Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey
by Bill Brewster
from Grove Press
Adventures in Odyssey: The Official Guide: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Stories, Actors, and Characters (Adventures in Odyssey)
from Focus
Adventures in the fictional small town of Odyssey have entertained families around the world for over 20 years. The show has reintroduced a whole new generation to a forgotten form of entertainment (audio drama). Over 20 million Adventures in Odyssey products have been distributed worldwide, and two generations of families feel like they know Whit, Connie, Eugene, and hundreds of other characters. Now Focus on the Family reveals the story behind the stories in Adventures in Odyssey: The Official Guide.
Listening in: Radio and American Imagination
by Susan J. Douglas
from University of Minnesota Press
Few inventions evoke such nostalgia, such deeply personal and vivid memories as radio—from Amos 'n' Andy and Edward R. Murrow to Wolfman Jack and Howard Stern. Listening In is the first in-depth history of how radio culture and content have kneaded and expanded the American psyche.
But Listening In is more than a history. It is also a reconsideration of what listening to radio has done to American culture in the twentieth century and how it has brought a completely new auditory dimension to our lives. Susan Douglas explores how listening has altered our day-to-day experiences and our own generational identities, cultivating different modes of listening in different eras; how radio has shaped our views of race, gender roles, ethnic barriers, family dynamics, leadership, and the generation gap. With her trademark wit, Douglas has created an eminently readable cultural history of radio.
"Douglas's wonderful book offers a sophisticated history of radio listening." —Journal of American History
Right of the Dial: The Rise of Clear Channel and the Fall of Commercial Radio
by Alec Foege
from Faber & Faber
The BBC Talks of E. M. Forster, 1929-1960: A Selected Edition
from University of Missouri Press
These seventy annotated broadcasts present frequent BBC contributor Forster not only as a literary critic but also as a political activist, an advocate for India, and a wary yet cooperative ally of a colonialist government during World War II. Nearly half the scripts date from 1941 to 1945 and provide an eyewitness account of war. Forster comments on how the arts gallantly survived the blitz--even taking his listeners to the theater as bombing threats loom--and in other cases protests government interference in private life or the limits on free expression caused by the paper shortage. Forster casts a cosmopolitan eye on contemporary literature from Joyce to Steinbeck, enlarges the scope of European art by pairing Austen or Lewis with Indian writers, and offers pointed comments on contemporary literati such as Huxley and Eliot.
A History of Broadcasting in the United States
by Douglas Gomery
from Wiley-Blackwell
This powerful history of broadcasting in the United States goes beyond traditional accounts to explore the field’s important social, political, and cultural ramifications. It examines how broadcasting has been organized as a business throughout much of the 20th century, and focuses on the aesthetics of programming over the years.
- Surveys four key broadcasting periods from 1921 to 1996, drawing on a range of new sources to examine recent changes in the field, including coverage of the recent impact of cable TV and home video
- Includes new data from collections at the Library of Congress and the Library of American Broadcasting
- Ideal for anyone seeking a readable history of the field, offering the most current coverage available
On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio
by John Dunning
from Oxford University Press, USA
Now long out of print, John Dunning's Tune in Yesterday was the definitive one-volume reference on old-time radio broadcasting. Now, in On the Air, Dunning has completely rethought this classic work, reorganizing the material and doubling its coverage, to provide a richer and more informative account of radio's golden age.
Here are some 1,500 radio shows presented in alphabetical order. The great programs of the '30s, '40s, and '50s are all here--Amos 'n' Andy, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Lone Ranger, Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour, and The March of Time, to name only a few. For each, Dunning provides a complete broadcast history, with the timeslot, the network, and the name of the show's advertisers. He also lists major cast members, announcers, producers, directors, writers, and sound effects people--even the show's theme song. There are also umbrella entries, such as "News Broadcasts," which features an engaging essay on radio news, with capsule biographies of major broadcasters, such as Lowell Thomas and Edward R. Murrow. Equally important, Dunning provides a fascinating account of each program, taking us behind the scenes to capture the feel of the performance, such as the ghastly sounds of Lights Out (a horror drama where heads rolled and bones crunched), and providing engrossing biographies of the main people involved in the show.
A wonderful read for everyone who loves old-time radio, On the Air is a must purchase for all radio hobbyists and anyone interested in 20th-century American history. It is an essential reference work for libraries and radio stations.
Follow the Music: The Life and High Times of Elektra Records in the Great Years of American Pop Culture
by Jac Holzman
from Jawbone Press
The Doors, Love, Judy Collins, Tim Buckley, and Phil Ochs were all products of the nurturing environment at the Elektra Records of the '60s and early '70s. With help from coauthor Gavan Daws, the label's then head, Jac Holzman, collects his reminiscences and those of many of his cohorts in the enlightening, often hilarious Follow the Music: The Life and High Times of Elektra Records in the Great Years of American Pop Culture. This oral history follows Holzman's exploits from his days as a producer of small pressings of obscure folk music to his signing of rockers like Jim Morrison and Arthur Lee and his eventual sale of the company and subsequent departure. Before he left, though, Holzman and friends had irrevocably altered, as he says, the "recording technique, packaging, marketing and the behavioral sciences of rock and roll." --Rickey Wright
Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation
by Marc Fisher
from Random House
A sweeping, anecdotal account of the great sounds and voices of radio–and how it became a bonding agent for a generation of American youth
When television became the next big thing in broadcast entertainment, everyone figured video would kill the radio star–and radio, period. But radio came roaring back with a whole new concept. The war was over, the baby boom was on, the country was in clover, and a bold new beat was giving the syrupy songs of yesteryear a run for their money. Add transistors, 45 rpm records, and a young man named Elvis to the mix, and the result was the perfect storm that rocked, rolled, and reinvented radio.
Visionary entrepreneurs like Todd Storz pioneered the Top 40 concept, which united a generation. But it took trendsetting “disc jockeys” like Alan Freed, Murray the K, Wolfman Jack, Cousin Brucie, and their fast-talking, too-cool-for-school counterparts across the land to turn time, temperature, and the same irresistible hit tunes played again and again into the ubiquitous sound track of the fifties and sixties. The Top 40 sound broke through racial barriers, galvanized coming-of-age kids (and scandalized their perplexed parents), and provided the insistent, inescapable backbeat for times that were a-changin’.
Along with rock-and-roll music came the attitude that would literally change the “voice” of radio forever, via the likes of raconteur Jean Shepherd, who captivated his loyal following of “Night People”; the inimitable Bob Fass, whose groundbreaking Radio Unnameable inaugurated the anything-goes free-form style that would come to define the alternative frontier of FM; and a small-time Top 40 deejay who would ultimately find national fame as a political talk-show host named Rush Limbaugh.
From Hunter Hancock, who pushed beyond the limits of 1950s racial segregation with rhythm and blues and hepcat patter, to Howard Stern, who blew through all the limits with a blue streak of outrageous on-air antics; from the heyday of summer songs that united carefree listeners to the latter days of political talk that divides contentious callers; from the haze of classic rock to the latest craze in hip-hop, Something in the Air chronicles the extraordinary evolution of the unique and timeless medium that captured our hearts and minds, shook up our souls, tuned in–and turned on–our consciousness, and went from being written off to rewriting the rules of pop culture.
War of the Black Heavens: The Battles of Western Broadcasting in the Cold War
by Michael Nelson
from Syracuse University Press
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