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Regional and Other Titles
Milwaukee Rock and Roll, 1950-2000: A Reflective History
"This book takes you from the beginning of Milwaukee rock in the 1950s to the turn of the century. A fascinating era of rock and roll influenced by the city's rich musical heritage and lingering Germanic-Polish cultural legacies"--
248 pages, Unknown Binding
Published September 1, 2019
11 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 17, 2020
You ready for a rock and roll party? I am!
Stay at home, Outpost, Walgreens, Colectivo, sidewalks. That’s my world, similar to yours? Adapting and making do, of course. But that's freedom compared with two months ago when I self-isolated after a positive Corona swab. So long ago.
I miss live music. Jim Liban, Tritonics, Hungry Williams, Bluegrass All Stars and others satisfy my hip-shaking and head-bobbing soul. Gotta get my ya-yas out. To help feed cash-starved music, yesterday I bought tickets to seven fall and winter concerts at Shank and Pabst. Looking forward to the R&B Cadets as well as Corky Siegel and others.
MSO piano concerti and other good, live music around town, meanwhile, soothes my soul.
But we’re here to talk about rock and roll.
Fifteen contributors wrote five dozen pieces for the ten chapters, a reflective history rather than a linear vetted narrative.
The introduction laments long-gone intimate venues, including Teddy’s, Stone Toad, Palms, Tamarack, Century Hall. Those music clubs, as well as Up & Under and John Hawks Pub, defined my early years in Milwaukee as a transplant who moved here for the music. (These days, Anodyne, Back Room, Shank Hall, Kochanski’s, Tonic and Linneman’s stand as my favorite music clubs.) During that period Chicago blues musicians played here, including Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Howlin Wolf, whose Hubert Sumlin lived here.
Milwaukee’s rock beginnings go back to the late-fifties sock/record hops. (A few years later, I deejayed large sock hops at my big school for four years.) Milwaukee’s earliest rockers included Junior Brantley, an R & B guy.
Les Paul became an unwitting progenitor of rock and roll when he amplified the guitar. By the early thirties he built a solid body electric guitar. By the forties he became an ace session player. As a guitarist, he used his hands to tell the audience what he felt. Les made cheerful fifties hits with Mary Ford. They played and married in Milwaukee. Les distilled country and jazz into percolating melodies and caffeinated guitar riffs, wrote the Shepherd Express.
By fifty-seven, polka and country-western trios, known as rhythm combos, made the live music around around here.
The Dave Clark Five began the British invasion in June sixty-five. The band played fourteen cities, including Devine’s Million Dollar Ballroom, now Eagles. The Beatles landed in November. Organ and sax gave Dave Clark a jazzier sound than the Beatles. The Stones also played that month to a nearly empty Auditorium.
Radio amplified rock and roll, making it popular. Rock stations began on AM. By the late sixties, rock moved to FM as freeform radio spread. I deejayed at a St Louis underground station before moving here.
Milwaukee’s R & B scene emerged during the decline of Bronzeville, the blues, jazz and swing epicenter in the forties, destroyed by interstate highways. Harvey Scales and the Seven Sounds delivered a smooth Sam Cooke croon until he saw the James Brown concert here, which transformed him.
A folk blues boom pervaded coffeehouses and colleges from the late fifties through the midsixties, writes Sonia Khatchadourian in the Milwaukee Blues chapter. The Avant Garde Coffeehouse, on Prospect, fostered blues from the mid- to late-sixties. In the seventies, blues bands played Teddy’s, Humpin’ Hannah’s and other clubs.
Then a quick blues-player review: Two of them, Jim Liban and Jon Paris, began playing in sixty-three. Liban formed Short Stuff with Junior Brantley in sixty-nine. The popular band played many music clubs, including Century Hall and Stone Toad, where I first heard the group in seventy-seven, the summer I fell in love with Milwaukee, moving here a year later.
This book offers a hip-shaking, toe-tapping tour through Milwaukee’s fifty-year rock and roll history beginning in the fifties. Fun. Four and a half stars.
