Producer, The: John Hammond and the Soul of American Music - Softcover

Prial, Dunstan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312426003 ISBN 13: 9780312426002

Publisher: Picador USA, 2007

Synopsis

The son of a Vanderbilt heiress, John Hammond listened to jazz records with his parents' servants, went to Harlem as a teenager and became a regular in clubs where very few white faces ever appeared. Taking a little family money, Hammond went across racial lines in pre-WWII America and came back with recordings of some of the greatest jazz musicians in history. By age twenty-two, he had convinced Benny Goodman to integrate his band and made his first big discovery: Billie Holiday. Then, as jazz gave way to pop and rock, Hammond championed Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, and Stevie Ray Vaughan in his life's extraordinary second act. In Dunstan Prial's hands, Hammond's biography becomes the story of American popular music since the 1930s, a tale of a man at the centre of things, with his ears wide open.

About this title

Review:

"An engaging study of a man with two obsessions - making music and promoting social reform." - Publishers Weekly"

About the Author:

Dunstan Prial covered the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks for the Associated Press and the 1990s stock market boom for Dow Jones. He lives in Bloomfield, New Jersey.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador USA
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0312426003
• ISBN 13: 9780312426002
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 376