Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977 [In The Stacks]
Posted May 20th, 2010 · Artists: Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones
Recently I have been making some efforts to get into some more rock/music literature/books and have reviewed a few so far on the site, and the latest in my efforts was this book by Jim Miller self-describingly about the ‘rise of rock and roll’ covering a period from the 40s through the early 70s. The book takes short anectdotal looks at various periods and events in rock history and makes generally good connections to tie them in with each other and with the general fabric of the history of rock. The book in that sense is not incredibly in depth on any subject, but it also basically touches on every single notable subject and artist from the time period and fairly well captures the molding and shaping of rock and roll up through the 70s, and thus shares a great portrait of the origins of where we are now in the music world. This is an excellent book on the history of rock, and for its completeness without being overbearing I highly recommend it as a sort of ‘Rock History 101′ kind of book to give anyone a great framework and starting point of how music progressed from the blues to Elvis to The Beatles to Bowie and so on forward.
As I said above, the book is split into fairly short (4-5 page) chapters that each cover some part or period of rock history, be it Elvis’ first singles, Sgt. Pepper’s, David Bowie’s debut or The Beatles meeting Bob Dylan. Each story is a little vignette covering a very specific topic not in excruciating detail but still giving you the gist of the event and placing it in some sort of overall context with the rest of the stories in the book. It also covers it all chronologically so you feel as if you are really following along and living with a lot of the stories as you go through and you can really see the progression of styles and artists, especially with The Beatles from their poppy beginnings to their heady, studio masterpieces. You get a real sense of how they get from A to B, which is really cool. For most people who didn’t grow up in this era, and unless you have read extensively on the subject, most of these classic bands are just names, with albums and Revolver is a Beatles album the same as With The Beatles is a Beatles album. Sure they sound completely different but you don’t necessarily get a feel for how they got from one end to the other, and this book is cool in that it tries, in a somewhat limited capacity, to give some sense of that by telling the story of rock and roll piecemeal in a chronological way. Another great passage in the book details the buzz and rise of David Bowie and his Ziggy Stardust character and it is described in such an in the moment and great way that you can almost replace David Bowie with a band like Arcade Fire and think back to when that band was buzzing and breaking big and how word of mouth just kept spreading and everyone just had to see/hear this band.
A lot of the stories I had already heard, and a lot I hadn’t heard. Unless you are a rock historian there is a good chance that there are some stories in here that will be new to you, and there will be some you already knew. But for younger people who weren’t even close to born during this era this is a good window into what happened back in those days and how events shaped the future of rock and roll from the beginning until the 70s. If you want a good, broad base of knowledge of the history of rock, this book is the perfect thing to read.
One thing about the book is that it is certainly of the time period, and while there is an attempted large scale attempt at reconciling modern music with what is discussed in the book, it is not really done quite as well. The book largely exists as a great history book, or document of the times that were back in those days. The author clearly has a low opinion of what has happened in music since the years covered in the book, and while some of his criticism is probably fair, it is maybe a little overbroad. But as I said, this is really about the history, so commentary on the current scene is not necessarily what you are looking for when you read this.
Even for people who live, eat and breathe music such as myself, I think this is a great, quick read on the history of the blues and general popular rock music from the 50s, 60s and 70s. You will almost probably learn something you didn’t know, and the way the book is written chronologically in piecemeal chapters makes it a very easily digestible and entertaining trip through the history of rock. Additionally, for anyone not entirely familiar with the background of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan or Elvis or really any other artist around those times, they are almost all touched on here at least and you can gather a lot of background on a whole lot of time just by reading this. This is a good read and if you want to take a trip down memory lane with all the classic artists this is a good way to go.
Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977 is available in paperback from Amazon.
