Big Beat Steve

I saw that list long ago (it was mentioned earlier in this thread). Thanks for bringing it up again. I had a quick look right now, and one error (or omission) I had noticed then and that still stands now is at the Hen Gates pseudonym: No idea who that "Jimmy Forman" was that this list alludes to but the ONE Hen Gates that many will know from the classic (of sorts) "Let's Go Dancing to Rock and Roll" LP (Masterseal MSLP 5005) credited to Hen Gates & HIs Gators actualy is a pseudonym for FREDDIE MITCHELL who saw some of his recordings for the Derby label recycled here. Since I mentioned that item some years ago I've come across more info made available elsewhere on the internet: http://bebopwinorip.blogspot.de/2010/03/hen-gates-and-his-gaters-lets-all-dance.html

Basically the Rolling Stone encyclopedias would be a good starter if you are interested in the 60s and 70s and not so much in later decades. But these books of course pick representative artists and bands to describe a style, i.e. they do not cover the ENTIRE history in an equal manner IMO. Maybe someone will be able to comment on the "Rock of Ages" books from Rolling Stone too? If you should want to get individual history books on the various styles of rock from that era (there must be dozens of books ...), here is one for 60s beat: https://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Beat-Chris-May/dp/0903985012 I bought this at the time (mid-70s) during a stay in London while still in high school. To this day this still is "second to none" to me from what I have seen elsewhere on the subject of British beat and R&B bands. BUT - this part of rock is not my primary focus in the history of rock so I have not kept abreast of other books that may since have been published. This one (which goes beyond beat and the British invasion) might be worth checking out too. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Then-Now-Rare-British-Beat/dp/0711990948 And there may be others. But you will have to wait for comments and recommendations from those who know this scene better than I do. As for psychedelic rock and the flower power era, there was a huge (almost LP-sized) book produced about 15 to 20 years ago by (or in close cooperation with) the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio that was lavishly produced and a real eye-catcher. I leafed through it at a local bookstore but did not buy it as I am not really into psychedelic rock but it WAS impressive. I cannot guarantee it but it may have been this one: https://www.alibris.com/I-Want-to-Take-You-Higher-The-Psychedelic-Era-1965-1969-Chronicle-Books/book/9041655

To me something still seems to be wrong. Whenever I log into Organissimo for the first time durng the day the site is announced as being inacessible. When I immediately retry there is no go either so it cannot just be a glitch here (and did not happen with other sites I tried to access anyway). I have to wait for a while and try again. Usually it then works (as it did just now after 30 minutes' pause) but sometimes it even then refuses to come up and i have to wait a bit more. Ocasionally this also happens at other times (after I had already tried to log in earlier during the day). This has never happened in the past (except in rare cases when the forum was generally inaccessible for a longer time).

I bought the 10-incher of This Modern World at a fleamarket a long, long time ago. This was my first exposure to Grattinger, and though I did not listen to it that often I never found it as weird as others (writing on the subject) have made it out to be. That shower curtain thing is a great idea, though ...

On a side note, her daugher Edna isn't totally unknown on the German scene either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_B%C3%A9jarano What she recorded with the Rattles of course wasn't the "real (Rattles) thing" any longer (but a second incarnation that went in quite a different direction) but it did make a splash at the time and brought back the name for a while. RIP Coco Schumann

So I thought ... it just amused me that this logo of that (alas) long gone shop cropped up again. Tom's still around but mail oder only from the Spanish isles now after he emigrated several years ago.

You bought this from VINYL WEST??

Same here. I also noticed that since the forum came back on after having been off for several days recently it again was off several tmies during the day in the past 1-2 days.

That's what I meant when i said my copy is tatty - it became tatty rather fast (pages separating from the spine which was not exactly glued very well for a REFERENCE book that you leaf through countless times) and I reglued it myself in various places early on. I am afraid they are right. See my "grain of salt" remark above. I have only progressed up to the end of 1956 so far and am sure I have not caught everything (or not paid attention to everything). It's not that the facts are all wrong but in some cases you wonder how such sloppiness came about. E.g. that very early country singer/star was Henry Whitter (not Whittier), the founder's and owner's name of Dot Records is Randy Wood (not Woods - a blunder repeated often), the duo that followed after Jesse Belvin went solo from Jesse & Marvin was NOT named Marvin and Jesse but Marvin and Johnny, and Bill Haley's Comets were named so LONG before they were signed by Decca (this Comets thing for example, Mr Ward, is VERY BASIC knowledge in this field and it behooves any rock music historian not to trip there!! ) - and so on ... OTOH, the writing is engaging and his way of presenting the evolution, artists and interactions in this field of music is very well done IMO. So if only he had gotten ALL of the facts straight.

