From Spirituals to Punk

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Green Day FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the World’s Most Popular Punk Band (Backbeat Books), by Hank Bordowitz

Green Day had the energy of punk rock but the melody of ‘60s rock. Almost alone among their ‘90s peers in the Bay Area punk scene, they took up Kurt Cobain’s maxim: Don’t forget The Beatles. They had the potential to become big and instead of blowing it, they accommodated themselves to the music industry. Of course, as author Hank Bordowitz writes, their old friends accused them of selling out. His supportive and informative chronicle shows how Green Day earned new legions of fans as their songwriting grew with them. “They do this by always writing from the heart and keeping their hearts in the here and now,” Bordowitz adds.

Lemon Jail: On the Road with The Replacements (University of Minnesota Press), by Bill Sullivan

Tour managers are like assistant directors in movie credits—presumably important but overshadowed by the project they help facilitate. Bill Sullivan worked as tour manager for Soul Asylum, Jimmie Vaughan and Yo La Tengo, but got started in the ‘80s with The Replacements. Lemon Jail is the story of seven Minneapolis guys crammed into a rattletrap van, braving icy roads as they began to tour out-of-town clubs. He was their roadie, hauling amps, connecting loose wires, getting in and out of trouble. Lemon Jail is a gritty eyewitness story of a band determined to go places.

The Life I’ve Picked: A Banjo Player’s Journey (Chicago Review Press), by John McEuen

For many kids growing up in the ‘60s and dreaming of becoming someone, the guitar was their way out. For John McEuen, it was the banjo. Graduating from high school at the end of the folk-blues revival, McEuen’s revelation came not from seeing The Beatles but The Dillards. In The Life I’ve Picked, the cofounder of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recalls playing chess (and banjo) in high school with Steve Martin. His band arrived at a time when their vision of old America sounded fresh again. The Nitty Gritty boys opened for The Doors—and Jack Benny—and managed to straddle country and rock. They can be heard as grandfathers of Americana. McEuen’s solo career has also been notable for its diversity, including a gig accompanying 50 goats, a cow and 20 kids for a “Sesame Street” music video of “Oh, Susanna.”

Red Hot Mama: The Life of Sophie Tucker (University of Texas Press), by Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff

Sophie Tucker didn’t influence Madonna or Lady Gaga— she anticipated them. In the first half of the last century, Tucker was a musical-entertainment powerhouse, bawdy yet somehow disarming and acceptable in the mainstream. Her biographer, University of South Carolina cultural historian Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff, calls Tucker “a force unto herself.” She may have been entirely of her Tin Pan Alley time musically, but she was innovative in marketing and branding. Sklaroff traces Tucker from her beginnings as a singing waitress at her parents’ kosher restaurant through stardom and her genial fade into nostalgia. Sklaroff acknowledges that Tucker was often selfish personally, but was generous in public life, a philanthropist and go-getter for good causes.

Rhapsody in Black; The Life and Music of Roy Orbision (Backbeat Books), by John Kruth

Roy Orbison was a self-conscious young man who transmuted his anxiety into gold records. As recording artist and Milwaukee expatriate John Kruth writes in his biography of the songwriter and singer behind “Only the Lonely” and “Running Scared,” even Orbison’s guitar was one of the masks he wore. Kruth’s sense of humor doesn’t conceal his sympathy for his subject or eclipse his exhaustive research. He talked to anyone still alive who knew Orbison, the greatest introvert to achieve rock stardom. Originally published in 2013, the new edition includes notes on recent reissues and documentaries.

Rock’n’Roll Radio Milwaukee: Stories from the Fifth Beatle (History Press), by Bob Barry

The Fifth Beatle? That would be their producer, George Martin, or their manager, Brian Epstein. Bob Barry’s claim is localized to Milwaukee where he was the top Top-40 DJ at the time The Beatles landed in America. He introduced their records here and introduced the band at their only Milwaukee show at the Arena. In Rock’n’Roll Radio Milwaukee, Barry shares recollections from his early years in radio. He debuted on WTKM, Hartford in 1958 playing rock and roll, polka and swing and announcing bowling league scores. He moved on to the graveyard shift at WEMP, Milwaukee and ascended rapidly. He was the go-to-guy on Milwaukee AM in the ‘60s and he’s got stories.

Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry (University of Illinois Press), by Sandra Jean Graham

African-American spirituals began as “songs of survival; they created a temporary escape for the spirit that was denied to captive bodies,” writes Sandra Jean Graham. After slavery, they became one of the roots—she argues the major source—of the black entertainment industry. In her revealing study, she explores the difficulties faced by pre-Civil War black entertainers; the burdens lightened only a little after Emancipation but the uncertain freedom they enjoyed permitted professionals to emerge, most of them singing concert arrangements of spirituals or influenced by those songs.

There But for Fortune: The Life of Phil Ochs (University of Minnesota Press), by Michael Schumacher

Phil Ochs was a major player in New York’s folk revival of the early 1960s but was almost totally eclipsed in popular memory by his friends, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. He was a prolific writer whose songs are little remembered. In the early ‘70s he tried to embrace rock and roll but—years too late!—his audience was dumfounded and rock fans weren’t buying. In this definitive biography, republished in paperback, Wisconsin author Michael Schumacher writes with sympathy and understanding—but not blindly—of Ochs and his place in ‘60s music and political activism. The ‘70s weren’t kind. He took his own life in 1976, age 35.