Download Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music AudioBook Free
This is actually the first biography of Ralph Peer, the exciting - even revolutionary - A&R man and music publisher who observed the universal electricity locked in regional roots music and tapped it, changing the breadth and flavor of popular music around the world. It is the story of the life span and 50-12 months career, from age cylinder recordings to the stereo system era, of the person who pioneered the taking, marketing, and publishing of blues, jazz, country, gospel, and Latin music. The publication monitors Peer's role in such breakthrough occurrences as the taking of Mamie Smith's Crazy Blues (the record that sparked the blues craze), the first country taking classes with Fiddlin' John Carson, his finding of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family at the famous Bristol classes, the popularizing of Latin American music during World Conflict II, and the postwar transformation of music on the airwaves that set the stage for the dominance of R&B, country, and rock and roll n' roll. But this is also the story of a man from humble Midwestern origins who went on to generate the world's most significant independent music publishing organization, fostering the global reach of music that had previously been specialized, localized, and marginalized. Ralph Peer redefined the ways appealing melodies and performers were diagnosed, encouraged, and promoted; rethought how far regional music might travel; and evolved our very notions of what pop music can be.
