Author(s): Cousin Brucie Morrow

Music SPECIALS

Rock & Roll is here to stay--so get back to the roots of the most exciting, explosive musical era with the man who saw it all happen: legendary radio personality "Cousin Brucie" Morrow! Capture that turbulent time when musical styles shifted radically, kids didn't trust anyone over thirty, and everything seemed possible. There was nothing short of a cultural revolution, beginning with the seeds of rebellion sown by black R&B artists in the 50s and escalating through the British invasion, surfer sounds, Motown soul, heavy metal, punk rebellion, and beyond. Rock & Roll is about the music and the people. Every major artist presented here participated in the earth-shattering changes that unfolded over the decades, from the time rock started to roll in the 50s. The great melting pot began to burn a little hotter as Elvis swiveled his hips to the screams of teens--and the horror of their parents. Then came the attack of the Union Jack, with the madness of Beatlemania quickly followed by The Dave Clark Five, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and countless others. Petula Clark and Dusty Springfield belted it out with newly emerging girl power. Teens from California and across America went surfing USA to the sounds of The Beach Boys, while Detroit Soul had kids dancing in the streets. Hippies flew high on Jefferson Airplane--and Woodstock galvanized a nation. Records like Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Pet Sounds changed the way music was produced forever. The list of artists who parade brilliantly across these pages is nothing less than breathtaking: Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and the Doors, Rod Stewart, the Allman Brothers, Alice Cooper, Billy Joel, and so many more. More than 300 photographs--many of them rare--portray the exhilarating time, and Cousin Brucie puts the music in context by connecting it to goings-on in the wider world. The songs unfold against a backdrop of social upheaval, from JFK, Martin Luther King, civil rights, and anti-war movements to the first Earth Day, Batman, Women's Lib, and Watergate. The book teems with archival photography, posters, album covers, record labels, newspaper articles, magazine covers, poems, quotes, and more. Bonus: Bruce's greatest artists of the era, with their top 250+ songs, and an amazing array of sidebars and stories about the history and background of rock and the world the way it was. And you'll be blown away by the Rock and Roll Dictionary--all the slang you loved to hear.