The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 1

August 22, 2016
In this far-reaching volume, music historian Ward rushes pell-mell through rock music’s first half century, uncovering the many streams—blues, country, jazz—that flood into the mighty river of rock. Much of this material will be very familiar to music fans, but Ward’s book provides an excellent introduction to early rock’s cast of characters and the music that rocked the world. After he establishes the roots of rock in blues and country and the complicated relationship between race and music that pervades the entire history of rock, Ward chronicles, year by year, the development of the music; its relationship to and reflection of American society; and the artists, producers, and record labels that created the music and pushed it along. For Ward, 1957 was the watershed year: Chuck Berry released “You Can’t Catch Me” and Jerry Lee Lewis put out “Crazy Arms”; Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day” came out that summer and rocketed to the top of the charts; Sam Cooke moved from gospel to secular music; Sam Phillips’s Sun studio—later home to the “Million Dollar Quartet” of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash—continued its steady rise; Bobby “Blue” Bland made his debut with “Farther Up the Road”; Ricky Nelson debuted on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet television show; and Dick Clark’s American Bandstand carried the message of rock ’n’ roll nationwide to a generation of teens ready to buy records. Ward’s delightful book is chock-full of everything there is to know about the history of rock.

A dean of rock journalism delivers the first volume of a magnum opus on a subject that never ceases to fascinate.When does the rock 'n' roll genre properly begin? Clearly well before Elvis Presley took the stage. By Fresh Air correspondent Ward's account, it began in the 1920s, its outlines traced in the parallel development of blues, ragtime, swing, and country. In that genealogy, players such as Ernest Tubb and Bob Wills become ancestors just as surely as are Wynonie Harris and Big Joe Turner, while the blues and vaudeville join hands to produce phenomena such as Mamie Smith and Blind Lemon Jefferson. All contribute to an authentically American idiom. Ward (Michael Bloomfield: The Rise and Fall of an American Guitar Hero, 2016, etc.) complicates the story by weaving in notes on the sometimes-uneasy meeting of races that the genres forced. In that exchange, Johnny Ray, "a gay white singer who wore hearing aids and broke down crying during his act," became an unlikely R&B hero, and white kids flocked to "race" record shops to find the originals pilfered by clean-scrubbed collegiate quartets in the mold of Pat Boone. So it was with the canonical "Earth Angel." Even though the original, by the Penguins, was "primitive and seemingly uncopyable," a white group inauspiciously named the Crew-Cuts turned in--in one of Ward's favorite words--an "anodyne" version of the song that sold reasonably well but never won over jukebox-crowding teenagers. Turning the back pages of history to look at the likes of Johnny Horton and Etta James and turning up plenty of surprises and fresh insights as he does, the author ends this installment on more or less familiar ground with the rise of the British Invasion, which would take an increasingly denatured American rock onto new ground--and provides the author a springboard for the next volume.A spry study that should inspire listening with newly informed ears to old tunes, from "Bulldozer Blues" to "Teenager in Love" and beyond. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 1, 2017

Writing about something as multifaceted as the history of rock and roll is a daunting task. Fortunately, historian Ward (NPR's Fresh Air; coauthor, Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll) is up to it. In this book, the author provides a broad overview of the musical, social, and cultural forces occurring throughout the United States in the early 20th century that ultimately gave rise to this new art form. He traces trends in folk, country, jazz, and blues music that come together in various permutations, how the music was created, recorded, and performed, and how advances in music recording and radio technology influenced the way musicians and fans consumed it all. Furthermore, he describes in great detail how rock and roll spread to its most important foreign outpost, England. This book's chosen endpoint is the eve of the much-celebrated British Invasion in the 1960s. Thanks to the author's talents, however, the book never feels weighed down by excruciating detail. Rather, the narrative moves at a brisk, almost breathless pace that is easy to get caught up in. VERDICT In less than 400 pages, Ward weaves multiple threads in American music history into a book all music fans will enjoy.--Brett Rohlwing, Milwaukee P.L.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2016
Ward's ambitious opus succeeds in chronicling the first half of the history of rock 'n' roll. Beginning in 1920, Paramount Records in Port Washington, Wisconsin, tapping into the fledgling race market, started making records and found success recording such artists as Ma Rainey and Jelly Roll Morton. The advent of radio helped spread the gospel of popular music, broadcasting blues, jazz, and singing cowboys. Small record labels and jukeboxes contributed to the dissemination of popular music, while, late at night, white radio DJs spun R&B for a mixed audience. Pretty soon teenagers sought out records by Big Joe Turner and various vocal and gospel groups. Then, of course, Elvis changed everything. Ward manages to make a coherent narrativenot an insignificant featout of this sprawling milieu, sequentially showing how visionaries such as Sam Phillips, Berry Gordy, Phil Spector, and others created a thriving industry. Throughout, the black influence is emphasized as gospel musicians went secular, and race records went mainstream. The sagas of Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Stax Records, the Brill Building, the Beatles, and many others are expertly and entertainingly woven into this encompassing overview.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)