Product Description

'Rock in the late '60's was still a spontaneous combustion. Nobody thought in terms of long-term strategies; hanging on once the thrill had worn off would have been inconceivable. If anyone had suggested to me then that the Stones or the Who might still be wearily treading the boards in their fifties, I'd have called for the men in white jackets.'Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom was the first book to celebrate the language of rock 'n' roll. It was a cogent yet unruly history of the era, from Bill Haley to Jimi Hendrix. And while telling outrageous tales, vividly describing the music and cutting through the hype, Nik Cohn unknowingly engendered a new form: rock criticism. A classic and crucial history of pop.'The first best book on rock 'n' roll and still the best first book to read.' Greil Marcus.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #205304 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'The definitive history of rock 'n' roll' Rolling Stone

About the Author
Nik Cohn was brought up in Derry, Northern Ireland. His books include I Am Still the Greatest Says Johnny Angelo, Ball the Wall, The Heart of the World and, most recently, Need. He also wrote the story that gave rise to Saturday Night Fever and collaborated on Rock Dreams with the artist Guy Peellaert. He lives in Shelter Island, New York, and Ardara, County Donegal.

Customer Reviews

Six stars
When it came out in the late 60's this wasn't the first book about pop music. There had been others which attempted an objective overview of the still-young genre, along the lines of "Bob Dylan was important because he fused folk music and pop music, making the lyrics as important as the music with a combination of social commentary and surrealism.....". Cohn's take on Dylan was that he couldn't sing, couldn't play guitar or mouth harp but looked sexy. Quite a different emphasis!

Cohn was an ex-rock journalist and the book is written completely subjectively, to celebrate rock not to analyse it. It traces the history of Pop from Frank Sinatra to the late 60s, with my paperback first edition having a update from the original hardback. The title refers to Cohn's assertion that Little Richard's 'Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom' says more about rock and roll than any of Bob Dylan's lyrics.

Cohn seemed to have a knack of being in the right place at the right time- he was at the Club A Go-Go in Newcastle watching the Animals, was at the Empire in Liverpool to see the carnage after a Rolling Stones concert. Also 'Saturday Night Fever' was taken from his short story, so presumably he still had the knack after the book was written- although I'm not sure what he'd have made of disco!

He tells some great stories in the book, describes some great charaters from the 50s and 60s- Bert Berns, Phil Spector- if you want to know what rock and roll was really like, read this book. It's a lot more fun than lots of the 'historical' accounts and I bet it's a lot closer to the truth.

How about an update Nik?

Psychedlephia?
I found this in a remaindered bookshop a few weeks ago. It's a pleasant read, being a fairly brisk survey of the history of pop music from the point of view of the end of the sixties. Cohn quickly introduces each performer (e.g. "Gene Vincent had a bad leg.", "Eddie Cochran was pure rock.", "Paul Simon was a small, serious, fuzzy-haired man..."), before sketching in their origins and achievements. For a critic, he shows a commendable lack of objectivity in his assessments, even betraying a certain impatience with some artists as he admits that he can't be bothered to say much about them.

For the most part, I think his assessments have held up very well over the forty years since this book was written, although it's inevitable that some of these no longer fit with current views of this period: I was surprised to see a whole chapter devoted to PJ Proby, for example, and I don't think anyone would still believe that Cliff Richard's "Living Doll" was "by far the most influential British single of the whole decade" (p68); although such an argument could perhaps be made for "Move It", which is ignored by Cohn.

Finally, there are an interesting couple of neologisms in the text which I don't think I'd come across previously: I think "schnide" (p201) and "psychedelphia" (p257) might have been synonyms for "snide" and "psychedelia", but they don't seem to have caught on.

Incredible.
Incredible book ....with brain rushing insights into the power of music, its bit part actors, its dreamers, its summit of the mountain players and its emergence as a potent force amongst the masses. Written with a white light abandon that todays people pleasing hacks could only dream of. Get one then start buying it for your friends. Enjoy.