And here’s the book cover, missing from the page setup:
https://www.marquette.edu/mupress/ima...
Stay at home, Outpost, Walgreens, Colectivo, sidewalks. That’s my world, similar to yours? Adapting and making do, of course. But that's freedom compared with two months ago when I self-isolated after a positive Corona swab. So long ago.
I miss live music. Jim Liban, Tritonics, Hungry Williams, Bluegrass All Stars and others satisfy my hip-shaking and head-bobbing soul. Gotta get my ya-yas out. To help feed cash-starved music, yesterday I bought tickets to seven fall and winter concerts at Shank and Pabst. Looking forward to the R&B Cadets as well as Corky Siegel and others.
MSO piano concerti and other good, live music around town, meanwhile, soothes my soul.
But we’re here to talk about rock and roll.
Fifteen contributors wrote five dozen pieces for the ten chapters, a reflective history rather than a linear vetted narrative.
The introduction laments long-gone intimate venues, including Teddy’s, Stone Toad, Palms, Tamarack, Century Hall. Those music clubs, as well as Up & Under and John Hawks Pub, defined my early years in Milwaukee as a transplant who moved here for the music. (These days, Anodyne, Back Room, Shank Hall, Kochanski’s, Tonic and Linneman’s stand as my favorite music clubs.) During that period Chicago blues musicians played here, including Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Howlin Wolf, whose Hubert Sumlin lived here.
Milwaukee’s rock beginnings go back to the late-fifties sock/record hops. (A few years later, I deejayed large sock hops at my big school for four years.) Milwaukee’s earliest rockers included Junior Brantley, an R & B guy.
Les Paul became an unwitting progenitor of rock and roll when he amplified the guitar. By the early thirties he built a solid body electric guitar. By the forties he became an ace session player. As a guitarist, he used his hands to tell the audience what he felt. Les made cheerful fifties hits with Mary Ford. They played and married in Milwaukee. Les distilled country and jazz into percolating melodies and caffeinated guitar riffs, wrote the Shepherd Express.
By fifty-seven, polka and country-western trios, known as rhythm combos, made the live music around around here.
The Dave Clark Five began the British invasion in June sixty-five. The band played fourteen cities, including Devine’s Million Dollar Ballroom, now Eagles. The Beatles landed in November. Organ and sax gave Dave Clark a jazzier sound than the Beatles. The Stones also played that month to a nearly empty Auditorium.
Radio amplified rock and roll, making it popular. Rock stations began on AM. By the late sixties, rock moved to FM as freeform radio spread. I deejayed at a St Louis underground station before moving here.
Milwaukee’s R & B scene emerged during the decline of Bronzeville, the blues, jazz and swing epicenter in the forties, destroyed by interstate highways. Harvey Scales and the Seven Sounds delivered a smooth Sam Cooke croon until he saw the James Brown concert here, which transformed him.
A folk blues boom pervaded coffeehouses and colleges from the late fifties through the midsixties, writes Sonia Khatchadourian in the Milwaukee Blues chapter. The Avant Garde Coffeehouse, on Prospect, fostered blues from the mid- to late-sixties. In the seventies, blues bands played Teddy’s, Humpin’ Hannah’s and other clubs.
Then a quick blues-player review: Two of them, Jim Liban and Jon Paris, began playing in sixty-three. Liban formed Short Stuff with Junior Brantley in sixty-nine. The popular band played many music clubs, including Century Hall and Stone Toad, where I first heard the group in seventy-seven, the summer I fell in love with Milwaukee, moving here a year later.
This book offers a hip-shaking, toe-tapping tour through Milwaukee’s fifty-year rock and roll history beginning in the fifties. Fun. Four and a half stars.
And here’s the book cover, missing from the page setup:
https://www.marquette.edu/mupress/ima...
July 14, 2020
An extremely fun read that makes you feel like you were there.
July 31, 2025
good number of essays by observers and participants in the Milwaukee rock scene. Not a lot of depth but a solid overview for those interested.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews