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Tell Tchaikovsky the News
Michael James Roberts
€ 141.77
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Description for Tell Tchaikovsky the News
Explaining the bias of union members - most of whom were classical or jazz music performers - against rock music and musicians, this book addresses issues of race and class; questions of what qualified someone as a "skilled" or professional musician. Num Pages: 280 pages, 9 illustrations. BIC Classification: AVG; HBTB; JHBL. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 5830 x 3895 x 20. Weight in Grams: 513.
For two decades after rock music emerged in the 1940s, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), the oldest and largest labor union representing professional musicians in the United States and Canada, refused to recognize rock 'n' roll as legitimate music or its performers as skilled musicians. The AFM never actively organized rock 'n' roll musicians, although recruiting them would have been in the union's economic interest. In Tell Tchaikovsky the News, Michael James Roberts argues that the reasons that the union failed to act in its own interest lay in its culture, in the opinions of its leadership and elite rank-and-file members. Explaining the bias of union members—most of whom were classical or jazz music performers—against rock music and musicians, Roberts addresses issues of race and class, questions of what qualified someone as a skilled or professional musician, and the threat that records, central to rock 'n' roll, posed to AFM members, who had long privileged live performances. Roberts contends that by rejecting rock 'n' rollers for two decades, the once formidable American Federation of Musicians lost their clout within the music industry.
Product Details
Publication date
2014
Publisher
Duke University Press United States
Number of pages
280
Condition
New
Number of Pages
280
Format
Hardback
Place of Publication
North Carolina, United States
ISBN
9780822354635
SKU
V9780822354635
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1
About Michael James Roberts
Michael James Roberts is Associate Professor of Sociology at San Diego State University.
Reviews for Tell Tchaikovsky the News
"Both a compelling labor history . . . and a music history . . . Roberts supplies fascinating views into struggles within the AFM over a developing music industry and about a music revolution."
R.A. Batch
Choice
"Michael James Roberts outlines the American Federation of Musicians’ systematic marginalization of rock and roll musicians in the 1950s and 1960s largely due to advancing recording technologies, shifting recording industries, morphing U.S. labor laws, and an idiomatic elitism."
Kathryn Metz
ARSC Journal
"A good look at rock music’s impact and power in its earliest phases."
Kenneth Bindas
Journal of American History
“Roberts … has produced a work that offers many insights. … [I]t provides an excellent interdisciplinary approach to the subject at hand and comes with a comprehensive bibliography that a wide array of readers will relish.”
Michael T. Bertrand
Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
“Music history buffs this book, by Michael James Roberts, is for you. … Roberts has written an interesting, well researched work that in retrospect is quite surprising to the average music listener.”
Leanne Weymans
M/C Reviews
“Surpassing a simple account of class domination, working class resistance, or binary conflict, Tell Tchaikovsky the News weaves a historically rich tale of contradiction, cultural and economic intersection, and unexpected turns.”
William G. Roy
American Journal of Sociology
"Michael James Roberts has written a superlative book that places class and work squarely in the center of our understanding of rock music."
Alex Sayf Cummings
Journal of Popular Music Studies
R.A. Batch
Choice
"Michael James Roberts outlines the American Federation of Musicians’ systematic marginalization of rock and roll musicians in the 1950s and 1960s largely due to advancing recording technologies, shifting recording industries, morphing U.S. labor laws, and an idiomatic elitism."
Kathryn Metz
ARSC Journal
"A good look at rock music’s impact and power in its earliest phases."
Kenneth Bindas
Journal of American History
“Roberts … has produced a work that offers many insights. … [I]t provides an excellent interdisciplinary approach to the subject at hand and comes with a comprehensive bibliography that a wide array of readers will relish.”
Michael T. Bertrand
Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
“Music history buffs this book, by Michael James Roberts, is for you. … Roberts has written an interesting, well researched work that in retrospect is quite surprising to the average music listener.”
Leanne Weymans
M/C Reviews
“Surpassing a simple account of class domination, working class resistance, or binary conflict, Tell Tchaikovsky the News weaves a historically rich tale of contradiction, cultural and economic intersection, and unexpected turns.”
William G. Roy
American Journal of Sociology
"Michael James Roberts has written a superlative book that places class and work squarely in the center of our understanding of rock music."
Alex Sayf Cummings
Journal of Popular Music Studies