Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
Haggerty defines popular music broadly, encompassing such styles as big band, pop, rock, metal, rap, country, jazz, and blues...(but) excludes world music and reggae. His book is arranged by format, including dictionaries and encyclopedias, biographies, indexes, discographies, and guidebooks. This will be a useful book for collection development. In large popular-music collections, it might help narrow in on possible sources for answering questions. Recommended for large and developing popular-music collections.Booklist/Reference Books Bulletin
Review
Well-rearched, annotated bibliographies on popular music have been few and far between, only a few titles come to mind. ... However, all of these works have sparse annotations and are not as inclusive as the volume under review. The work is recommended for personal libraries and large public and academic libraries where in-depth reference collections on popluar music are maintained.Music
Synopsis
A guide to locating information on popular music, this volume contains more than 400 annotated titles describing content, scope, and special features.
Synopsis
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.
About the Author
GARY HAGGERTY is Assistant Library Director at Berklee College of Music in Boston.