When you are in a mood to let yourself be lured into these often both realistic and surreal paintings - yes! I've had this for almost as long as I was into collecting music. But in a MUCH better edition (to OUR target audience over here). When it came out in 1973/74 or so over here it was a fairly fat book that was combined with a "ROCK LEXIKON" (compiled by Ingeborg Schober, edited by the rock mag SOUNDS, I think) that was pretty, pretty good and thorough (though of course too slim for my taste on rock'n'ROLL, i.e. pre-1963 stuff, except for the obvious names). It became rather tatty through the years (though I still have it) so about 10 years ago I picked up a pristine overstock copy of the Peellaert/Cohn only Rock Dreams edition of the 70s (for ol' times sake). Have these paintings ever been continued beyond the "state of the art" of the early 70s? (I know it was reprinted in the 80s)

I didn't want to preempt what you may actually have to say about your book and was unsure if your book quite fits the bill of the thread starter because it covers the period to 1970 "only" (no complaints from my side about this ), but for the record. I for one liked your book and read it with great interest. IMO it definitely fills a gap in the literature on the subject. Anyone seriously interested in finding out about the evolution and history of one's favorite music (not just rock) is well advised to read SEVERAL books covering the history. Unfortunately EKE hasn't reported back since to indicate more specifically what his priorites are in such a book so I don't know either if, for example, the fact that your book has hardly any illustrations would be a drawback for him (no complaints here either, I can always pull out my copy of Michael Ochs' ROCK ARCHIVES (and others) to make up for that but the visual aspect does have its importance) . I agree that writings on the roots of rock'n'roll often are a bit too biased towards R&B but there ARE books out there that pull BOTH threads together. The one linked above I bought recently (The History of Rock & Roll Vol. 1 1920-1963 by Ed Ward) is one of them as far as I can see from what I so far have read and the angle adopted by the author makes for a very interesting read. But it needs to be taken with a grain of salt for other reasons (starting with the fact that a historian ought to get his NAMES right).

I've always heard the name pronounced "UR-sell" (by native speakers as the name IS familiar and evoked here and there in the circles I "also" move in). It IS an odd name and at the time (when I got that book) I wasn't quite sure this name and that character were real (and not somebody like that "Bye Bye Birdie" make-up) but found out soon. One day I picked up his Epic 45 with his sole hit (see above) but never was tempted to get his reissue LP that circulated in the late 80s. ("Going Down That Road" (about his only track that rocks) was out elsewhere too and the rest was fairly MOR-ish). @felser: That's not totally impossible (with whatever in that layout was around in the mid- to late 80s or so) but however I try to think about it I also remember opening the book to see if anything new or different was inside (I've always been eager to pick up books on the subject and that early era), only to discover that the contents were a scaled-down duplicate of the huge, huge first edition. The mystery remains ... But getting back to the orignal question: Would the Rolling Stone ENCYCLOPEDIA of Rock & Roll fit the bill of what the thread starter asked for? And what's with this "Rock of Ages" book?

Yes there are. "Xanadu at Montreux" (4 LPs from the 1978 appearance of a Xanadu all-star line-up set up by Don Schlitten at the Montreux festival). I have Vols. 3 and 4, listened to Vol. 4 last night and found Sam Most's flute somewhat airier, more typically "flute-ish" (as opposed to the more straight-ahead phrasing - for want of a better word - on his Behtlehem "I'm Nuts About the Most" LP. But "thuddy"? And there were 20 years between the two recordings so a lot can evolve one way or another. But this is not the one you remember. Dolo Coker and Barry Harris were on piano at Montreux.

