian Peninsula was structured by rituals of great theological and musical richness, known as the Old Hispanic (or Mozarabic) rite.
