A narrative of the history of popular music through the lens of twenty pivotal hits at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, which began in 1958, reveals a remarkably fluid and connected story of music.

"A history of the popular song 'My Old Kentucky Home' and its impact on American culture"--

"Pop music didn't begin with the Beatles in 1963, or with Elvis in 1956, or even with the first seven-inch singles in 1949. There was a pre-history that went back to the first recorded music, right back to the turn of the century. Who were these earliest record stars--and were they in any meaningful way "pop stars"? Who was George Gershwin writing songs for? Why did swing, the hit sound for a decade or more, become almost invisible after World War...

Covers the music, the musicians, the instruments, and music's place in cultural history. Presents a history of each musical style, from its roots to its expression along with glimpses of the lives of leading composers and musicians. This volume focuses on the music style of American pop.

Long before they became one of the most beloved and successful duos of all time, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were just two kids growing up in Queens, New York -- best friends who met in a sixth-grade production of Alice in Wonderland and bonded over girls, baseball, and rock'n'roll.

Casablanca: easy to enter, but much harder to leave, especially if you're wanted by the Nazis. Such a man is Resistance leader Victor Laszlo, whose only hope is Rick Blaine, a cynical American who sticks his neck out for no one - especially Victor's wife Ilsa, the ex-lover who broke his heart. Ilsa offers herself in exchange for Laszlo's transport out of the country and bitter Rick must decide what counts more - personal happiness or countless lives...

"The story of the Minneapolis musicians who were unexpectedly summoned to re-record half of the songs on Bob Dylan's most acclaimed album When Bob Dylan recorded Blood on the Tracks in New York in September 1974, it was a great album. But it was not the album now ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the ten best of all time. "When something's not right, it's wrong," as Dylan puts it in "You're Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go"-and something about...

"From one of the preeminent cultural critics of her generation, a radiant weave of memoir, criticism, and biography that tells the story of black women in music--from the Dixie Cups to Gladys Knight to Janet, Whitney, and Mariah-- as the foundational story of American pop"-- "A weave of biography, criticism, and memoir, Shine Bright is Danyel Smith's intimate history of Black women's music as the foundational story of American pop. Smith has been...

A documentary on the Rolling Stones' 1969 tour of the United States, including a performance at Madison Square Garden and a free concert at the Altamont Speedway in California where violence broke out between fans and Hell's Angels who were providing security. Includes performances by Ike and Tina Turner, the Jefferson Airplane and the Flying Burrito Brothers. This special version also contains never-before-seen performances from the Madison Square...

Flashing back intermittently to dream-like scenes from his hardscrabble rural childhood, "Ray" chronicles Ray Charles' remarkable rise from sideman and Chitlin Circuit fixture to innovator, icon, and international superstar. Yet even as Charles ascends to the heights of the musical and cultural elite, he remains hobbled by heroin addiction and compulsive womanizing, a prisoner to his own insatiable needs. Through it all, Ray Charles possessed a rock-solid...