All Shook Up: How Rock 'n' Roll Changed America by Glenn C. AltschulerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
A nice, enthusiastics read of the musically seminal decade roughly around the '50s. I don't see the author making a cogent argument that rock "changed" America. It could have been symptom, catalyst, cause or had any of those roles at different times. I do like that the author went deeper into more obscure pioneers and dimensions of this story than I usually see in such histories, including coverage of Pat Boone bleaching rock, LaVern Baker, Jack Barry, the broadcaster-led BMI, payola and the birth of Top 40, Arlan Coolidge, social critic Vance Packard, Elvis Presley's longtime guitarist Scotty Moore, and more. The biggest thing for me was a clear vision on how hillbilly instrumentalists reacting to R&B gave birth to the rock sound and rock combo formatL
..."Bill Haley and the Comets." Composed of six
or seven men, playing stringed instruments, drums, and a saxophone,
with Haley as guitarist and lead singer, the Comets played driving and
danceable music. Haley's own composition, "Crazy, Man, Crazy,"
reached the Billboard's Top Twenty. The tune had a pop beat, The
Cash Box reported; the lyrics "lend themselves to R&B treatment, and
the instrumentalization is hillbilly."
"He didn't even know what to
call it, for the love of Christ," snorts critic Nick Tosches, citing Haley's
comment that the Comets used country and western instruments to
play rhythm and blues, "and the result is pop music....
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