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Just around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination
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 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.
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 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.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published September 26, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
December 26, 2016
Given the potent thesis Jack Hamilton gives himself in “Just Around Midnight,” one wonders why he artificially limits his study of the racial imagination via popular music to the 1960s. There is far too much that Hamilton leaves out in his 10 year study, but if he is limited to a decade, I wonder why 1965 to 1975 wasn’t more appealing to him, given the extreme whiteness of prog rock, the extreme racism of southern rock, and the extreme innovations of funk, hip hop and R&B. To strictly cut himself off at 1970 denies the reader much of the fluidity of race and music that Hamilton spends his whole book trying to get us to see.
Hamilton’s background is as a pop culture writer for Slate, so I was ready for the very redundant double-standard arguments that make most of the book, arguments that anyone smart enough to choose this book already knows plenty about. The book’s structure is composed of juxtapositions between popular black and white artists and their songs. This model feels rather prescriptive and works against the complex point he’s trying to make about these artists’ interracial and mutually inspiring backstories. For example, Hamilton justifies a chapter comparing Bob Dylan with Sam Cooke because of their “assaults on form and genre,” “defections from the musical communities they came from,” and their “artistic autonomy.” These seem to be hallmarks of any great musician of the 60s. One wonders if Hamilton could’ve just as easily compared Ray Charles with Frank Zappa, or Aretha Franklin with David Bowie.
Third, and most important, is the last thing any progressive academic wants to hear: Hamilton is employing the same myopia and narrow-mindedness his work is seeking to address. Why does he isolate the genius of Dylan in a racial context, yet cherrypick the violence of Hendrix and race-centric Stones as more of an embodiment of race? I’d argue that Hendrix is far more the more exceptional and groundbreaking genius than Dylan was. Or why does Hamilton have a whole chapter on ‘rock criticism’ and not devote a chapter to the African American intellectual culture at the time? Also, Hamilton is indeed cautious enough to not limit his book to the accusations of racial binary (i.e., only mentioning black and white contributions to rock music), so he tokenistically mentions Carlos Santana, but it’s more to cover his bases than to paint the rainbow of rock. Speaking of rainbows, if you’re looking for the deeper layers of white dominant culture pillaging other social groups, and the intersectional nature of such interactions, like with LGBT culture (Little Richard, Billy Preston, Bowie) and rural white culture (i.e. The Stones’ interest in country, The Allman Brothers band) look elsewhere. This book plays the same binary tune for 270 pages. While confined white/black study might be Hamilton’s interest, it unfortunately loses ours.
In terms of the writing itself, it’s dressed in the stuffy thinkpiece jargon that you’ve come to dread when reading Slate (e.g. “differentness”, “indices,” “hegemonic white masculinism”). Some sentences are so overwritten, you lose track of whether he’s really proving what he’s trying to say. Also, Jack Hamilton-the-Musician shines through in dozens of pages throughout the book in which he discusses the chords and keys of songs, thus making large swaths of the book mean absolutely nothing to the non-musician.
Nevertheless, there are some interesting gems for those looking for obscure facts for the next dinner party. You’ll surely impress with your new knowledge of Motown’s influential bassist, James Jamerson. Or the well-researched British subcultures leading up to the British Invasion in the book will fascinate. But if you’re looking for a book that really offers diamond after diamond in rock’s rough, you’ll have to look elsewhere. For such a powerful topic, this is a rather pretentious and milquetoast book conjuring up the same tired devices, and leaving the reader with “it was a lot more complex” without showing us how.
July 16, 2017
Long Lindsay review ahead:
At first, I wondered if reading this wouldn't just be one prolonged "DUH" moment, but I was still curious. What I found was a profoundly more academic work than the mere pop culture assessment I was expecting...though not entirely surprising when I later noted its publisher, Harvard University Press. And it does read like a dissertation (Hamilton received his PhD in American Studies at Harvard), which I suspect will be off-putting for some readers. I, however, quickly became addicted to the book's analyses of sociology, sociolinguistics, and music theory and technique surrounding rock and soul music of the 1960s (primarily, though it does lead in with the '50s and meld a little bit with the '70s). I even went back and re-listened to parts, which is a behavior I don't usually do with audio books.
Being a kid who grew up obsessed with '60s music despite being a generation removed, I found the book rather poignant. Some of the discussions I particularly enjoyed were those on the four British subcultures--teddy boys, skiffle, trad jazz, and blues--that heralded the eventual "British Invasion" (itself, a loaded term, as Hamilton expertly pulls apart); the indelible connection between Motown and the Beatles (a relationship historians and critics only give cursory credit to); the dismissal of Motown as not being "black enough" compared to Stax or Muscle Shoals (despite Motown being black-owned as opposed to its Southern, "authentic," and white-owned counterparts) (it is also perception that I have fallen for...not to mention most white people I know); the ongoing thread that white artists covering songs by black artists and marketing to black audiences is permissible and lends an air of credibility (re: soul music: "Instead of music being something people did, music became something people were") whereas the opposite is seen as an Uncle Tom maneuver; the violence in the rock'n'roll lyrics of Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones and the subsequent exclusionary machismo that basically solidified the mythos of rock'n'roll; the whollllllle mess of The Rolling Stones; and...well, basically, white people are just awful. With a line from "Brown Sugar" informing the book's title, that Hamilton saved the discussion of that particular song for the final discussion is a brilliant culmination of the book.
This is not to say the book is totally flawless. The topic of race and popular music can go even deeper, of course, though that could be--and no doubt is in many cases--covered in more focused histories. There were a few things I had qualms with, the most striking to me being the chapter on women. I did appreciate that he devoted a chapter to Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, and Dusty Springfield, though this largely confined the discussion of women in pop music to just that chapter. I also think Hamilton didn't go far enough in the implications of "Son of a Preacher Man" being written for Franklin. The fact that two white men wrote the song explicitly for Franklin to sing--a song that hinges upon the stereotypical objectification and fetishization of black women's sexuality and religion, and that these men blatantly disregarded what implications the song might have in relation to Franklin's own personal life--is problematic in itself. Also, that this book is written by a white male is not lost upon me.
