American Entertainment History

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER With the critically acclaimed Sin in the Second City, bestselling author Karen Abbott “pioneered sizzle history” (USA Today). Now she returns with the gripping and expansive story of America’s coming-of-age—told through the extraordinary life of Gypsy Rose Lee...

Dancer, award-winning choreographer, show producer, stand-up comedienne, TV/film actress, and author, Norma Miller shares her touching historical memoir of Harlem's legendary Savoy Ballroom and the phenomenal music and dance craze that "spread the power of Swing across the world like Wildfire". It was a time when the music was Swing, and Harlem was king.

Born into poverty in Mississippi at the close of the 19th century, Charley Patton and Jimmie Rodgers established themselves among the most influential musicians of their era. In Tune tells the story of the parallel careers of these two pioneering recording artists - one white, one black - who moved beyond their humble origins to change the face of American music.

An inspiring, revelatory exploration of the genesis and impact of the fabled Elephant 6 collective and the baffling exodus of its larger-than-life luminary, Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum Years after its release, Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea remains one of the...

Buffalo Bill was an American soldier, bison hunter, and showman. He thrilled audiences far and wide with his Wild West shows, and he showed the world that the characters they read about in dime novels and magazines were real flesh and blood people. For many, Buffalo Bill has become the embodiment of the wild frontier, and both his legacy and his spirit continues to live on.

Today, the name Clint Eastwood conjures up many different and unforgettable images. While many will always associate him as the quintessential Western hero in classics like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, new generations know him as a critically acclaimed director and even an outspoken conservative firebrand.

A reissue of Sammy Davis Jr.’s 1965 autobiography, Yes I Can chronicles this entertainment icon’s rise to stardom, and his career-spanning pursuit of racial justice. “I had to prove I was somebody. And I knew the only way to do that was to show the world what I could do.” —Sammy Davis...

Music composed for television had, until recently, never been taken seriously by scholars or critics. Catchy TV themes, often for popular weekly series, were fondly remembered but not considered much more culturally significant than commercial jingles. Yet noted composers like John Williams, Henry Mancini, and Jerry Goldsmith learned and/or honed their craft in television before going on to major success in feature films.

Guthrie kept moving throughout his life, making friends, soaking up influences, and writing about his experiences. Along the way, he produced more than 3,000 songs, as well as fiction, journalism, poetry, and visual art, that gave voice to the distressed and dispossessed. In this insightful audiobook, Will Kaufman examines the artist’s career through a unique perspective: the role of time and place in Guthrie’s artistic evolution.

Rollyson fully explores Brennan's work with Hollywood's greatest directors, such as Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Fritz Lang. As a father and grandfather, Brennan instilled generations of his family with an outlook on the American Dream that remains a sustaining feature of their lives today. His conservative politics, which grew out of his New England upbringing and his devout Catholicism, receive meticulous attention and a balanced assessment in A Real American Character.

Now available in Spanish language for the first time! Featuring new material including excerpts from Desi Arnaz’s unpublished second memoir and a revealing epilogue by daughter Lucie Arnaz, here is the revised edition of the New York Times bestselling memoir of Cuban American entertainment...

This title offers a superb investigation of what is arguably Johnny Cash's greatest album, focusing on his enduring mythology. When Johnny Cash signed to Rick Rubin's record label in 1993, he was a country music legend who, like his fellow Highwaymen Willie, Waylon and Kris, remained a fondly regarded yet completely marginalized Nashville figure, unheard on the radio and unseen on the charts. Cash's odyssey from oldies act to folk hero pivots on his first American Recordings album, a document of almost unbearable solitude and directness.

In Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, Donald Bogle tells - for the first time - the story of a place both mythic and real: Black Hollywood. Spanning 60 years, this deliciously entertaining history uncovers the audacious manner in which many Blacks made a place for themselves in an industry that originally had no place for them. Through interviews and the personal recollections of Hollywood luminaries, Bogle pieces together a remarkable history that remains largely obscure to this day.

The Provincetown Players created a revolution in American theatre, making room for truly modern approaches to playwriting, stage production, and performance. In Staging America, Jeffery Kennedy gives the unabridged story in a meticulously researched and comprehensive narrative that sheds new light on the history of the Provincetown Players. At the center of the study is an extensive account of the career of George Cram Cook, the Players' leader and artistic conscience, as well as one of the most significant facilitators of modernist writing in early twentieth-century American literature.

As author Ethan Mordden looks back at Chicago's various moving parts - including the original 1926 play that started it all, a sexy silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, a talkie remake with Ginger Rogers, the musical itself, and at last the movie of the musical - we learn how the American theater serves as a kind of alternative news medium, a town crier warning the public about the racy, devious interior contradictions of American society. Opinionated, witty, and rich in backstage anecdotes, All That Jazz brings the American musical to life in all its artistry and excitement.

Doty Meets Coyote is an audio tapestry of traditional and original Native American stories from the American West told by master storyteller Thomas Doty. It is Thomas Doty's work as a storyteller not only to perpetuate the Old Time myths with integrity but to add new stories to the collective basket of folklore, just as tellers before him have done for centuries. Storytelling is an ancient tradition as well as a living art.

New York City native and gifted pianist George Gershwin blossomed as an accompanist before his talent as a songwriter opened the way to Broadway, where he fashioned his own brand of American music. He composed a long run of musical comedies, many with his brother Ira as lyricist, but his aspirations reached beyond commercial success.

DESPRE AUDIOBOOK. Iată cum o cultură marginală, considerată încă "tânără“ după aproape 50 de ani de afirmare, inspiră o carte atât de bogată în informații. Ce-i drept, autorii au îndrăznit, iar îndrăzneala le-a fost răsplătită: fie că vorbim despre concertul lui Slick Rick din Roxbury, fie despre vizita la studioul RJam, aceștia au documentat fenomenul din interior, dezbrăcat de orice aparență sau prejudecată. Porniți într-o misiune eminamente imposibilă, autorii reușesc totuși să se apropie de esența rapului.

Memphis Boys chronicles the story of the rhythm section at Chips Moman's American Studios from 1964, when the group began working together, until 1972, when Moman shut down the studio and moved the entire operation to Atlanta. Utilizing extensive interviews with Moman and the group, as well as additional comments from the songwriters, sound engineers, and office staff, author Roben Jones creates a collective biography combined with a business history and a critical analysis of important recordings.

The idea of American musical theater often conjures up images of bright lights and big city, but its lifeblood is found in amateur productions at high schools, community theaters, after-school programs, summer camps, and dinner theaters. In Beyond Broadway, author Stacy Wolf looks at the widespread presence and persistence of musical theater in US culture and examines it as a social practice - a live, visceral experience of creating, watching, and listening.