Book Description

A guide to locating information on popular music and the people who create it, this volume is designed as a desk reference—to locate answers to specific questions and to direct library users to key resources. More than 400 comprehensive titles are carefully annotated, describing content, scope, and special features. The focus is on the musical styles that have developed measurable commercial success through recordings and live performance. Along with academic titles, many important titles from the popular press are included, as well as selected electronic resources. A necessary reference tool for any library, scholar, student, and popular music buff. The work covers bibliographies, indexes, discographies, dictionaries and encyclopedias, biographical resources, directories, almanacs, yearbooks, and guidebooks on styles that include jazz, swing, Tin Pan Alley, country, gospel, blues, rhythm and blues, soul, rockabilly, rock, heavy metal, musical theater, and film music. Its extensive appendices feature discographies and bibliographies of individual artists and ensembles. A detailed index combining authors, titles, and subjects makes cross-referencing easy. The entries are modeled after the immensely useful The Guide to Reference Books.