Race, Rock, and Elvis (Music in American Life)
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: August 1, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9780252025860
Subjects: Rock & pop; Ethnomusicology; Music/Songbooks; Music; USA; Genres & Styles - Rock; History & Criticism - General; Music / General; Genres & Styles - Soul & R&B; History and criticism; Music and race; Presley, Elvis,; Rock Music; Social aspects; Southern States; To 1961; United States
First sentence: In Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the black Working Class, Robin D.G. Kelley suggest that to write history from the bottom partly entails gauging the reactions of the powerful to the powerless.
Description: "In Race, Rock, and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand contends that popular music, specifically Elvis Presley's brand of rock 'n' roll, helped revise racial attitudes after World War II. Observing that youthful fans of rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, and other black-inspired music seemed more inclined than their segregationist elders to ignore the color line, Bertrand links popular music with a more general relaxation, led by white youths, of the historical denigration of blacks in the South.

The tradition of southern racism, successfully communicated to previous generations, failed for the first time when confronted with the demand for rock 'n' roll by a new, national, commercialized youth culture."--BOOK JACKET.