The Real Roots of Rock!

From: Jazz Promo Services
Press Contact: Jim Eigo, jim@jazzpromoservices.com

An essential work for rock fans and scholars, Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock ’n’ Roll explores the origins of rock ’n’ roll from the minstrel era to the emergence of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, offering a far broader and deeper analysis of the early evolution of rock music than other histories have. Dispelling common misconceptions, it examines rock’s roots in hokum songs and big-band boogies as well as ragtime and blues, detailing the embrace by white artists of African American styles long before rock ’n’ roll appeared. This unique study ranges far and wide, highlighting the influence of celebrity performers like Gene Autry and Ella Fitzgerald along with the contributions of obscure but key precursors like Hardrock Gunter and Sam Theard.

Too often, rock historians treat the genesis of rock ’n’ roll as a bolt from the blue, an overnight revolution provoked by the bland pop music that immediately preceded it and created through the white appropriation of music till then played only by and for blacks. Before Elvis daringly argues a more complicated history of rock’s evolution from a heady mix of swing, boogie-woogie, country music, mainstream pop, and rhythm-and-blues—a mélange styles that influenced one another along the way, from the absorption of blues and boogies into jazz and pop to the integration of country and Caribbean music into rhythm-and-blues.

Written in a style both accessible to the general reader and acceptable to the serious academic, Before Elvis presents a bold argument about rock’s origins that makes it required reading for fans and scholars of rock ’n’ roll history.

For over 35 years, Larry Birnbaum has written for periodicals ranging from Down Beat to the New York Times and edited books and magazines about music.

What they’re saying about Before Elvis…

Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll is an exemplary work of musical history, combining substantial new research with previously established material for a comprehensive vision of a previously fragmented field. Having a grasp of American music and its sources even predating arrival in America, Birnbaum fulfills his promise of showing how rock ’n’ roll after the rise of Elvis Presley was a natural outgrowth of the diversified society which preceded him. Attentive to commercial realities and the complex lives of musical artists, conversant with the musical motifs and lyric themes of the popular music world in both recorded and live performance, Larry Birnbaum paints a world inhabited by working artists who are fully conscious of their sources, influences and efforts at personal expression, naturally reaching for audiences ever eager for the new twist on a familiar tune. This is a significant work, rich with revelations.
— Howard Mandel, author of Miles, Ornette, Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz