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By Ron Wynn, rwynn@nashvillecitypaper.com
Despite the segregated landscapes in Memphis, Nashville and New Orleans, black and white performers grew up hearing a lot of the same music and in turn being influenced by it. Thus black and white gospel, jazz, blues, R&B, and country, all converged and affected such writer/producer types as Sam Phillips, Chips Moman, Dan Penn and Willie Mitchell. The influence of the music likewise can be heard in the hybrid sounds of performers like B.B. King, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Rufus Thomas, and many others. Dickerson also profiles the emergence of the country, gospel and soul businesses in Memphis and Nashville; the rise and fall of the Crescent City R&B sound in New Orleans; the parallel evolution of WSM and WDIA; the amazing run of Stax, American and Fame studios; and every major development within the "Mojo Triangle" except for Southern rap and hip-hop. While factual, Mojo Triangle never becomes ponderous or dry in either the writing or the presentation. Dickerson's book adds another chapter to the legacy of vital works that trace the South's prominence in American cultural development. The most intriguing portions of Paul Simpson's The Rough Guide to Elvis are the chapters that detail in incisive, exacting fashion every record and film Presley ever made. Though much of what's here doesn't qualify as new information, it has seldom been organized in such meticulous fashion. One thing that Simpson does make clear is the multifaceted amount of influences that Presley combined. He devotes complete chapters to Presley's blues and country foundations, but also shows that Presley adored gospel, mellow pop vocalists like Dean Martin and opera star Mario Lanza. He devotes a separate chapter to evaluating Presley's debt to African-American artists, and also closely scrutinizes his relationship with longtime manager Col. Tom Parker. Outside of an occasional snafu (noted music critic and novelist Nelson George's name gets transposed for example), The Rough Guide to Elvis proves valuable in both a qualitative and quantitative fashion. |
Quote: "Elvis Presley is the supreme socio-cultural icon in the history of pop culture" (Dr. Garry Enders) Quote: " Elvis is the 'glue' which holds our society together....which subconciously gives our world meaning" (Anonymous) Quote: "Eventually everybody has to die, except Elvis" (humorist Dave Barry) Quote: "He is the "Big Bang", and the universe he detonated is still expanding, the pieces are still flying" (Greil Marcus, "Dead Elvis") Quote: "I think Elvis Presley will never be solved" (Nick Tosches)
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