Basses burbled low, tenors soared, leads wailed, and choruses chanted in harmony in the earliest doowop groups as this cutting-edge early rock 'n' roll music captured the atmosphere of the era, a long-ago sound that touches the emotions even today. Doowop rose out of teen culture on the streets of Chicago and other big cities in the 1950s, creating a new type of music that largely supplanted the old forms of rhythm and blues and pop music. The wailing, the soaring harmonies, and the wild vocal riffing - which many listeners scorned - represented the creativity of youth and their love of vocal harmony and rock 'n' roll. Robert Pruter has mined sources ranging from fanzines to the Chicago Defender and conducted extensive interviews in putting together Doowop, which provides fresh and welcome insights into this vibrant chapter in American music. Readers of Pruter's work will learn about not just major acts such as the Spaniels, the Dells, the Flamingos, and the Moonglows, but virtually every Chicago doowop group that contributed to that era.
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"Meticulously chronicles the careers of legendary 1950s R & B vocal groups such as the Flamingos, Moonglows, Spaniels, and El Dorados (as well as myriad lesser-known aggregations)...Vividly describes an enchanting time on the local music scene, when a handful of teenagers could taste rock 'n' roll stardom with harmonies they cooked up on a street corner." -- Chicago Tribune
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For Chicago music fans,
By A Customer
This review is from: Doowop: THE CHICAGO SCENE (Music in American Life) (Paperback)
A fascinating journey through the doowop era in Chicago. It's all here-singers, songwriters, record companies. If it happened, Pruter has chronicled it. Another book by the same author-"Chicago Soul"-picks up the story where this book ends.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Chance Records, along with Parrot, Chess, and United, was one of the pioneering labels in Chicago to record the new African American sounds that swept the city in the post-World War II years, the music of doowop harmony groups and Mississippi blues adapted to the urban scene with electrically amplified instruments. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
doowop era, doowop groups, chop chop boom, ballad side, vocal harmony groups, soul era, sax break, bluesy ballad, teen appeal, roll revolution, first tenor, second tenor, jump tune, alternate lead, vocal groups, tenor lead, local hit, subsequent remarks, national hit, bass work, lead tenor, record distributors, record collector, subsidiary label Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Vee Jay, Five Chances, New York, South Side, Chicago Defender, Kool Gents, Herb Kent, Five Thrills, West Side, Duke of Earl, Five Echoes, Sam Evans, Alan Freed, Bel Aires, Faith Taylor, Altgeld Gardens, Five Buddies, Johnny Carter, Reggie Smith, Rhythm Aces, Harvey Fuqua, Calvin Carter, Carl Davis, Chance Records, Chess Records New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Chance Records, along with Parrot, Chess, and United, was one of the pioneering labels in Chicago to record the new African American sounds that swept the city in the post-World War II years, the music of doowop harmony groups and Mississippi blues adapted to the urban scene with electrically amplified instruments. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
doowop era, doowop groups, chop chop boom, ballad side, vocal harmony groups, soul era, sax break, bluesy ballad, teen appeal, roll revolution, first tenor, second tenor, jump tune, alternate lead, vocal groups, tenor lead, local hit, subsequent remarks, national hit, bass work, lead tenor, record distributors, record collector, subsidiary label Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Vee Jay, Five Chances, New York, South Side, Chicago Defender, Kool Gents, Herb Kent, Five Thrills, West Side, Duke of Earl, Five Echoes, Sam Evans, Alan Freed, Bel Aires, Faith Taylor, Altgeld Gardens, Five Buddies, Johnny Carter, Reggie Smith, Rhythm Aces, Harvey Fuqua, Calvin Carter, Carl Davis, Chance Records, Chess Records New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
29
books
cite this book:
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- Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul by Craig Werner in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Poetics of Rock: Cutting Tracks, Making Records by Albin J. Zak in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Understanding Charles Seeger, Pioneer in Musicology (Music in American Life) by Bell Yung in Back Matter
- Music in Lubavitcher Life (Music in American Life) by Ellen Koskoff in Back Matter
- Theremin: ETHER MUSIC AND ESPIONAGE (Music in American Life) by Albert Glinsky in Back Matter
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