I'm giving this 5 stars because it has given me a lot of food for thought. I would dearly love to see my former record store cohorts and my more socially conscious-minded friends read this...Just Around Midnight lays a terrific foundation for discussion. While I may have lost a little idealism for some of the music I love (read: checked my privilege), I am glad this book will get me to consider music more critically, and I look forward to seeking out more discussions similar to the ones presented here.
At first, I wondered if reading this wouldn't just be one prolonged "DUH" moment, but I was still curious. What I found was a profoundly more academic work than the mere pop culture assessment I was expecting...though not entirely surprising when I later noted its publisher, Harvard University Press. And it does read like a dissertation (Hamilton received his PhD in American Studies at Harvard), which I suspect will be off-putting for some readers. I, however, quickly became addicted to the book's analyses of sociology, sociolinguistics, and music theory and technique surrounding rock and soul music of the 1960s (primarily, though it does lead in with the '50s and meld a little bit with the '70s). I even went back and re-listened to parts, which is a behavior I don't usually do with audio books.
Being a kid who grew up obsessed with '60s music despite being a generation removed, I found the book rather poignant. Some of the discussions I particularly enjoyed were those on the four British subcultures--teddy boys, skiffle, trad jazz, and blues--that heralded the eventual "British Invasion" (itself, a loaded term, as Hamilton expertly pulls apart); the indelible connection between Motown and the Beatles (a relationship historians and critics only give cursory credit to); the dismissal of Motown as not being "black enough" compared to Stax or Muscle Shoals (despite Motown being black-owned as opposed to its Southern, "authentic," and white-owned counterparts) (it is also perception that I have fallen for...not to mention most white people I know); the ongoing thread that white artists covering songs by black artists and marketing to black audiences is permissible and lends an air of credibility (re: soul music: "Instead of music being something people did, music became something people were") whereas the opposite is seen as an Uncle Tom maneuver; the violence in the rock'n'roll lyrics of Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones and the subsequent exclusionary machismo that basically solidified the mythos of rock'n'roll; the whollllllle mess of The Rolling Stones; and...well, basically, white people are just awful. With a line from "Brown Sugar" informing the book's title, that Hamilton saved the discussion of that particular song for the final discussion is a brilliant culmination of the book.
This is not to say the book is totally flawless. The topic of race and popular music can go even deeper, of course, though that could be--and no doubt is in many cases--covered in more focused histories. There were a few things I had qualms with, the most striking to me being the chapter on women. I did appreciate that he devoted a chapter to Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, and Dusty Springfield, though this largely confined the discussion of women in pop music to just that chapter. I also think Hamilton didn't go far enough in the implications of "Son of a Preacher Man" being written for Franklin. The fact that two white men wrote the song explicitly for Franklin to sing--a song that hinges upon the stereotypical objectification and fetishization of black women's sexuality and religion, and that these men blatantly disregarded what implications the song might have in relation to Franklin's own personal life--is problematic in itself. Also, that this book is written by a white male is not lost upon me.
I'm giving this 5 stars because it has given me a lot of food for thought. I would dearly love to see my former record store cohorts and my more socially conscious-minded friends read this...Just Around Midnight lays a terrific foundation for discussion. While I may have lost a little idealism for some of the music I love (read: checked my privilege), I am glad this book will get me to consider music more critically, and I look forward to seeking out more discussions similar to the ones presented here.
July 14, 2021
A superb analysis of the complex interweaving of racial histories and identities in the emergence of rock music, carefully balancing excellent descriptions of cultural and historical contexts with detailed analyses of specific individual musicians, albums, and tracks. An absolute delight to read!
March 26, 2019
When I was in high school, I recall a conversation I had with a childhood friend in which we were talking about music. I was into the Blues at the time while my friend was into hiphop. Neither of us liked the other’s musical tastes and eventually the conversation turned to race. Being white, I couldn’t understand why my friend (who was black) wouldn’t embrace Blues. It is part of your heritage, I’d argue. It’ “real” black music before it was corrupted by rap and hiphop I continued, while my friend argued Blues had zero connection to his life and so he preferred hiphop.
Leaving aside the fact that looking back on this interaction I was insufferable and probably more than a little sanctimonious, it is illustrative of a lot of what Jack Hamilton writes about in “Just Around Midnight”
Hamilton uses the examples of Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones in particular to make the case that rock music, with its origins steeped in the music of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and others, somehow morphed into he exclusive arena of white artists. These artists, rather than being criticized for being derivative, were lauded for their innovation while black artists such as the wildly successful Motown artists of the 1960’s with their pop influences were criticized for not being “authentic”. Authenticity in this case meaning traditional Blues. In this sense, black music in the eyes of white critics became something fossilized and unable to innovate without losing its “soul”. That white artists could do this was no doubt doubly frustrating for musicians such as Jimi Hendrix who refused the labels placed on him.
The greatest irony of all of course is that Hendrix was considered “a black musician in a white man’s field”. He was someone seen as an oddity and even to this day he remains so. As Hamilton writes, he has become a way for white rick musicians to assuage their guilt about appropriation. “Jimi was black and he played rock and roll so of course rock music is inclusive”. The historical truth is otherwise, through not fault of Hendrix’s of course.
Hamilton makes many interesting arguments, not all of which I agree with. The book is written in the style of a dissertation (it might have been one) so it is not always easy to read and frequently goes into detailed musical jargon that for non musicians is confusing and probably not particularly interesting. Still this is an interesting analysis of how race and identity meet at the crossroads of popular music.
Leaving aside the fact that looking back on this interaction I was insufferable and probably more than a little sanctimonious, it is illustrative of a lot of what Jack Hamilton writes about in “Just Around Midnight”
Hamilton uses the examples of Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones in particular to make the case that rock music, with its origins steeped in the music of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and others, somehow morphed into he exclusive arena of white artists. These artists, rather than being criticized for being derivative, were lauded for their innovation while black artists such as the wildly successful Motown artists of the 1960’s with their pop influences were criticized for not being “authentic”. Authenticity in this case meaning traditional Blues. In this sense, black music in the eyes of white critics became something fossilized and unable to innovate without losing its “soul”. That white artists could do this was no doubt doubly frustrating for musicians such as Jimi Hendrix who refused the labels placed on him.
