The author examines the years after World War II and before the Beatles, when Italian American singers rose to prominence. Follows the music from opera houses and piazzas of southern Italy, to the barrooms of the Bronx and Hoboken, to the Copacabana, Brooklyn's Paramount Theatre, and the Vegas Strip.

"From one of the preeminent cultural critics of her generation, a radiant weave of memoir, criticism, and biography that tells the story of black women in music--from the Dixie Cups to Gladys Knight to Janet, Whitney, and Mariah-- as the foundational story of American pop"--

"In this sweeping history of popular music in the United States, NPR's acclaimed music critic examines how popular music shapes fundamental American ideas and beliefs, allowing us to communicate difficult emotions and truths about our most fraught social issues, most notably sex and race."--Provided by publisher.

"Is There God After Prince? is a book about loving things (books, songs, poems, people) in the shadow of looming disaster. Coviello's dazzling, highly personal essays address pieces of contemporary culture across an expansive range--songs by Prince, Joni Mitchell, SZA, and Phoebe Bridgers, writings by Sam Lipsyte, Paula Fox, Paul Beatty, and Dana Spiotta, movies like Heathers, TV shows like The Sopranos, as well as videos, poems, and other pop artefacts....

""Not since the late Leonard Bernstein has classical music had a combination salesman-teacher as irresistible as Kapilow." -Kansas City Star Few people in recent memory have dedicated themselves as devotedly to the story of twentieth- century American music as Rob Kapilow, the composer, conductor, and host of the hit NPR music radio program, What Makes It Great? Now, in Listening for America, he turns his keen ear to the Great American Songbook, bringing...

"Since launching his career at the Village Voice in the early 1980s Greg Tate has been one of the premiere critical voices on contemporary Black music, art, literature, film, and politics. Flyboy 2 provides a panoramic view of the past thirty years of Tate's influential work. Whether interviewing Miles Davis or Ice Cube, reviewing an Azealia Banks mixtape or Suzan-Lori Parks's Topdog/Underdog, discussing visual artist Kara Walker or writer Clarence...