Let's Do It: The Birth of Pop Music: A History
Stanley steers well clear of these classical pioneers (even those, such as Kurt Weill, who dipped a lot more than a toe into popular music), but does an inspired job of identifying and describing all the tangled roots of pre-rock popular music. He’s not pompous enough to put forward anything as scholarly as a thesis — but a sort of thesis emerges anyway. It’s that, for the first time in history, technology became the driving force behind music’s development ... One of Stanley’s main achievements is to bring to life the giants of the era — Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Glenn Miller and the like — and many half-forgotten figures. His enthusiasm for the quirky Boswell Sisters (who recorded their best numbers after midnight with drunk session musicians) or the pioneering mixed-race female bandleader Ina Ray Hutton is so infectious that I spent a whole evening hunting down their tracks on YouTube ... Along the way, too, he includes vivid anecdotes that capture not just the essence of a single life, but an entire era ... Stanley isn’t afraid to deliver contentious verdicts on famous names either ... Such provocations will be endlessly debated by wrinkled connoisseurs like me, but I hope Stanley’s book has a far wider readership than us. It also needs to inspire younger generations. Contrary to the impression given by most writing about pop and rock, popular music did exist before Elvis — and a vast amount of it is far too good to be forgotten.
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... feels vastly broader in scope, by necessity encompassing everything from music hall to Muddy Waters. Because Stanley continues the stories of pre-rock’n’roll stars long after the rise of rock’n’roll a book that begins in Victorian London ends, more or less, in the present day: a huge timespan to cover, even in 600 pages ... As with its predecessor, it shouldn’t work, but it does ... An inveterate record collector, Stanley’s writing crackles with the exhilaration of a man who’s encountered a whole new world of vinyl to obsess about. It adds a fresh excitement to some well-worn stories ... He rattles through anecdotes and potted biographies at a clip that recalls someone hastily ripping one recent purchase off the turntable in order to play you another ... Stanley is admirably unsnobby in his approach ... Let’s Do It’s masterstroke in bringing the past to life lies in drawing parallels with the present, or at least more contemporary history ... a perfect guidebook, filled with smart thinking and the kind of communicable enthusiasm that sends you rushing to the nearest streaming service, eager to hear what all the fuss was about.
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... vying for the title of best music book of the year ... One of the things that a book like this relies on is a good index. This one is a marvel. On encountering a pile of volumes in the entrance of a bookshop readers will thumb through, searching for a particular favourite, now almost lost to knowledge in the obscurity of passing time, and find it, given its due at last. Turn to the back to look up a favourite song or musician and discover a surprisingly chunky entry, with directions to pages which elucidate ... Whilst this sort of treasure hunt is good fun, it is also rewarding to start at the beginning and read right through to the end. The route follows the development of the music; highlighting influences but also bouncing off historical events and mores ... gives a quintessential account of the Birth of Pop, one which will send anyone again and again to their record collection to listen to the greatest artists, well remembered or forgotten, of the 20th century.
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