The greatest irony of all of course is that Hendrix was considered “a black musician in a white man’s field”. He was someone seen as an oddity and even to this day he remains so. As Hamilton writes, he has become a way for white rick musicians to assuage their guilt about appropriation. “Jimi was black and he played rock and roll so of course rock music is inclusive”. The historical truth is otherwise, through not fault of Hendrix’s of course.
Hamilton makes many interesting arguments, not all of which I agree with. The book is written in the style of a dissertation (it might have been one) so it is not always easy to read and frequently goes into detailed musical jargon that for non musicians is confusing and probably not particularly interesting. Still this is an interesting analysis of how race and identity meet at the crossroads of popular music.
October 25, 2016
Why do people always pit The Beatles against the Stones when it was Motown that the Fab Four were in conversation with? How did rock n roll kick off with Chuck Berry yet by the time Hendrix took rock n roll to the next level he was seen as an outsider in a predominantly white field? How did the (predominantly white) 60s folk revival navigate using racially dangerous old tunes to push for civil rights?
Hamilton doesn't necessarily provide an answer to these questions, but poses them (and many more) as a way less driven by simple white hand wringing, but as a new way to listen to "classic rock" in a context better informed than the time of their arrival. Giving just enough biographical context for his subject to get anyone up to speed and laying out succinct arguments in nearly self-contained essay-chapters, Hamilton's book is as breezily readable as it is essential to understanding such titans as Dylan, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, the Stones and more.
Hamilton doesn't necessarily provide an answer to these questions, but poses them (and many more) as a way less driven by simple white hand wringing, but as a new way to listen to "classic rock" in a context better informed than the time of their arrival. Giving just enough biographical context for his subject to get anyone up to speed and laying out succinct arguments in nearly self-contained essay-chapters, Hamilton's book is as breezily readable as it is essential to understanding such titans as Dylan, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, the Stones and more.
October 10, 2016
An utterly fantastic look at the sociopolitics of race and music in the '50s and '60s, this book is powered by 5 sets of complementary artists, followed by an analysis of The Rolling Stones. It's impeccably researched, yet reads like a memoir. Highly recommended for music critics AND fans, this is the type of book I want to write someday.
October 26, 2016
Reminds me of a Neil Young album, something from after the Ditch Trilogy and before "This Notes for You": messy, comprising good ideas and bad, the language oblique, the development unpredictable, characters simultaneously solid and abstract, and, despite all the caveats, brilliant, in its way.
Hamilton starts out with a striking observation: in the late 1950s, rock 'n' roll music was made by blacks and whites--by Bill Haley and Little Richard, Elvis Presley and the Four Tops. Barely more than a decade later, rock music was almost entirely white, Jimi Hendrix the exception that proved the rule. There are many things that could be said about this change. One could show how the change occurred, the social dynamics that controlled who was making music, and under what label; one could look into how rock music was classified and thought about--what counted as rock and what didn't. It's possible to imagine a counter-story, one that shows there continued to be interactions between white and black music. One could write about the circulation of session musicians and the places where music was made. Or one could look at the historical models of rock 'n' roll music, and chart their trajectory from the 1950s on.
The trouble--if one wants to call it that--is that Hamilton tries to say all of them, without any real organization. It's Stephen Leacock's Lord Ronald: "he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions." The book is a mess, but a productive one, with insights studded here and there. Making the whole thing even more confounding is the language, which veers from rock criticism to musical theory to stilted academicese: he is especially enraptured with the words enfold and gesture--which I thought had been parodied to death by Clive James's poem "A Gesture towards James Joyce," but I guess not. Rarefied concepts--especially something he calls "the racial imagination"--are reified; one comes out of the book bruised from running into the idea repeatedly, him treating it as remarkably solid.
Hamilton does try to impose some order on the proceedings. He tells the stories in roughly chronological order through chapters that (mostly) link together different artists. So the first chapter is on the connections between Dylan and Sam Cooke; the second chapter then looks at the so-called British Invasion; chapter three considers Motown and the Beatles; chapter four, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin (with a dash of Dusty Springfield); and chapters five and six act as an extended pairing, one on Hendrix, the other on the Stones. This switching necessitates a great deal of repetition, and sows some confusion: Hamilton changes Dylan's age a couple of times in a few pages; basic concepts are explained, while abstruse ones are not. We meet to Stones and the Beatles again and again. At times, he drops in long biographical bits of pretty well-known people, even though these are not necessary to the story he is telling at the time.
As it starts out, the book looks to investigate the origins of rock's whitewashing in the language that attended the music. He argues that white rock music became associated with authenticity when Dylan (and others, but, really, Dylan) folk musicians moved into rock and the critical lexicon followed them. Black music, meanwhile, was caught in a double-bind: it was seen as authentic, but only in the past, while any attempt to innovate or reach a broader audience was seen as selling out.
And certainly this language of authenticity was one part of the transformation! If the book was going to be a history of the changes that caused a split between black and white music, I would have liked to have seen a deeper look into this language. But soon enough, Hamilton was on to other matters; after the first chapter or so, he wasn't so interested in telling the story of how rock music became white, but was on to other things.
He wants to break down the myth of the "British Invasion," and, indeed, dissolve the very notion of "British": the Stones and Beatles, he insists, came out of very different traditions, and very different parts of England, and so are, in many ways, incommensurable. But both were influenced by black American music, and willing to admit to being so, even if they built on this tradition differently. Here he is also concerned to show that popular music circulated, in small circuits and wide ones, and so any attempt to classify is going to limited--pinning Jello to the wall. He is also insistent that the influences ran in all directions, from black groups to white, and white groups to black.
At this point, it is impossible not to be thinking in terms of minstrelsy, the language of which has been so important to understanding the relationship between white and black performers. Was this cultural borrowing or thievery? Eric Lott wrote about this way back in 1993, his book title capturing the ambiguity: Love and Theft. One would think Hamilton would be intrigued by this coupling, given that Dylan later used the title for one of his albums. But for all that he is constantly referring to minstrelsy--almost to the last pages--he early on makes it known that he is completely uncomfortable with seeing any connections. I noted no reference to Lott, nor to John Leland's Hip: The History. W. T. Lhamon, who has written about the complicated influence of minstrelsy on rock music at this exact moment, is dismissed in one defensive endnote.
