Drawing on previously untapped archival sources and on scores of interviews this book illuminates broad musical trends. The B Side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and the Rebirth of the Great American Song tells the story of how the stream of songs making up the Great American Songbook more or less dried up around 1950, a few years before rock and roll arrived. The B Side is about taste, and the economics and culture of songwriting, as research and told by acclaimed cultural historian Ben Yagoda.
The B-Side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and the Rebirth of the Great American Song, by Ben Yagoda, Riverhead Books, Penguin Group, www.penguin.com.
