Rock & Roll: An Unruly History

by Robert Palmer

Rock and roll is a profoundly American art form, the musical expression of revolutionary changes in popular culture and values, a Dionysian eruption that hit the white-bread fifties like a hurricane.  It was a force destined to shake up subsequent decades and transform American culture.  Throughout its nearly four-decade history, rock and roll has continued to reinvent itself, to challenge, to upset as well as delight, to break rules and make new ones.

Rock & An Unruly History is the companion guide to PBS's ten-part series on rock that aired in September.  When PBS first conceived the Rock & Roll series, they sought out Robert Palmer, an acclaimed rock historian, writer, and the New York Times 's first full-time pop music critic, to help assemble the names, events, and landmarks that are the terrain of rock history.  Palmer acted as the chief advisor to the series and it was this association that inspired him to write ROCK &   An Unruly History .

ROCK & ROLL traces the course of rock's rich history through Palmer's own perceptions and experiences. Incorporating countless interviews with rock personalities that he has conducted over the last three decades, ROCK & ROLL follows rock's road of creative flashpoints, but diverges, too, to explore the fundamental traditions that have helped define both the music and its culture.  With a corresponding chapter to each part in the series, ROCK & ROLL shows how people, places, and events from rock "gods" to little known session musicians, from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to the far reaches of West Africa shaped and defined the music's most important epochs.  Yet, to give rock the more in-depth analysis that it deserves, Palmer has written three additional essays "I Put a Spell on You," "Delinquents of Heaven, Hoodlums from Hell," and "The Church of the Sonic Guitar" which  respectively explore the rudiments of rhythm, the ritual of rebellion, and the story of the "six-string" in rock.

In ROCK & ROLL , Robert Palmer traces rock's ongoing evolution, showing how its many styles and early influences from blues and gospel to reggae, punk, and rap overlap and distinguish themselves from one another.  With more than one hundred and fifty illustrations,   ROCK & ROLL is the best of the two primary approaches to rock and roll history the history of innovative flashpoints, and the history of an ongoing tradition.  As told through the senses and lifelong  experiences of one of rock's preeminent critics, ROCK & ROLL is the most insightful and intelligent history of rock ever written.

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction

325 pages, Hardcover

First published September 19, 1995

About the author

Robert Franklin Palmer Jr. was a 20th century American writer, musicologist, clarinetist, saxophonist, and blues producer. Robert Palmer is best known for books he authored such as Deep Blues, his music journalism articles for The New York Times and Rolling Stone magazine, his work producing blues recordings and the soundtrack to the film Deep Blues, and his clarinet work in the 1960s band The Insect Trust.

-Wikipedia

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Clara! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super super in depth. Started it for comp research essay then decided to finish it bc why not. It was really interesting a lot of the time but also very wordy and technical so a lot of stuff went over my head

[Matt Shake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this (or most of it) to accompany my History of Rock and Roll class I took for fun in college. I like that it focused on those artists who were the pioneers of various genres--even if the pioneers may not have "perfected" the genre. I really learned a lot from it. My only criticism is that I do think that the book gives too little credence to the creativity and originality of many artists in the alternative genre that gradually evolved out of the underground punk scene of the late '70's and early '80's. Oh and I also liked that the author consider rap and hip-hop to be another manifestation of the rock and roll lineage.

[Glenn Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basic quick overview of rock n roll history.

[ANIOTUS Marcus Longmuir · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent history of Rock and Roll by the music critic (not the musician). The writing is engaging and focuses on the work more than the extravagance and fame of the people who make this industry so popular.

[James Kilometer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent survey of the history of rock & roll, from earliest beginnings to the mid-eighties, featuring anecdotes and accounts from people who lived it -- not just the icons, but other professionals who were embedded in the scene and industry.

[Mike Furious · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful history of rock and roll. Takes you into the clubs where it all started.