Chapter three switches up the narrative focus once again. It starts to look like what Hamilton really wants to do is not tell a history, but a counter-history. There's the received story in which rock music is associated with authentic white rebels, individuals, and artists; he wants to show that there was always a relationship between white rock music and what was becoming black music--variously labelled soul or R&B or Motown. So here he shows that the Beatles and Motown influenced each other. To do so, he brings to bear a whole new kind of evidence: he looks at the musical structure of various songs in great depth, tracing changes in key and notes, and also showing what stayed the same. It is effective, though fits oddly with the language and narrative styles used to this point.
But before the reader can settle into this new groove, Hamilton has tacked back, and returns to history, of a sort, grappling with what counted as soul music--the quintessential black musical genre. Here, again, he wants to show that musical ideas circulated between white and black communities as well as between America and England. He again reads the music itself closely. The point here is that the category "soul" hardened in such a way as to (mostly) exclude whites.
Chapters five and six mean to look at the way rock was similarly hardened as a category by the end of the 1960s--not so much concentrating on how the process unfolded, but as a static thing, a deed already done. Hendrix was the odd-man out, a black man in what was white music, and so was a troubling presence for white critics, who dwelled on him as a "superspade." The Stones were the obverse, considered dangerous exactly because they were seen as closer to black forms of music than other rockers. Hamilton, though, gets in his own way here by foregrounding "violence" as an analytical concept, out of the blue, forcing him into all kinds of weird contortions to make his argument.
As the book reaches its conclusions, the questions pile up. Why were the Stones considered dangerous for their connections to black music--when, as Hamilton notes, the connections between white and black music continued (but was just ignored). Listen to something as anodyne as the classic rock staple "Free ride" by the Edgar Winter Group, which borrowed heavily from R&B. Consider Clapton and Steve Winwood, who continued to work in black musical forms. Or look at it from the other side: why was Funkadelic ignored by rock stations? It was producing straight rock records and evinced a hippie mindset. Something more had to be going on. But what? Indeed, the book really needed to push into the 1970s, given that it stopped being about the separation of black and white music genres as early as the first chapter. What do we make of Southern Rock and the association of Confederate Flags with what is now Classic Rock?
Hamilton chooses to end elsewhere, though, with an awkward interpretation of the song that gives the book its title: the Stones's "Brown Sugar." He says it "boasts some of the most appalling lyrics ever written for a rock and roll song" (273)--but then too no more "morally outrageous" "than the many, many songs since that have sought to replicate its fantasies of white male sexual hedonism," and he even tries to . . . ahem . . . offer sympathy for the devil by saying the Stones were just acknowledging the troubling history of rock music, and implicating themselves at the same time. Why, then, did he try to hard to avoid discussion of minstrelsy--it seems a perfect fit here.
Never mind, though--it's one more bit of confusion in a confounding book. But confounding is not the same as bad, or mistaken. Hamilton has focused on an worthwhile observation. He has brought to bear on the question intelligence and a great deal of knowledge. He hasn't really answered the question, but then sometimes answers are the least interesting part. The tangle of racial relations that lies at the heart of rock 'n' roll music is too sordid, too tightly bound is no Gordian Knot, to be undone with a single cut--or even a single book. Hamilton gives the reader much to think on, which may be the greater gift.
Hamilton starts out with a striking observation: in the late 1950s, rock 'n' roll music was made by blacks and whites--by Bill Haley and Little Richard, Elvis Presley and the Four Tops. Barely more than a decade later, rock music was almost entirely white, Jimi Hendrix the exception that proved the rule. There are many things that could be said about this change. One could show how the change occurred, the social dynamics that controlled who was making music, and under what label; one could look into how rock music was classified and thought about--what counted as rock and what didn't. It's possible to imagine a counter-story, one that shows there continued to be interactions between white and black music. One could write about the circulation of session musicians and the places where music was made. Or one could look at the historical models of rock 'n' roll music, and chart their trajectory from the 1950s on.
The trouble--if one wants to call it that--is that Hamilton tries to say all of them, without any real organization. It's Stephen Leacock's Lord Ronald: "he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions." The book is a mess, but a productive one, with insights studded here and there. Making the whole thing even more confounding is the language, which veers from rock criticism to musical theory to stilted academicese: he is especially enraptured with the words enfold and gesture--which I thought had been parodied to death by Clive James's poem "A Gesture towards James Joyce," but I guess not. Rarefied concepts--especially something he calls "the racial imagination"--are reified; one comes out of the book bruised from running into the idea repeatedly, him treating it as remarkably solid.
Hamilton does try to impose some order on the proceedings. He tells the stories in roughly chronological order through chapters that (mostly) link together different artists. So the first chapter is on the connections between Dylan and Sam Cooke; the second chapter then looks at the so-called British Invasion; chapter three considers Motown and the Beatles; chapter four, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin (with a dash of Dusty Springfield); and chapters five and six act as an extended pairing, one on Hendrix, the other on the Stones. This switching necessitates a great deal of repetition, and sows some confusion: Hamilton changes Dylan's age a couple of times in a few pages; basic concepts are explained, while abstruse ones are not. We meet to Stones and the Beatles again and again. At times, he drops in long biographical bits of pretty well-known people, even though these are not necessary to the story he is telling at the time.
As it starts out, the book looks to investigate the origins of rock's whitewashing in the language that attended the music. He argues that white rock music became associated with authenticity when Dylan (and others, but, really, Dylan) folk musicians moved into rock and the critical lexicon followed them. Black music, meanwhile, was caught in a double-bind: it was seen as authentic, but only in the past, while any attempt to innovate or reach a broader audience was seen as selling out.
And certainly this language of authenticity was one part of the transformation! If the book was going to be a history of the changes that caused a split between black and white music, I would have liked to have seen a deeper look into this language. But soon enough, Hamilton was on to other matters; after the first chapter or so, he wasn't so interested in telling the story of how rock music became white, but was on to other things.
He wants to break down the myth of the "British Invasion," and, indeed, dissolve the very notion of "British": the Stones and Beatles, he insists, came out of very different traditions, and very different parts of England, and so are, in many ways, incommensurable. But both were influenced by black American music, and willing to admit to being so, even if they built on this tradition differently. Here he is also concerned to show that popular music circulated, in small circuits and wide ones, and so any attempt to classify is going to limited--pinning Jello to the wall. He is also insistent that the influences ran in all directions, from black groups to white, and white groups to black.
