When Rock Was Young: A Nostalgic Review of the Top Forty Era [Paperback]

Bruce Pollock (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co; 1St Edition edition (June 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0030498414
• ISBN-13: 978-0030498411
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,601,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

After winning the Dejur award for fiction at CCNY(later won by Walter Mosley) and the Deems Taylor award for journalism from ASCAP, my review of Bruce Springsteen's second album is published in the Sunday New York Times, launching a freelance career in which I publish an article a week in one publication or another for something like 13 years. During the same time, I produce eight books, including three young adult novels for Houghton Mifflin. "An animated funny book," hails The Horn Book about the first. "Ray is a winning narrator," says Kirkus about the second. "Wry, funny, knowledgeable and shrewd," says School Library Journal about the third.
Aside from The Disco Handbook, my best seller is The Face of Rock & Roll: Images of a Generation (Holt), which was even hailed in Creem Magazine. This was followed by When Rock Was Young ("A fine work of impressionistic nostalgia," The Baltimore Sun) and When the Music Mattered ("Notable and worthwhile, insightful and evocative," Publishers Weekly).
After creating the first music video column in USA Today, I help start GUITAR For the Practicing Musician, which will become the most successful music magazine launched in the 80s, and edit the first 100 issues. During this period Hipper Than Our Kids is published by Schirmer. "One of the best books about the boomers and their generation," said Greg Shaw.
After jumping to another dream job as a record producer at BMG, now Sony BMG, I continue writing for Musician and Entertainment Weekly and compiling annual reference books on songs for Gale Research, leading to The Rock Song Index: the 7500 Most Important Songs of the Rock and Roll Era (Schirmer) which is praised by Booklist for its "concise, often excellent commentary" and the Bomp Bookshelf "Pollock is perhaps the most important scholar of American pop music."
In 2002, I compile over 100 interviews into Working Musicians: Defining Moments from the Road, the Studio and the Stage (Harper Collins)."A marathon Phish concert of a book," (Variety). "Marvelous, compulsively readable,"(Paul Williams). In 2005, the second, greatly revised, edition of The Rock Song Index comes out (Routledge) "Music fans will find plenty of satisfaction." (Gale Reviews)
Now I have completed my latest novel, first for adults, The Next Year Effect, a fictionalized memoir (are there any other kind) based on the lives of one of the rock and roll era's most romantic and tragic songwriting couples, but more importantly, a culmination of my experiences in and out of the music business and the writing business for the last thirty years.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview of the early days of rock'n'roll, May 18, 2005

By 

Tim H. Roehm "TbirdTim" (San mateo) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: When Rock Was Young: A Nostalgic Review of the Top 40 Era (Hardcover)

I bought this book when it was first published (yikes! in 1981). It has always been one of my favorites. I randomly pick it up and turn to any page and just start reading -- it's like a bible of early days of rock'n'roll. What else can I say except after almost 25 years later this is still a very enjoyable journal. I recommend this to anyone with thirst of the mid-fifties to early sixties music scene. Bruce Pollock is an excellent writer, too.

1.0 out of 5 stars When Rock was Young, May 21, 2006

By 

old rocker "dicks38" (Upland,California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When Rock Was Young: A Nostalgic Review of the Top Forty Era (Paperback)

Not recommended, Light on information and heavy on opinion, written by a critic trying to feel important.