Book recommendation: Rock'n'Roll 39-59

Since there are a lot of rockin' people on this board I thought I let you know about this incredible and brandnew illustrated book that I found last week in a book shop in Hamburg. It's called "Rock'n'Roll 39-59" and is full of various pictures, concert posters, magazine covers etc. from that era. Beyond that it features texts from renowned writers like Greil Marcus, Peter Guralnick, Charlie Gillett and David Halberstam.

HERE you can find more informations about this truely fantastic book and even take a look at some of its photos.

Among the many pictures in this book are also some of the famous Elvis photos by Alfred Wertersheim from 1956. Speaking of Wertersheim: For every Elvis fan I highly recommend his book "Elvis at 21" which features all of Elvis photos.

At last I have a not totally unselfish recommendation (for all German or German speaking Setzer/Rock'n'Roll fans on this board, at least): my own book! I hope you don't mind this little advertising. The book is called "Halbstarke" and is my doctoral thesis. As such it is a comparative analysis of the 1950s youth rebellion in the USA and West Germany.

"Halbstarke" - literally translated as "semi-strongs" or "half-strongs" - has been the German term for the "wild ones" of the 1950s that were labeled as juvenile delinquents in the US. With hindsight, in both countries (in fact, in a majority of the industrialised nations) these groups of adolescents played an important role in what I described as the "liberation of adolescence from the restraints of parental and adult control". The emergence of rock'n'roll as "youth" music has also been a major factor for that development.

So for everyone with an interest in postwar history or youth culture this book might be a good read.

You can find it HERE.


Cheers,

The fake Reverend but true scholar speading the gospel of rock'n'roll and everything related to it

I second the Reverend's recommendation. Rock 'n' Roll 39-59 is a fantastic book for any music fan to have in their collection. I picked my copy up from an exhibition, of the same name, when I was in Paris last year. I could have happily spent many more hours at the exhibition, they showed a cool film about the rise of 50s RnR, had loads of photos and memorabilia and the best bit for me was getting to see Buddy Holly's acoustic guitar (with the leather case that he made himself) up close.

Rave on!

Faith wrote:

I second the Reverend's recommendation. Rock 'n' Roll 39-59 is a fantastic book for any music fan to have in their collection. I picked my copy up from an exhibition, of the same name, when I was in Paris last year. I could have happily spent many more hours at the exhibition, they showed a cool film about the rise of 50s RnR, had loads of photos and memorabilia and the best bit for me was getting to see Buddy Holly's acoustic guitar (with the leather case that he made himself) up close.

Rave on!

I agree; I wrote a topic about this parisian exposition on Mandi's site. It was really great and seeing stuffs like Elvis clothes was very moving. I'd like to have a copy of the film. And the book is strongly recommended (cool pics, most of them unseen).

FrenchyCat

Amazon says Rock'n'Roll 39-59 will be released in April in the US - looks like a must have

sounds geat,are the rock n roll trio mentioned...johnny and dorsey burnete along with paulburlison?brian

I recently read The Rockabilly Legends: They Called It Rockabilly Long Before It Was Called Rock 'n' Roll by Jerry Naylor and Steve Halliday. Naylor had the unfortunate honor of replacing Buddy Holly as the lead singer of the Crickets after Holly's death. The book is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the birth of rockabilly/rock-n-roll. It also comes with a DVD of a show done for PBS, which contains some great footage of Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc. Very cool.