Unlike the vast majority of popular music historians today, first-time book author Preston Lauterbach admirably resists the temptations of “fan club worship”—complexly detailed biographies of popular entertainers— and “the new academia”—the same thing, but with impenetrable technical jargon. Instead, The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock and Roll offers a colorfully rich portrait of [...]
Tag Archives: books
The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock and Roll by Preston Lauterbach (W.W. Norton & Co.)
September 1, 2011 – 12:21 am
Ricky Riccardi, What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years (Pantheon Books)
August 1, 2011 – 12:21 am
A friend I know as intellectual and a roots music aficionado waved off Satchmo, saying the man’s main interests “were pot and Swiss Kriss.” When I told her that the late Louis Armstrong gave Eisenhower the finger, metaphorically, she lightened up a bit: “I would have given him the finger too.” For those who don’t [...]
City Songs: John Swenson’s New Atlantis and Keith Spera’s Groove Interrupted
August 1, 2011 – 12:20 am
Television before Treme treated musicians as outsiders—frequently as degenerates, at least as self-absorbed and often predatory. The HBO drama implies that they’re just as much a part of a city as lawyers, laborers and bar owners, and it’s a theme that writers John Swenson and Keith Spera echo in their new books. In New Atlantis, [...]
Ricky Riccardi’s One Armstrong
August 1, 2011 – 12:03 am
Ricky Riccardi’s book What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years focuses on the largely unexamined later years of Armstrong’s career. Riccardi, 30, is an archivist at the Louis Armstrong House Museum and fell in love with Armstrong’s work 15 years ago. “My argument is that there is no such thing as [...]
Preservation Hall by Shannon Brinkman and Eve Abrams (LSU University Press)
July 1, 2011 – 12:23 am
Preservation Hall is renowned worldwide for its music and spirit. In their new book about the Hall, photographer Shannon Brinkman and interviewer Eve Abrams capture that spirit in both beautiful shots and heartfelt comments from the musicians who populate it. The photographs focus on the musicians, the audience, and the setting, and Brinkman captures it [...]
10th Ward Buck’s Definition of Bounce
June 24, 2011 – 11:27 am
“Triggaman.” That’s how rapper, party promoter, and restaurateur 10th Ward Buck would define bounce in a sentence or less. It’s the name for the 1986 song “Drag Rap” by the Showboys, and its samples have been the backbone to bounce’s beat for two decades now. Buck also has a longer definition though, 204-pages long to [...]
Excerpt from New Atlantis by John Swenson: Breaking the Silence
June 1, 2011 – 12:09 am
This month, Consulting Editor John Swenson’s new book New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans examines the role musicians played in the city’s recovery. In this excerpt, he writes about the violence of 2006 and how it gave two musicians new artistic purpose. Glen David Andrews says he was one of [...]
Irvin Mayfield, A Love Letter to New Orleans (Basin Street Records)
May 1, 2011 – 12:50 am
Irvin Mayfield has called his tutelage under Wynton Marsalis “probably the largest influence on my life.” Adopting the Wynton model of jazz musician as historian/entrepreneur/statesman, Mayfield has evolved into a Grammy winner, club owner, cultural ambassador, and board chair, all before his 34th birthday. With the addition of “author” to his ever-expanding brand portfolio comes [...]
Marie-Dominique Verdier, New Orleans Walls: Still Standing (First Light Press)
May 1, 2011 – 12:34 am
New Orleans Walls is a collection of portraits of more than 80 “emblematic” New Orleans people posing in front of walls. The walls were chosen by Verdier, born and raised in France, for their color, texture and various states of falling-down-ness (read beauté). Most of the portraits are accompanied by a story told by each [...]
