USA: Entertainment and culture
Kenneth Anger Hollywood Babylon . A vicious yet high-spirited romp through Tinseltown's greatest scandals, amply illustrated with gory and repulsive photographs, and always inclined to bend the facts for the sake of a good story. A shoddily researched second volume covers more recent times.Joshua Berrett (ed) The Louis Armstrong Companion: Eight Decades of Commentary . Broad selection of essays, interviews, letters, reviews and autobiography, revealing the world's most influential musician in all his complexity. A fine introduction to the subject, featuring lots of previously unpublished material: standouts include Armstrong's own lament about defeatism and negativity in his fellow black men.
Charlotte Greig Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow ? Enthusiastic feminist appraisal of (predominantly American) girl groups from the 1950s (the Chantels and the Crystals) through to 1980s rap stars like Salt 'n' Pepa. Though inevitably somewhat dated now, its many photos and personal recollections still make it a great read.
*Peter Guralnick Lost Highways, Feel Like Going Home and Sweet Soul Music . Thoroughly researched personal histories of black popular music, packed with obsessive detail on all the great names. His more recent Elvis biographies, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love , trace the rise and fall of the iconic star in a nonsensational but nonetheless gripping documentary manner, while also performing the rare trick of evaluating him seriously as a musician.
Gerri Hershey Nowhere To Run: the History of Soul Music . Definitive rundown on the evolution of soul music from the gospel heyday of the 1940s through the Memphis, Motown and Philly scenes to the sounds of the early 1980s. Strong on social commentary and political background and studded with anecdotes and interviews.
Greil Marcus Dead Elvis . Vastly entertaining overview of the many Elvis myths, if a little hastily put together from previously published articles. Marcus's Mystery Train is an intelligent and absorbing overview of American popular music, from Robert Johnson to Elvis Presley and Randy Newman.
Michael Ondaatje Coming through Slaughter . Extraordinary, dream-like fictionalization of the life of doomed New Orleans cornet player Buddy Bolden, written in a lyrical style that evokes the rhythms and pace of jazz improvisation.
Robert Palmer Deep Blues . Readable history of the development and personalities of the Delta Blues.
Randall Reise Nashville Babylon . Thrashes the squeaky-clean image of the country music scene. Cocaine, whiskey, infidelity, murder, rape and other skeletons are dug up from the closets of some unlikely characters.
Henry Rollins Get in the Van . Illustrated diary of a trek round the US and Europe with punk band Black Flag during the early 1980s. Rollins lives up to his malcontent reputation by criticizing almost everywhere he visits: Madison, Wisconsin, being about the only place he seems to like.
David E. Stanley The Elvis Encyclopedia . It might lack the authoritative analysis of Peter Guralnick's book (see above), but this well-illustrated tome, by Presley's stepbrother, is the most enjoyable of the many coffee-table trivia books on the subject. Interesting oddments include "Elvis's Iron Constitution."
*Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns et al Jazz: A History of America's Music . While the story peters out somewhat after bebop, this highly readable volume (linked to the TV series) boasts hundreds of illustrations and rare photographs, first-hand accounts and lively essays to provide a beautifully drawn picture of America's home-grown music and its icons.
John Williams Into the Badlands . Williams' interviews with a group of America's very best crime writers build a picture of the underbelly of US society from the Montana mountainsides of James Crumley to the mean streets of Elmore Leonard's Detroit. He lapses into sexism, however, when dealing with Chicago's Sara Paretsky, who "is learning as she goes along."
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