This is strange ... I definitely never saw the third edition and do not think I ever looked closely at the second edition - for the very simple reason that my main interest in "rock" covers the REAL rock'n'roll period, i.e. the FIFTIES and up to the "British invasion" of the US (roughly up to 1963, earlier cut-off with some artists). The 60s (British Beat and R&B) also are of some interest but not quite as important to me as 50s R'n'R. So I always was fine with the first edition (like you said, the huge size brought out the best in many of the period pictures) and anything that would have reduced the content of the "early years" would have made it a no-go for me. BUT ... Several years after having bought the first edition (in 1978 IIRC) I distinctly remember having seen a much smaller edition of this book with the SAME red cover like the first edition somewhere in a bookstore. I quickly thumbed through it and saw the first part of the book at first glance looked the same, including photo layout and text typeface. So I did not check further (particularly not for any changes in the second half of the book) as it really appeared to be a duplicate of that huge 1st edition and the impact of the photos was lost somewhat in that smaller size anyhow. It may have been a British printing, though. I've thought this over not only since yesterday's post about this but also some time ago when discussion of the huge red first edition came up among fellow music collectors and its availability was discussed (which brought back to mind this downsized edition). I still can visualize that identical but downsized red cover (and remember my initial reaction "You HAVE that book but what size is this??") so am beginning to wonder if my memory can really trick me THAT badly ... By the way, where does this one (see link) fit in? https://www.amazon.com/Rock-Ages-Rolling-Stone-History/dp/0671630687 And thanks for the discussion (which invariably prompts online searches). Out of curiosity I just pulled the trigger on this one: https://www.amazon.com/History-Rock-Roll-1920-1963/dp/1250138493/ref=pd_sbs_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1250138493&pd_rd_r=JV7NW2AABM3XTKE1MST9&pd_rd_w=VAWL2&pd_rd_wg=acgF9&psc=1&refRID=JV7NW2AABM3XTKE1MST9

That's the one. Huuuge softcover ... And that Ersel Hickey photo definitely was an eyecatcher, particularly if you were into rockabilly.

"Plays Bird, Bud, Monk & Miles" was one of the "ear opener" purchases among all the Fresh Sound LPs I bought back in the 90s and very early 2000s. I bought most of these unheard and without DETAILED previous knowledge of the contents (just as part of my interest in jazz from that period and curiosity about many of those somewhat under-the-radar artists) and very rarely missed, and this one was particularly striking. "I'm Nuts About the Most" which came with it isn't bad at all either - and this though I am otherwise not really into modern jazz flute and flutists. Very hard to express why maybe he sounds more like a "clarinet-flutist" and not like a "flute-flutist" to me? At any rate, I took to that "Nuts" LP while I rather shied away from Bud Shank and his WCJ flutisms, for example.

I remember that a smaller-sized edition was on the bookshelves several years later. To me it did not look like it had been updated (basically same cover) but I may be wrong as I did not inspect it closer, particularly in the later chapters (the huge earlier edition I already had - and still have - was all I needed).

Which period/styles of rock are you particularly interested in? And are you looking for a reference book or a "history" book? As far as OLDER styles of rock (roughly pre-1980) go, I like The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll (Jim MiIler), Rolling Stone Press/Random House 1976 And despite what others will probably say about how bad and outdated it is, I still occasionally refer to Lilian Roxon's Rock Encyclopedia (first published in 1969) Also, as far as older rock styles go, today I find it amazing how long I managed to do without ROCK ON - The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock'n'Roll by Norm N. Nite (a book I had seen referenced countless times in the past). I have limited myself to Vol. 1 The Solid Gold Years (1955-64) but there are more Vols. covering the later decades and evolutions of rock. The capsule bios and chart discographies ARE fairly basic for serious ("advanced") listeners and fans but it provides a LOT of reference info at a glance so if you can pick up cheap copies, go ahead ... There are a few German ones that I have come to like (and that have been seen updated and revised editions ever since I bought mine) but they would not fit your bill language-wise, i guess. OTOH, did you check this? http://www.robinbook.com/sello/libros_tema/id_sello/4/id_tema/20 They got several books on various fields of rock, it seems. I bought the Heavy Metal book for my son a while back. He is HEAVILY (literally ) into HM but wasn't doing too brilliantly in Spanish in high school so I got him this book and urged him to "read up on something you REALLY LIKE in that foreign language and learn in passing without even realizing you're learning!!" This approach had got me jump-started into top grades in school at the time and does work for him to some extent now too - so this is why I am aware of this Spanish publisher. In general, i am a bit wary of those generalistic "history" or "introduction" books pretending to cover such topics as "rock" (or "jazz", for that matter). Rock has become such an extremely wide field that such books are bound to be very, very superficial and leave you unsatisfied. My music bookshelves are crammed full too but I have found more specialist books focusing on my "special interest" areas are better suited, even if they still are relatively "general-purpose". But there are a LOT books out there for about every niche or style so you only have to choose ...

