The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 2: 1964-1977: The Beatles, the Stones, and the Rise of Classic Rock

by Ed Ward

Overview

From rock and roll historian Ed Ward comes a comprehensive, authoritative, and enthralling cultural history of one of rock's most exciting eras.

It's February 1964 and The Beatles just landed in New York City, where the NYPD, swarms of fans, and a crowd of two hundred journalists await their first American press conference. It begins with the question on everyone's mind: "Are you going to get a haircut in America?" and ends with a reporter tugging Paul McCartney's hair in an attempt to remove his nonexistent wig. This is where The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 2 kicks off. Chronicling the years 1964 through the mid-1970s, this latest volume covers one of the most exciting eras of rock history, which saw a massive outpouring of popular and cutting-edge music.

Ward weaves together an unputdownable narrative told through colorful anecdotes and shares the behind-the-scenes stories of the megastars, the trailblazers, DJs, record executives, concert promoters, and producers who were at the forefront of this incredible period in music history. From Bob Dylan to Bill Graham, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Byrds, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, and more, everyone's favorite musicians of the era make an appearance in this sweeping history that reveals how the different players, sounds, and trends came together to create the music we all know and love today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250165190
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	11/19/2019
Series:	The History of Rock & Roll , #2
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	493,510
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Ed Ward (1948-2021) was a renowned rock music critic for such publications as Crawdaddy, Rolling Stone, Creem, and The Austin American-Statesman. As NPR’s “Fresh Air” rock-and-roll historian for more than thirty years, Ward shared his musical knowledge of musicians and bands, both famous and obscure, to an audience of fourteen million listeners.

One of the founders of Austin’s South by Southwest (SXSW) music and film festivals, Ward’s books include The History of Rock & Roll, Volume One: 1920-1963, The History of Rock & Roll Volume Two, 1964-1977: The Beatles, the Stones, and the Rise of Classic Rock, and Michael Bloomfield: The Rise and Fall of an American Guitar Hero. From 2018-2020, he offered in-depth commentary about his rock history books as co-host of the Let It Roll podcast.

Table of Contents

The Story So Far
Your Sons and Your Daughters Are Beyond Your Command
Annus Mirabilis II: Help from My Friends
This Is the Love Crowd, Right?
It's 1969, Okay
Inventing "The Sixties"
I Am The Song That My Enemy Sings
Long Live Rock!
Waiting for the Renaissance
Epilogue: August 16, 1977

Editorial Reviews

09/23/2019

Following up The History of Rock & Roll: 1920 to 1963, Ward smartly and succinctly surveys just over a decade of rock’s rapid evolution. He covers the gamut of musical styles, including the British Invasion, surf sound, guitar rock, R&B, soul, blues, reggae, country, and even some jazz. Not surprisingly, he begins with the Beatles and posits the decades-old question, “Beatles or Stones,” explaining the bands’ different backgrounds (Beatles, working-class Liverpool; Stones, middle-class London) and how each had its own devoted fan base. Ward includes some great tidbits, such as how the small labels that released some of the Beatles’ early U.S. records filed injunctions against Capitol Records in 1964; how Jan Berry of Jan & Dean nearly died in a car accident at the spot he wrote about years earlier in their song “Dead Man’s Curve”; and how the unintelligible lyrics of “Louie, Louie” came to be investigated by the FBI. Ward ends the decade with The Last Waltz, Martin Scorcese’s documentary of The Band’s 1976 concert, whose guests (Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Ringo Starr, Ronnie Wood, and Neil Young) “had been enshrined by Rolling Stone... as rock royalty.” Ward’s deep dive into this influential era will send even the most knowledgable rock aficionados back to their vinyl collections. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 1: 1920 – 1963

“Deeply researched, but conversational in tone. [Ward] nerds out just the right amount, moving briskly from hit to hit and craze to craze, slowing down only to impart a few choice anecdotes.” —The Washington Post

“A dean of rock journalism delivers the first volume of a magnum opus on a subject that never ceases to fascinate...turning up plenty of surprises and fresh insights. A spry study that should inspire listening with new, and newly informed, ears to old tunes.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Ward’s vivid anecdotes make the book more fun to read that 98 percent of tomes with ‘history’ in their title.” —Dallas Morning News

“A book like this is indispensable. Ward’s warm, welcoming voice allows him to both inform and entertain.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

From the Publisher

★ 2019-10-28
A sprawling yet strangely compact history of the years of rock's golden age.

Austin-based music journalist Ward, co-host of the Let It Roll podcast, sets a daunting task: to say something new about the likes of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, each of which fills libraries of criticism and biography. He answers by going deep here and there while painting a big picture view of the effect those groups had on the world, especially the United States. The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. By 1965, writes the author, "guitar bands were erupting everywhere," a pack headed by the Byrds but made up of groups as various as the Lovin' Spoonful, the McCoys, the Bobby Fuller Four, and the bizarre Nightcrawlers, of "Little Black Egg" fame. The Brits captured the most attention during that time, but things were happening on plenty of peripheries: Memphis, for instance, where Otis Redding was working hard to develop an audience and write a hit, and American towns everywhere, where one-hit wonders were doing their thing. "Who were Pidgeon? Rhinoceros? Kak? The Serpent Power? The Wildflower? Zakary Thaks? The Harbinger Complex? Crow?" Ward asks, answering, no one and everyone, sometimes capable of producing songs and artists that would go on to make history, such as guitar wizard David Lindley and Captain Beefheart. Of course, the Stones and the Beatles figure prominently in the narrative, but so do whirlwinds of bands who sometimes turn up a dozen to the page in Ward's overstuffed narrative. As for the age-old question, Beatles or Stones? Ward delivers a nicely oblique answer: It depends on whether you like live or studio music. By the end of the book, which is full of interesting surprises—e.g., it was Frank Sinatra's label that took a chance on Jimi Hendrix—readers will have encountered scores of bands they've never heard of and plenty of grist for the playlist.

Essential for deep-dyed rock fans, collectors, and fans of literate music writing.

Kirkus Reviews

Listeners may feel overwhelmed by this second volume of rock-and-roll history, as its beginning is a summary of the previous volume, which ends in 1963. The history then slows down some, but it still offers a lot of information to take in. Colacci conveys hints of the author's dry humor and does a good John Lennon impression, but the fast pace and wide scope of this audiobook are daunting. The Beatles play a large role in the story, naturally. Listeners will also hear about Andy Warhol and Frank Zappa, ROLLING STONE magazine and the Rolling Stones, Monterey Pop and Woodstock. It may be too much for some, but unfamiliar stories pop up among the oft-told tales to reward listeners. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2020 - AudioFile

Listeners may feel overwhelmed by this second volume of rock-and-roll history, as its beginning is a summary of the previous volume, which ends in 1963. The history then slows down some, but it still offers a lot of information to take in. Colacci conveys hints of the author's dry humor and does a good John Lennon impression, but the fast pace and wide scope of this audiobook are daunting. The Beatles play a large role in the story, naturally. Listeners will also hear about Andy Warhol and Frank Zappa, ROLLING STONE magazine and the Rolling Stones, Monterey Pop and Woodstock. It may be too much for some, but unfamiliar stories pop up among the oft-told tales to reward listeners. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2020 - AudioFile