Record Makers and Breakers

[Alan Balfour]

From Publishers Weekly (November 21st). The book is announced for February 2009 publication. Massive tome with price to match.
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Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll
Pioneers John Broven. Univ. of Illinois, $50 (592p) ISBN 978-0-252-03290-5

A consultant to the U.K.'s Ace Records, Broven (Rhythm and Blues in
New Orleans) has followed rock and R&B closely for more than half a
century. Covering the convoluted history of the recording industry
from the 1940s to the 1960s, he combines in-depth archival research
with fascinating anecdotes about chart-toppers, shady characters and
label owners ("the ultimate risk takers"). To survey the situations
that turned Tin Pan Alley topsy-turvy and spawned the post-WWII rise
of the low-budget indie labels, Broven begins with the symbiotic
relationship of jukebox distributors, DJs and record retailers. He
conducted 100 interviews, including with key industry figures:
Marshall Chess (Chess Records), Sam Phillips (Sun), Jerry Wexler
(Atlantic) and George Avakian (Columbia). Yet he does not ignore
lesser-known players such as Mimi Trepel, the "unseen heroine of rock
'n' roll," who witnessed the "social upheavals in music" as she went
from Brooklyn radio to head of foreign distribution for London
Records. The impact of conniving entrepreneurs on the musicians and
the layering of rich details and digressive detours as Broven traces
the transition from R&B to rock make this equal to Roger D. Kinkle's
massive, four-volume Complete Encyclopedia of Popular Music and Jazz.