It would have been interesting to know what Friedrich Gulda (or one of those third-streamers) would have had to say about this. Or if André Previn felt he had to overcome a perceptible difficulty when he got into jazz in the 40s and would have had to "switch" as described in that paper.

The problem seems to have existed for many, many decades. Some seem to have found a way to cope with it, though. I remember seeing a 40s photograph from one of those old New Orleans dance halls in a book or mag I have seomewhere (but can't quite remember which one so can't retrieve it right now) where a cardboard panel on the wall to the side of the bandstand anounced the rates for playing requests. A number of standards had a tag of 50c or $1 but HIGH SOCIETY was $5!!

If you buy Sonet vinyl, be careful about the condition if you buy older (late 50s/early to mid-60s) pressings from Denmark (probably not a problem with later/70s etc. pressings - my 70s UK-licensed Sonet pressings all are fine, for example). Sometimes they can be lousy as hell - inclusions of foreign matter in the vinyl that stand out like a wart, bubbles in the surface that are visible from a mile way etc. The actual pressing qulaity of Sonet was probably fine but what good is this if the material has all sorts of inclusions or bubbling? No idea what they threw in the mixture at the time or if their vinyl aged particularly badly or whatever, but I haven't even seen such VISIBLY lousy pressing quality with those typical Crown LPs from way back.

Like I said - his entire Decca recordings (including the 1945 Carnegie Hall concert) WERE reissued on 10 LPs on German MCA in the 70s. Never heard of a European CD reissue, though. I hadn't realized later reissues of this stuff were that patchy. Too bad ... Two months ago I could have picked up most of the LPs from that series for a song - but didn't as I have 9 of the 10 LPs myself (and the contents of the one missing are all on the 5 LPs from French MCA reissued a bit later that I also have). I tended to pick up interesting LPs (that I WISHED I could have found at that price when I bought mine years ago) here and there and tried to pass them on to potentially interested collectors but have become a bit wary of this as no matter how good a deal you try to make those who ought to know an opportunity all too often prefer to be picky-picky along the "not now" and "oh well you know ..." lines. Their loss ...

Thanks from me too. Never would have thought about looking in that direction (when I last checked the "Swedish Jazzdiskografi" on the visarkiv.se website did not list this session or the Anagram CD). But for the record, then (literally ...), these concert excerpts have also been issued on the CD that came with the "Jazz in Köln seit 1945" book by Robert von Zahn published by Emons in 1997. And more recently the entire session was also recycled (reissued) as an "extra" in the "mod record cologne - Gigi Campi: Jazz in West Germany 1954-1956" reissue box set released by Be!Sharp Records a couple of years ago.

So Classics ought to have covered the Decca years ... Too bad the leftovers or secondhand copies now fetch such outragous prices. Only the first ones ... the later Vols. all had 15 to 16 tracks per LP. The collator who compiled those LPs at the time for MCA once told me that the total number of tracks included (12, 14 or 16) was a matter of the German MCA branch's pricing policy. More tracks - higher price bracket. Though I did not notice this at the time in the shops. The MCA reissues usually were priced quite evenly, regardless of the number of tracks.

It's not just the "godmothers". Sonny Parker was no slouch among the blues shouters either, for example (of course his early death contributed to him being a forgotten figure). And at any rate the Hampton band ALWAYS was much more than just a background for some "chirp". I know you meant differently but please don't get others started on the "commercial" tag. He had been blamed for that often enough elsewhere and before. Unfairly and unjustified IMO. Everyone still fronting a big band at that time was out to make money (so "commercial" is a silly ltag, even in hindsight) and he manged to do so with GUTS. And becoming not only an elder statesman of swing (including mainstream jazz that evolved from it) but also a forefather (or "godfather" if you want) not only of R&B but also of rock'n'roll (the REAL and original 50s variety, not what sailed under that flag later), managing to straddle this fence safely and capture his share of the audience among all these target audiences, was no mean feat IMO. Even if only to prove that viable and valuable facets of jazz remained exuberant and suitable for dancing. BTW, did you never grab that 10-LP series done by German MCA in the 70s?