Sound Bites

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Sound Bites is history by strobe light, an electrifying collection that picks you up and sets you down in the best seat in the house for an all-star rock show that spans three decades. Albert Goldman, renowned for his definitive, controversial, bestselling biographies of Lenny Bruce, Elvis Presley, and John Lennon, is the foremost writer today--or yesterday--on American music. Now, the man Newsweek called "half scholarly intellectual and half funky pop rock schlock freak" chronicles the sounds and scenes of ...
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NY 1992 Hard cover First edition. Unabridged. New in new dust jacket. Gift Quality. Pristine. Brand New. Fast Arrival. Collectors item. Carefuly packaged & shipped in bubble ... wrap. 1st edition / printing 1992. Gift Quality. Pristine. Brand New. Fast Arrival. Collectors item. Carefuly packaged & shipped in bubble wrap. 1st edition / printing 1992. Read more Show Less

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Overview

Sound Bites is history by strobe light, an electrifying collection that picks you up and sets you down in the best seat in the house for an all-star rock show that spans three decades. Albert Goldman, renowned for his definitive, controversial, bestselling biographies of Lenny Bruce, Elvis Presley, and John Lennon, is the foremost writer today--or yesterday--on American music. Now, the man Newsweek called "half scholarly intellectual and half funky pop rock schlock freak" chronicles the sounds and scenes of rock's apocalypse through this collection of his most riveting pieces. From the screaming frenzy of an early Elvis concert to the sweaty fervor of James Brown at the Apollo; from the mind-bending chaos of the Electric Circus to the supersonic vapor bath of Studio 54; from Motown to Memphis, rockabilly to acid, Jagger to Hendrix to Tiny Tim--Goldman covers rock's birth, maturity, and decadent decline with fierce energy. Here is a critical and celebratory journey into the glitter and gore of rock and roll, by its most provocative evocateur.
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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Music critic Goldman's ( The Lives of John Lennon ) no-holds-barred essays, most near-antiques from the late '60s and early '70s, bear witness to the heady origins and disillusioned outcomes of the original hippie, glitter rock and disco trends. He describes Elvis Presley as a burlesque dancer who inspired Dionysian frenzies; views Ray Charles as the first musician to ``sacriligiously blend gospel and blues''; praises the Who's rock opera Tommy ; and considers jazz artist Miles Davis the first creator of psychedelic music. Hindsight lends new meaning to such emphatic statements as ``Acid-rock is the closest approximation yet to an authentic white soul,'' and, from 1974, ``History will not pause long over . . . Led Zeppelin195 .'' Goldman knowledgeably analyzes the transition from blues to R & B to soul, and exults in nights at Harlem's Apollo Theater; however, his clear admiration of black culture suffers from dated '60s terminology and many of his comments on ``the Negro'' would be unacceptable today. This evocative collection, by turns jubilant, cynical, visionary and misguided, reminds '90s hipsters of their musical forebears. (May)
Library Journal
Most of the pieces in this collection were written while Goldman was a rock critic for establishment journals like Life and New York magazine from 1968 to 1971. Like the reporter in Bob Dylan's ``Ballad of a Thin Man,'' Goldman knows something is happening but he's not sure what it is. While often contemptuous of rock music and musicians, he occasionally gushes over someone like an overheated Tiger Beat reader. Jim Morrison comes in for much praise, not only as a singer and songwriter, but also for ``his strong classically formed head . . . his sensuously curved lips'' and his ``faun-like sexuality.'' Since a Morrison biography is next for this Kitty Kelley of the rock scene, his impressions in 1968 are intriguing. The pieces on jazz and blues have an objectivity not found in the rock articles and are quite good. Libraries expecting the controversy of Goldman's Elvis (St. Martin's, 1991) or The Lives of John Lennon (Morrow, 1988) should save their money for the Morrison biography.-- Dan Bogey, Clearfield Cty. P.L. Federation, Curwensville, Pa .
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780679411963
  • Publisher: McKay, David Company, Inc.
  • Publication date: 4/15/1992
  • Edition description: 1st ed
  • Pages: 299

Table of Contents

Introduction
Rock from the Beginning 1
Elvis 1956: The Early Days of Sexually Inspired Mass Hysteria 6
The Beatles Are Coming! 14
The Emergence of Rock 26
Rock Theater 49
Rock Theater's Breech Birth 53
Psychedelic Follies 62
Tommy: Rock's First Opera 69
The Blues Today and Yesterday 79
Superspade Raises Atlantis: Jimi Hendrix 84
The Biggest, Baddest Bluesman: Albert King 91
Memphis to Memphis 98
Soul 123
Apollo Voodoo 127
Black Power = James Brown 134
She Makes Salvation Seem Erotic: Aretha Franklin 139
Niggers Are Scared of Revolution: The Last Poets 143
Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya: Mac Rebennack 146
Why Do Whites Sing Black? 151
Has Soul Been Sold Out? 154
The Death of Rock 159
On and on Mick's Orgy Rolls 162
Altamont: "A Crime Without an Instigator" 167
The Disintegration of Counterculture 172
Last Stop--Decadence! 177
Rock Goes Hol-ly-wooood! 184
Viennese Decadence in Blue Jeans: Randy Newman 193
A Bad, Mad World: James and Livingston Taylor 196
Meeting R. D. Laing 200
Hell's Kitchen 207
Nostalgia 215
Pop Dybbuk: Tiny Tim 219
Picking Away at the Past 223
Jazz: The Art That Came in from the Cold 227
The Search for Fresh Energy 251
Farewell to Flesh: Carnival at Rio 255
Tango's Macho Mystique 266
Disco 273
Studio 54, Driver! 277
Michael Jackson: Analyzing the Magic 291
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