At this point, it is impossible not to be thinking in terms of minstrelsy, the language of which has been so important to understanding the relationship between white and black performers. Was this cultural borrowing or thievery? Eric Lott wrote about this way back in 1993, his book title capturing the ambiguity: Love and Theft. One would think Hamilton would be intrigued by this coupling, given that Dylan later used the title for one of his albums. But for all that he is constantly referring to minstrelsy--almost to the last pages--he early on makes it known that he is completely uncomfortable with seeing any connections. I noted no reference to Lott, nor to John Leland's Hip: The History. W. T. Lhamon, who has written about the complicated influence of minstrelsy on rock music at this exact moment, is dismissed in one defensive endnote.
Chapter three switches up the narrative focus once again. It starts to look like what Hamilton really wants to do is not tell a history, but a counter-history. There's the received story in which rock music is associated with authentic white rebels, individuals, and artists; he wants to show that there was always a relationship between white rock music and what was becoming black music--variously labelled soul or R&B or Motown. So here he shows that the Beatles and Motown influenced each other. To do so, he brings to bear a whole new kind of evidence: he looks at the musical structure of various songs in great depth, tracing changes in key and notes, and also showing what stayed the same. It is effective, though fits oddly with the language and narrative styles used to this point.
But before the reader can settle into this new groove, Hamilton has tacked back, and returns to history, of a sort, grappling with what counted as soul music--the quintessential black musical genre. Here, again, he wants to show that musical ideas circulated between white and black communities as well as between America and England. He again reads the music itself closely. The point here is that the category "soul" hardened in such a way as to (mostly) exclude whites.
Chapters five and six mean to look at the way rock was similarly hardened as a category by the end of the 1960s--not so much concentrating on how the process unfolded, but as a static thing, a deed already done. Hendrix was the odd-man out, a black man in what was white music, and so was a troubling presence for white critics, who dwelled on him as a "superspade." The Stones were the obverse, considered dangerous exactly because they were seen as closer to black forms of music than other rockers. Hamilton, though, gets in his own way here by foregrounding "violence" as an analytical concept, out of the blue, forcing him into all kinds of weird contortions to make his argument.
As the book reaches its conclusions, the questions pile up. Why were the Stones considered dangerous for their connections to black music--when, as Hamilton notes, the connections between white and black music continued (but was just ignored). Listen to something as anodyne as the classic rock staple "Free ride" by the Edgar Winter Group, which borrowed heavily from R&B. Consider Clapton and Steve Winwood, who continued to work in black musical forms. Or look at it from the other side: why was Funkadelic ignored by rock stations? It was producing straight rock records and evinced a hippie mindset. Something more had to be going on. But what? Indeed, the book really needed to push into the 1970s, given that it stopped being about the separation of black and white music genres as early as the first chapter. What do we make of Southern Rock and the association of Confederate Flags with what is now Classic Rock?
Hamilton chooses to end elsewhere, though, with an awkward interpretation of the song that gives the book its title: the Stones's "Brown Sugar." He says it "boasts some of the most appalling lyrics ever written for a rock and roll song" (273)--but then too no more "morally outrageous" "than the many, many songs since that have sought to replicate its fantasies of white male sexual hedonism," and he even tries to . . . ahem . . . offer sympathy for the devil by saying the Stones were just acknowledging the troubling history of rock music, and implicating themselves at the same time. Why, then, did he try to hard to avoid discussion of minstrelsy--it seems a perfect fit here.
Never mind, though--it's one more bit of confusion in a confounding book. But confounding is not the same as bad, or mistaken. Hamilton has focused on an worthwhile observation. He has brought to bear on the question intelligence and a great deal of knowledge. He hasn't really answered the question, but then sometimes answers are the least interesting part. The tangle of racial relations that lies at the heart of rock 'n' roll music is too sordid, too tightly bound is no Gordian Knot, to be undone with a single cut--or even a single book. Hamilton gives the reader much to think on, which may be the greater gift.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 30, 2017
I stumbled upon JUST AROUND MIDNIGHT: ROCK AND ROLL AND THE RACIAL IMAGINATION (Harvard University Press, 2016) while perusing Tantor Audio's huge list of audio books. Here's the blurb that drew my attention:
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.
I requested the book thinking it might inform my novel, Half-Truths. To be honest, it was a scholarly (yet accessible) work that far exceeded my expectations. All it lacked were snippets from the multitude of songs and albums the author referenced.
I grew up in the 60's singing to the music coming from my father's transistor radio. I had no idea the cultural interchanges between white and black cultures that went on behind the scenes producing the lyrics I sang. I also did not know the personal life stories of the musicians. The author's extensive research and knowledge of music created a rich backdrop for this tumultuous time period.
Here is just a sprinkling of the issues Hamilton addressed that I never considered as a teeny bopper listening to music at our neighborhood pool.
Racial roots ran deep for the music that was popular in the 50's and 60's.
Blacks felt as if their music was plundered involving issues of cultural ownership and racial authenticity.
Hamilton traced the roots of 60's rock and roll back to the King of Soul, Sam Cooke, who he juxtaposed with Bob Dylan, the leader of the folk rock movement.
Gospel music, slavery songs, civil rights, the southern freedom struggle and political unrest all influenced music. Similarly, there was dynamic back-and-forth movement as music itself influenced politics and culture.
Protests against capitalism made big bucks for record companies. (Think of musicians in the 60's such as Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, and of course, Bob Dylan himself.)
Music was made to be danced to and sold.
Performance and identity are intertwined for many musicians.
The term "invasion" should not have described the Beatles. There were tons of influences on the Beatles from this side of the Atlantic including Motown and Cuban music. Other influences included British blues (itself derived from American blues), Keith Richards, Tads, Skiffle.
White artists performed black songs and vice versa. For example, both Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder sang Bob Dylan's songs. Aretha Franklin (the Queen of Soul), Janis Joplin (the Queen of Rock), and Dusty Springfield sang each other's music. Joplin sang black music in white-only venues; Franklin sang the Beatles, "Eleanor Rigby" in first person and made it into a rhythm and blues rendition that Hamilton called "audacious" and "genre bending". Hamilton went into great depth analyzing how each musician's rendition made a song his or her own and their motivation to assimilate the music into his/her own repertoire.
