12 of the Best Books on the History of Contemporary Music

Before he rose to fame as revolutionary poet and activist Amiri Baraka, jazz critic LeRoi Jones watched a musical revolution unfold in the coffee houses and clubs of 1960s New York. Jazz musicians that are today regarded as household names, such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Ornette Coleman, breathed new life into the genre with their transformative style, and, in the process, carved new artistic pathways to success for Black musicians. 

In this collection of essays, reviews, interviews, liner notes, musical analyses, and personal impressions from 1959 to 1967, Jones, through both astute musical criticism and firsthand reflections, not only gives readers a glimpse into this remarkable movement as it unfolded, but helps them understand the fascinating context in which it took place. 

Music historian Craig Harris constructs a marvelously comprehensive history of a distinctly American sound in Bluegrass, Newgrass, Old-Time, and Americana. Drawing upon exclusive interviews with over 120 groundbreaking musicians, never-before-seen photos, and his own research, Harris charts the development of a music tradition that embodies and reflects the history of America itself. 

In chronological order, Harris takes readers from the early days of Bill Monroe in the late 1920s to the Earls of Leicester today, with plenty of anecdotes from the likes of Flatt & Scruggs, Del McCoury and Doc Watson in between. 

The successor to Carolina Beach Music: The Classic Years, this book offers readers an account of a “new wave” of Carolina beach music through the songs that shaped it. Told through 80 recordings from 1966 through 1982, complete with interviews and reflections from the artists who brought them to life, The New Wave offers a unique account of this period in the development of an influential pop sound from the Southeastern seaboard. 

Featured singers include Clyde Brown of The Drifters, Harry Elston of The Friends of Distinction, and Emilio Castillo of Tower of Power. 

In late 1970s Chicago, a new musical genre burst its way onto the city’s Black, gay underground scene: Chicago house music. By the end of the century, it would be one of the most popular musical genres in the world. Chicago House Music tells the incredible story of how this came to be. 

Learn about house music’s early innovators, like Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles, who took the social and political turmoil around them and transformed it into a revolutionary new style of dance music. From the most prominent contemporary DJs in the house community to the partygoers who danced the night away to their sets, get absorbed in first-hand accounts from the people who made this extraordinary and liberatory musical community a reality. 

Author of the highly successful History Channel book series The Greatest Stories Never Told, Rick Beyer returns with this treasure trove of anecdotes from musical history. From the hidden controversy behind “Mary Had a Little Lamb” to the rock star who went on to become an astrophysicist, The Greatest Music Stories Never Told is filled with all kinds of little-known stories about the artists and songs you thought you knew. 

Whether you’re a fan of jazz, classical, country, rock ‘n’ roll, hip-hop, or even show tunes, this compilation of hidden musical lore is sure to entertain and astonish you.

In Women & Music, music scholar Karin Pendle provides an ambitious survey of women's involvement in music performance, composition, teaching, and patronage from ancient Greece to the present. While a previous version of the book emphasized music in Europe and North America, this updated edition expands its scope to the entire globe. Journey from the salons of 17th-century England to the jazz clubs of the 1920s United States alongside the influential female musicians and patrons of the era. 

An excellent scholarly resource and programming guide for composers, as well as an enlightening read for those interested in the subject, Women & Music has been hailed by readers as “the best book on the subject.” 

For decades, country music icon Dolly Parton has captivated fans and strangers to the genre alike with her hit songs and her larger-than-life personality. But how did she do it? How was Parton able to leverage the contradictory images of “innocent mountain girl” and “voluptuous sex symbol” to become one of the biggest stars in the history of not only country music, but American popular culture? 

In this fascinating exploration of gender in country music grounded in Dolly Parton’s own experience, media scholar Leigh H. Edwards draws upon Parton’s lyrics, personal stories, stage presence, and visual imagery to examine how the vastly different gender tropes Parton embodied played a central part of her media image. She describes how Parton was able to manipulate the expectations of women in the genre to her advantage while simultaneously undermining them, making herself into one of the most widely beloved musicians in the history of country music.  

Another great read for country music fans, this book takes a comprehensive approach to the early history and development of country music, from Fiddlin’ John Carson in 1923 Atlanta to the posthumous success of Hank Williams. Readers can learn about the early, fringe origins of country music and how, through several key promoters in the industry, it began its entrance into the mainstream in the 1950s. 

As with all mainstream success, country music’s popular acceptance raised questions of authenticity within the genre, and in this way, Peterson’s book is not only a highly informative account of the genre’s development, but a fascinating look at what it means to be “authentic” within a genre in the first place. 

Fans of psychedelia and music theory alike will love this history of psychedelic popular music.  Through the lens of topic theory, music scholar William Echard takes readers through the evolution of psychedelic music, from its origins in the early 1960s, with the Beatles, the Kinks and Pink Floyd, to the German experimental bands and psychedelic funk of the 1970s, with particular attention devoted to Parliament-Funkadelic. He concludes with the free festival scene, rave culture, and neo–jam bands of the 1980s and early 1990s.

In his history, Echard focuses not only on psychedelic music, but the culture that gave rise to it and was, in turn, shaped by it. He extends his exploration to music, visual art, graphic design, film, and literature. 

Dive into the history of South Carolina jazz and blues with this comprehensive encyclopedia by USC professor Benjamin Franklin V.  Organized alphabetically, from Johnny Acey to Webster Young, the book includes basic biographical information, South Carolina residences, career details, compositions, recordings as leaders and as band members, awards, films, websites, and lists of resources for further reading. 

Learn new information about the greats, like James Brown and Dizzy Gillespie, or discover artists lost to time and obscurity, like Josie Miles and Lottie Frost Hightower. Franklin pored over the census, military registers, passport applications, and more, to disprove myths about and shed light upon two vital genres to South Carolina’s musical history—and the remarkable artists who defined them. 

As an ideal, music is an art form, a form of personal expression separate from the material conditions that surround it. The present reality is anything but. Music and Capitalism is both an account and critique of the music industry today. Timothy D. Taylor takes readers inside the modern mechanisms of music production and consumption. 

From the rise of music streaming services and the globalization of media to the development of the internet and at-home production studios, read about the many changes within the industry over the past few decades, technological and otherwise, and what they mean for the music industry today. If you’re curious about the process by which modern music is made, repurposed, advertised, sold, pirated, and consumed, this is the book for you.

Journey to 1945 Berlin, a city reduced to rubble that captured the imaginations of artists, writers, and musicians for whom the city was the perfect backdrop to explore their own modern alienation. Musicologist Abby Anderton takes readers through the classical music culture of postwar Berlin, drawing from archival documents, period sources, and musical scores to examine how the trauma of the war can be seen in the music produced in its wake.

In this excellently researched exploration of a unique musical scene, Anderton gives readers a glimpse into the way musicians were influenced by the destruction of the war, and how they used music to move on from it.