Customer Reviews

Rock & Roll: An Unruly History

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I had to write this to offer a different opinion to the one-star review below. Robert Palmer was one of this country's best music writers and a man who died way too young. This book is not his best (that'd be DEEP BLUES), but he does an excellent job of capturing the broad history of rock 'n' roll. He discusses what led up to that crucial moment at Sun Studios in 1954 (I don't think he's trying to say that the music sprang full-grown from Elvis) and where the music traveled from there.

Bear in mind, however, that this book also served as a companion to a PBS special. That it's able to stand alone without the visuals attests to its worth. It badly deserves to be back in print.

An intriguing archaeological dig down to the murky muddy roots of rock 'n' roll -- sifting through race politics and dogma back to pre-war gospel, blues and jazz, to the Caribbean, to Africa.

Robert Palmer was one of the best rock 'n' roll writers and historians. This is the basis for the PBS TV series ROCK 'N' ROLL, which,unfortunately, did not have nearly the depth of this (it quickly dispensed with rock's roots and showed only Elvis and other latecomers in its first episode). Sadly, Palmer died before he could flesh out this work, which remains a blueprint for future writers to follow on researching rock 'n' roll's roots. Go for it!

I read this book almost ten years ago, and I still remember it as a remarkable work that put everything into perspective -- a kind of enlightenment experience. I especially loved Palmer's background on the beginnings of rock & roll in the call-and-response tent revivals.

With regard to the Elvis controversy below, I don't think Palmer ever suggests that Elvis invented rock & roll -- he painstakingly documents the contributions of dozens of black artists like Pinetop Smith, T-Bone Walker, Roy Brown, Goree Carter (to whom he credits the first rock & roll record), Ike Turner etc, well before the Elvis "invasion" of the mid-1950s.

I loved it.

I actually read the book (found it in a used book store).
(Have NOT seen the TV program that this was the basis for, though.)
and I can't believe the one negative reviewer is describing the same book.
Now, I like Elvis, but Elvis is the least memorable person in this book, so not sure where the negative reviewer gets his info. (?maybe the TV program?)
I thought it was a great read.
Frank H. Lucido MD
Berkeley Ca

I ordered this book after savoring the experience of the PBS series. This book keeps it with me and expands it. Far out! I was so happy that this series was playing on TV while I was writing my novel "Forever Retro Blues" because it touched on so much I was writing about. Oh happy days when I found out there was a book it was based on.

Robert Palmer is rock journalism's leading musicologist. And if that isn't enough to scare you off, then allow me to keep trying. Let me note, by the way, that I experienced this book the old-fashioned way--via words on paper. If I refer to something left out of this abridged, read-aloud version, consider yourself lucky.

"Rock & Roll: An Unruly History" is your usual inept mock-musicological rock survey that strains to explain how Elvis Presley could possibly have invented a musical form created by Blacks in the mid-1940s. And this is what all rock and roll historianship comes down to: proving that Elvis was the Father of the form, in spite of unlimited evidence to the contrary. (Palmer, who has no patience for such conventionalities as "neatness and order," apparently also can't be bothered with burden of proof.)

And Palmer rejects any rock-genesis theory that would suggest the music started in one place and at one time, even though this is how everything gets its start, including popular music forms. Thus, after quoting Lionel Hampton's explanation that rock and roll evolved from jazz (which it did; countless mid-1940s recordings attest to this), Palmer rejects the idea as "simplistic thinking." The meaning of this non sequitor is as follows: Any definition of rock and roll that doesn't begin with Elvis has to be wrong. This is the essence of rock historianship.

Like most rock writers, Palmer is a gifted wordsmith. He drops names all over the place and fills his paragraphs with important-sounding quotes, and everything sounds formal and historical. But this is hype, not history. Respect your intelligence and save your money.