What is soul? In Hamilton's words, "Soul is a way to think about race." According to some commentators at the time, "to have soul was to suffer unjustly at hands of whites."
Do whites have the ethical right to play black music? If not, isn't this racism? The problem was that whites got paid more for their performances.
There were musical commonalities between the Beatles and Ray Charles. Ideas of what white and black musicians can and cannot do, rarely hold up to scrutiny of musical practice.
Often Jimmy Hendrix expressed his dismay at the Vietnam War through musical violence. To him, it was a critique of the society around him. But derogatory remarks made about him among critics often marked him as "other".
The Rolling Stones were obsessively grounded in black roots.
The narrator, Ron Butler, did an excellent job. I could listen to him read any book! Here is a sample from MIDNIGHT. If you are interested in delving into the cultural and musical environment of the 50's-early 70's, then this is a book for you.
I'm giving away the MP3-CD that I received from Tantor Audio. It is encoded in MP3 format and is iPod ready but will play only on CD and DVD players or computers that have ability to play MP3 formatted disks. (That meant I could play it in one of our cars but not the other and it didn't work on an old CD player.) Please leave your email address if you are new to my blog. Giveaway ends June 2, 2017.
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.
I requested the book thinking it might inform my novel, Half-Truths. To be honest, it was a scholarly (yet accessible) work that far exceeded my expectations. All it lacked were snippets from the multitude of songs and albums the author referenced.
I grew up in the 60's singing to the music coming from my father's transistor radio. I had no idea the cultural interchanges between white and black cultures that went on behind the scenes producing the lyrics I sang. I also did not know the personal life stories of the musicians. The author's extensive research and knowledge of music created a rich backdrop for this tumultuous time period.
Here is just a sprinkling of the issues Hamilton addressed that I never considered as a teeny bopper listening to music at our neighborhood pool.
Racial roots ran deep for the music that was popular in the 50's and 60's.
Blacks felt as if their music was plundered involving issues of cultural ownership and racial authenticity.
Hamilton traced the roots of 60's rock and roll back to the King of Soul, Sam Cooke, who he juxtaposed with Bob Dylan, the leader of the folk rock movement.
Gospel music, slavery songs, civil rights, the southern freedom struggle and political unrest all influenced music. Similarly, there was dynamic back-and-forth movement as music itself influenced politics and culture.
Protests against capitalism made big bucks for record companies. (Think of musicians in the 60's such as Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, and of course, Bob Dylan himself.)
Music was made to be danced to and sold.
Performance and identity are intertwined for many musicians.
The term "invasion" should not have described the Beatles. There were tons of influences on the Beatles from this side of the Atlantic including Motown and Cuban music. Other influences included British blues (itself derived from American blues), Keith Richards, Tads, Skiffle.
White artists performed black songs and vice versa. For example, both Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder sang Bob Dylan's songs. Aretha Franklin (the Queen of Soul), Janis Joplin (the Queen of Rock), and Dusty Springfield sang each other's music. Joplin sang black music in white-only venues; Franklin sang the Beatles, "Eleanor Rigby" in first person and made it into a rhythm and blues rendition that Hamilton called "audacious" and "genre bending". Hamilton went into great depth analyzing how each musician's rendition made a song his or her own and their motivation to assimilate the music into his/her own repertoire.
What is soul? In Hamilton's words, "Soul is a way to think about race." According to some commentators at the time, "to have soul was to suffer unjustly at hands of whites."
Do whites have the ethical right to play black music? If not, isn't this racism? The problem was that whites got paid more for their performances.
There were musical commonalities between the Beatles and Ray Charles. Ideas of what white and black musicians can and cannot do, rarely hold up to scrutiny of musical practice.
Often Jimmy Hendrix expressed his dismay at the Vietnam War through musical violence. To him, it was a critique of the society around him. But derogatory remarks made about him among critics often marked him as "other".
The Rolling Stones were obsessively grounded in black roots.
The narrator, Ron Butler, did an excellent job. I could listen to him read any book! Here is a sample from MIDNIGHT. If you are interested in delving into the cultural and musical environment of the 50's-early 70's, then this is a book for you.
I'm giving away the MP3-CD that I received from Tantor Audio. It is encoded in MP3 format and is iPod ready but will play only on CD and DVD players or computers that have ability to play MP3 formatted disks. (That meant I could play it in one of our cars but not the other and it didn't work on an old CD player.) Please leave your email address if you are new to my blog. Giveaway ends June 2, 2017.
October 5, 2023
In this hyped-up polemic age of racial politics and histories examining exclusion, it is refreshing to see a book about Rock & Roll specifically address these issues without coming across as preachy and without a sententious “woke” tone. Just Around Midnight is a deep philosophical tract that examines the hagiography of an art form that—though it relied almost exclusively on black influences—was most assuredly white. The main culprits in creating this whitewashed historiography and hagiography of white, male genius musicians (and their stereotypical “black friend,” Jimi Hendrix) are not the musicians themselves, who were—for the most part--more than open to giving black influencers credit, but the white critics who canonized the R&R movement as something independent from R&B. While a history of criticism of the genre Rock & Roll can easily and dangerously approach mental masturbation, there is certainly value in--what would now be deemed--a “revisionist history.” A discerning reader or musician can certainly quibble with some of the theses presented in the 6 chapters (essays), but the takeaway that white artists were crowned as authentic geniuses by adoring critics while black artists were, paradoxically, viewed as inauthentic sell outs is virtually irrefutable. Whether one agrees with the assessments of the relegation of Sam Cooke as opposed to Bob Dylan (Chapter 2), or with the Beatles’ debt to Motown as a fundamental feature of Rubber Soul and Revolver (Chapter 4), Hamilton’s scholarship in dredging up the highbrow reviews of a romanticized, whitewashed era and genre that illustrate clueless yet clever critics presenting contradictory and exclusive opinions on race and what it means within the genre of Rock & Roll is well-presented and well-thought out. As in any serious historical study analyzing the genesis of the categorization of a genre, the critics don’t come off so well, their biases glaringly obvious almost a half century later.
