Overview

In the tumultuous decade following World War II, the civil rights movement began transforming Black lives and American society. The era also proved momentous for African American popular music: new record labels, new styles, and exciting new sounds in the form of electrified blues combos, rhythm and blues shouters and balladeers, gospel and doo wop quartets. By the late 1950s, with rock 'n' roll dominating the American soundscape, much of the phenomenal Black music of the postwar decade began to drift into relative obscurity. This book brings a remarkable body of African American music, excluding jazz, back into sharp focus, and explores its connections to the socio-political dreams of Black America during that period of frustrated hopes and great expectations. With close attention to the singers, musicians, and lyrics in hundreds of recordings from 1946 to 1956, it offers for the first time a detailed examination of four musical genres along the blues continuum: blues, rhythm & blues, gospel, and secular harmony (better known as doo wop). Meet the artists and listen to the sounds and themes of Black America in a musically explosive decade.

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9781476697116

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Reviews

""Wasserman's writing is fleet, compressed, marvellously readable. This is the kind of book you inhale whole, even while darting back and forth to YouTube and Spotify, amazed at the discoveries he has batted your way. Life Could Be a Dream is a five-star introduction to the post-war decade that revolutionized American music.""--Adam Gussow, professor of English and Southern Studies, University of Mississippi, author of Beyond the Crossroads: The Devil and the Blues Tradition

Author Information

Jerry Wasserman lives in Vancouver, Canada, where he is emeritus professor of English and Theatre at the University of British Columbia. He has written or edited five books and lectured widely on African American music, including twice at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is also an actor with more than 200 film and TV credits.

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