Heart & Soul celebrates the vibrant, flamboyant, and extravagant flowering in African American culture that occurred between 1930 and 1975. From Cab Calloway to Ray Charles, the Four Tops to the Delfonics, this informative and hugely entertaining book chronicles this musical history told in legends, facts, and rumors every bit as colorful as the images that illustrate the book. The story is filled with characters such as O. V. Wright, a singer deemed "too ugly to tour"; Frankie Lymon, who received a hot dog as full payment for some of the greatest R&B songs of all time; Billie Holiday shooting dice with the boys on the bus; and soul ghoul Screamin' Jay Hawkins locked in his coffin by the Drifters. Featuring 400 original photographs, publicity shots, posters, programs, advertisements, album sleeves, and more, here is a story of hot music and high style, of pencil-thin mustaches and zoot suits, and of audacious people who made the world a richer, wilder, and definitely cooler place for the rest of us.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Bob Merlis, Senior Vice President for Worldwide Corporate Communicatons at Warner Bros. Records, is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominating committee. He lives in Los Angeles, California. Davin Seay, Director of Media Information Services at Warner Bros. Records, is the author of Stairway to Heaven and Mick Jagger: The Story of a Rolling Stone. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Saturday night text-dancing,
By John Goldman rosegold@internetmci.com (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Heart & Soul: A Celebration of Black Music Style in America 1930-1975 (Hardcover)
I interrupted my wife's Sunday newspaper idyll to read aloud another's review of this book. My kids were stumped for birthday gift ideas. She put two and two together. What I expected was words that attempt to describe an art form. What I got was a date to a Saturday night text-dance and a trip down album-cover memory lane. This book is a "Land of 1,000 Dances" for the eyes. Stay away if you can't tap your feet and read at the same time.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Covers of color,
This review is from: Heart and Soul: "A Celebration of Black Music Style in America, 1930-1975" (Paperback)
A wrap-up of black music mixing all styles with the use of record covers to visually hold it all together. The breezy text is very generalised and really no more than naming performers, their hits and odd bits of showbiz gossip. I found it rather annoying that black music styles were mixed together, Charlie Parker, James Brown, Lonnie Johnson, Sonny Terry and Hadda Brooks are some of the record covers on pages ninety-four and five, the only common element is that they are all black, their music though, is completely different in style. Jazz is probably the only black music, in the past, to develop eye catching covers and the book ignores anything from record companies like Blue Note, Riverside, Atlantic or Verve. The last chapter, 'Soul for sale', includes several movie posters of black musicians appearing in pop music movies but it also deals with the marketing of black musicians as role models in advertising, mostly for cigarettes, alcohol and hair products and though it rather strays from the book's main focus it is a subject that would make an interesting visual book about this area of black life. Most of the four hundred illustrations in the book are covers and as expected none are of any design merit but put them all together in a book and they superficially become interesting. A similar thing occurs in 'A Separate Cinema' (ISBN 0374523606) probably the only book to concentrate on black cast movie posters. None of them will win any design awards yet they all have an exuberant colorful style when so many are presented together. 'Heart & Soul' is worth getting if you are interested in black visual culture and to bring it right up to date have a look at 'The Book of Hip Hop Cover Art' (ISBN 1840009195) by Andrew Emery. In this book some of the covers really are a treat to look at. ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Heart & Soul,
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This review is from: Heart and Soul: "A Celebration of Black Music Style in America, 1930-1975" (Paperback)
Good information, should have included more information from that era. So many artist of note not mention, but there is information there that has not been mentioned elsewhere. Good starter.
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