Virtually any reader who would pick up a volume about racial perceptions in 60’s era Rock & Roll published by Harvard University Press (2016) is well beyond idle worship of white performers and their bogus hagiography. Yet it is the depth of the analysis and wit in tearing down the myths that makes these essays so utterly compelling.
Virtually any reader who would pick up a volume about racial perceptions in 60’s era Rock & Roll published by Harvard University Press (2016) is well beyond idle worship of white performers and their bogus hagiography. Yet it is the depth of the analysis and wit in tearing down the myths that makes these essays so utterly compelling.
April 21, 2017
Wow, is this book impressive! It manages to be both academic and fluidly readable meta rock criticism. Other reviews that complain that Jack Hamilton neglects their favorite race theorist or artists from this period are missing the point. This isn't supposed to be a thorough book about the history of rock music; rather, it convincingly shows how crucial the changes in the music were to cementing a type of racial segregation that continues through the beginning of the 21st century. To get at just how cutting edge this book is, check out some of the people with whom he is in dialogue: Karl Miller, Eric Weisbard, and Elijah Wald. I just might have to work this book into my teaching...
August 19, 2017
Hamilton's approach to critiquing the racial sociopolitical origins of rock and roll evinces a great understanding of the landscape on his part. His strategy of staying somewhat hands off and giving his subjects the benefit of the doubt before drawing his own conclusions leads to occasional sterility, but overall leads to a more whole case. The straight ahead, logical tracing of rock and roll's progression proves to be the most effective means of dispelling it's mythological place in society's mind.
November 10, 2016
Great book! if you're a lover of music and culture then this is a must read. I was fortunate enough to interview the author as well on my podcast and dive deeper into these topics. I highly recommend this book if you're trying to understand how we think about race and music and the boundaries of pop and rock and other perhaps fairly arbitrary musical definitions.
September 5, 2019
Eye opening study of the interplay of African American music and white music, largely focusing on the 1960s. For as much as I've read about this period of music, especially surrounding the Beatles, I had not seen or understood the connections that Hamilton is making. This book has already changed my perspective.
June 2, 2017
Powerhouse book for a fan of this kind of music, like me. Academic, but not tedious.
October 16, 2025
There's something interesting and insightful on every page. Definitely one of the better music books I've read.
October 10, 2024
I read this for my Rock and Roll English class, and although it was very dense at parts, I found that the topics covered were extremely interesting. It uses critical theory to deconstruct music, such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and explores how rock and roll was created by Black people and became white over time, until the Black history was erased from it. I especially found Chapter 6 interesting because of the explanation of the meaning behind the Rolling Stones' song, "Brown Sugar," a song I have just listened to and am in shock by.
November 24, 2017
An intriguing exploration of the racial politics of rock and roll in the 1950s and 1960s.
November 2, 2017
Unimpressed
December 21, 2016
it's not a rock book, but a graduate studies thesis ... there's a good chance i haven't enough intellect to process it ... my lacking mental capacity doesn't make this any less of a slog through a textbook ... this guy clearly put a shitload of work into this, and as is the case in many philosophical pursuits, we're left wondering whether or not the invented question really needed answering ... lots of big words, complex theories and subjective interpretations here, all to conclude i know not what ... i listen to a lot of rock, that much of it came from the black American blues adds to its power; black+white=awesome, the songs tell me that - no need for a doctoral degree or a double-blind scientific study ... if i can save just one of my fellow rockers from having to go through this, my sacrifice will have been worthwhile
February 7, 2018
This book definitely reads like an academic thesis. At its best, it gets into the cross-pollination of white and black musical influences using both history and close musical analysis. It also has some strong points to make about the commercial, critical and cultural segregation of rock'n'roll, motown and soul, which it shows, contradicted the integration and symbiosis of the genres themselves. At worst, the book reads history selectively through the author's lens and describes appropriation issues as "troubling" and "complex" without really unpacking them or taking a stance on them. Also, as a disclaimer notes, the book chooses the narrow focus of handful of bands and acts to tackle its enormous topic, leaving many other highly relevant ones undiscussed. I found this book worth the quick read, but it left me hungry for a broader and deeper discussion.
December 15, 2016
Ok, a lot of this book reads like a PhD thesis which it may have been originally, I'm not sure. The musical history sections of the book were very interesting. The racial analysis gave me pause...on one hand I have heard it before and know that the British Invasion largely reproduced American blues and fed it back to the US. On the other hand, it was frustrating because it seems to call out Motown for being Uncle Tom music. A very interesting book nonetheless and thought provoking. I guess I like to think of music the way Duke Ellington put it...
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind ... the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed.
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind ... the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed.
March 7, 2017
Never figured out what the author was trying to say, there was some interesting stuff in the book, but the point the author was driving at eluded me. Every now and then I thought I got it, but was never sure. Further, even when I thought I got where he was going, it was unclear what his position on"it" was.
December 2, 2018
This is an interesting academic look at the racial transformation of rock music in the 1960s. More exactly, it's a look at how the music was redefined from rock'n'roll to rock - and in the process music by black musicians not named Jimi Hendrix was almost completely jettisoned from the context. Soul music was defined in a way that ghettoized black musicians it was supposedly celebrating. The birth of rock criticism played a role in the story, as the critics liked to talk about music in terms of authenticity. Black music was defined as authentic - provided that it didn't have any clear attempt to appeal to a white audience. If it did, it could be derided as an inauthentic sell out. Black music was thus a product of a race while white music was the product of an individual. Whites could adopt from blacks, but not the other way around. Black music became seen as something foundational - something in the past. This wasn't unique to rock music - as the folk revival saw it happen even earlier. White artists would still revere black music, but sometimes they'd romanticize it in the process, as Janis Joplin often did. Rock critics would view Santana's music through a racial lens instead of on its own terms.
There was still intersection between black and white music, but it became more buried. People noted the Bob Dylan influence on the Beatles circa Rubber Soul, but Hamilton notes how much Paul McCartney took from James Jamerson's bass playing as well. Jimi Hendrix was the big exception - the black man whose music was still accepted, but he died. The Rolling Stones had an odd trajectory: they originally didn't even consider themselves to be a rock band (it was r&b for them), but by the end of the decade were hailed as the greatest rock band in the world. They always noted their black musical influences, but that just became part of the Rolling Stones story, not the broader story of rock. As the Stones gained the reputation as the ultimate rock band, black rock acts were removed from the discussion.
