Where Were You... When the Music Played? Book

In lively text, spectacular photographs, and moving personal memories, here is the story of pop music starting in 1955 to the 2008 Grammy Awards— and just about everything in between.

Do you remember where you were when…Bill Haley and his Comets stormed the charts in 1955 with Rock Around the Clock? Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, two Sun Records protégés, both had hit singles in 1956? Bruce Springsteen introduced Born in the USA in the mid-1980s?

Year by exciting year, this book chronicles the beginnings of rock and roll. For most of the fifties Elvis dominated the pop music scene, but other voices also came alive such as Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddley. Then the sixties stormed in and revolutionized music all over again. Chubby Checkers put the Twist on global dance floors. Joan Baez gave folk music a new twist at Newport and James Brown recorded live at the Apollo. Then the Beatles and the Rolling Stones crossed the ocean and changed the beat again. In 1969 Woodstock exploded and new groups crowded in—from the Grateful Dead to Led Zeppelin.

In the 1970s Billy Joel performed at Carnegie Hall. Saturday Night Fever and Evita captured stage and screen, and Live Aid concerts stirred the global conscience. Rock began to look to history with the Who's 25th anniversary tour in 1989 and Bob Dylan's 30th anniversary concert in 1992. The book concludes with Amy Winehouse's five Grammy awards in 2008.

This rousing musical tour includes more than 300 color and black-and-white archival photographs of performers and the concerts they made famous; a year by year record of pop music highlights; technology breakthroughs that changed the music business; and personal stories by ordinary people who were at the concerts or whose lives were irrevocably touched by the music. The last 15 years receive an exciting overview that focuses on the growing role of technology, the rise of performing moguls such as Madonna, Justin Timberlake, and Beyoncé, and the worldwide Live 8 concerts.