It's an interesting book, but at times I wonder if Hamilton presses his points too far. It does seem like there was a genuine difference in listening tastes among blacks and whites (he notes that Hendrix never got as much esteem from the black listeners as from whites). The book also takes a little bit to get into things. But once it gets going, it is a very good book.
There was still intersection between black and white music, but it became more buried. People noted the Bob Dylan influence on the Beatles circa Rubber Soul, but Hamilton notes how much Paul McCartney took from James Jamerson's bass playing as well. Jimi Hendrix was the big exception - the black man whose music was still accepted, but he died. The Rolling Stones had an odd trajectory: they originally didn't even consider themselves to be a rock band (it was r&b for them), but by the end of the decade were hailed as the greatest rock band in the world. They always noted their black musical influences, but that just became part of the Rolling Stones story, not the broader story of rock. As the Stones gained the reputation as the ultimate rock band, black rock acts were removed from the discussion.
It's an interesting book, but at times I wonder if Hamilton presses his points too far. It does seem like there was a genuine difference in listening tastes among blacks and whites (he notes that Hendrix never got as much esteem from the black listeners as from whites). The book also takes a little bit to get into things. But once it gets going, it is a very good book.
March 3, 2019
It had been awhile since I read an academic type book, so I picked this up and dove in. I will confess that it took me a few pages to get back into the swing of the inflated verbiage. Though I knew from the title that the book would examine race and rock music (duh!), I was not prepared for how I just did not buy it. One anecdote concerns "Son of a Preacher Man". The author calls it a song written by two white fellas specifically for a black singer (the late Aretha Franklin) sung by an English woman (Dusty Springfield). All of those are true facts but have no bearing on the way I hear or enjoy that song. Which may make me part of the problem I suppose. When I hear Dusty or Aretha sing it, my feet start tapping. I am fairly certain they tap equally to both singers. All of that to say, music is music to me. It takes all manner of folks for music to thrive. Chuck Berry, on the cover, spoke to the young Mick Jagger, also on the cover, who interpreted Berry's songs because he just dug the music. To me, that's what it comes to. Just dig the music.
August 15, 2021
This is a very interesting book that outlines the central problem in the rock 'classicist' view of African American music and points out that the real story is much more complicated. The section on The Beatles and their relationship to Motown is particularly well done. He is also far more even handed about The Rolling Stones than one might imagine in such a book. He lost one star for what seemed to me like an all too casual dismissal of Buddy Holly. He didn't mention, for example in the otherwise excellent chapter on Bob Dylan and Sam Cooke, that Buddy toured with Sam. I know he couldn't cover everything but a lot of what he had to say about the relationship that white musicians had with black music were issues that grew from the early days of the rock and roll. Thus it seemed odd to start the story in 1960. Surely, the tension begins at Sun Records. Otherwise, this is a worthwhile and provocative read.
January 15, 2024
Finally got around to a rec from my professor who taught a course on the history of the 60s.
Follows the evolution and cross-pollination of initially soul and r&b music, rock and roll, and later rock through the late 50s, tumultuous 60s, and 70s. Fascinating to learn in granularity the impact of world events -- the Civil Rights Right Movement, the Vietnam War, the Summer of Love etc.-- on music.
The book was worth it for the music found alone:
-Motown’s influence on The Beatle’s Rubber Soul
-The Rolling Stone’s cover of The Temptation’s Ain’t Too Proud To Beg
-Otis Redding’s cover of The Rolling Stone’s Satisfaction
-Marvin Gaye’s cover of The Beatle’s Yesterday
-Stevie Wonder’s cover of Bob Dylan’s Blowin In The Wind
Follows the evolution and cross-pollination of initially soul and r&b music, rock and roll, and later rock through the late 50s, tumultuous 60s, and 70s. Fascinating to learn in granularity the impact of world events -- the Civil Rights Right Movement, the Vietnam War, the Summer of Love etc.-- on music.
The book was worth it for the music found alone:
-Motown’s influence on The Beatle’s Rubber Soul
-The Rolling Stone’s cover of The Temptation’s Ain’t Too Proud To Beg
-Otis Redding’s cover of The Rolling Stone’s Satisfaction
-Marvin Gaye’s cover of The Beatle’s Yesterday
-Stevie Wonder’s cover of Bob Dylan’s Blowin In The Wind
May 11, 2021
This book was...fine for me, I guess? Hamilton warns of the academic nature and music critic lens he puts on, and that was very warranted, in my experience :) I found myself wanting more commentary on the context of the time and less commentary on the music. I also took issue with some of the focus and rhetorical devices/tactics. What I will say is, the stuff that was good was *really* good and I learned quite a bit from engaging with this. That said, in my opinion, this book would've been about a thousand times better if it had been a fifth as long. I intend to look into some of the authors he cited, especially in the introduction. Read the introduction!
June 20, 2018
If you want to complicate your enjoyment of rock and roll read this book. If you can make it past the first chapter which sounds laboriously like the beginning of a dissertation, you can find it stimulating. Some of this, I think, rings true; some is somewhat strained (in my opinion). On the whole, however, it is provoking without being off-putting. (And, I'm afraid, I love the music of the Rolling Stones.) The cover photograph is amazingly apt, and, simply, a marvelous photograph.
February 22, 2022
It's Complicated
The subject matter of this book is complicated. It follows the development of rock and roll from black music to white ownership. Race and music are intertwined, this books attempts to unravel that intertwining. It is well researched and has numerous footnotes from source material. Listening to the music used as examples in the book can help in understanding the points made by the author.
The subject matter of this book is complicated. It follows the development of rock and roll from black music to white ownership. Race and music are intertwined, this books attempts to unravel that intertwining. It is well researched and has numerous footnotes from source material. Listening to the music used as examples in the book can help in understanding the points made by the author.
September 14, 2021
Really thoughtful and engaging account of race and rock music in the sixties. The music theory parts were insightful and also, happily, clear enough that I, who know nothing about music theory, could follow along. I finished this in May and that was responsible, I am happy to report, for me listening to Stevie Wonder's "We Can Work It Out" all summer.
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