Includes bibliographical references (p. 589-593), discographies, and index.

Irving Berlin in Tin Pan Alley -- Technology, the dawn of modern popular music, and the "king of Jazz" -- Big band swing music : race and power in the music business -- Solo pop singers and new forms of fandom -- Hillbilly and race music -- Blues people and the classic blues -- The empress of the blues -- At the crossroads with Robert Johnson, as told by Johnny Shines -- From race music to Rhythm and blues : T-Bone Walker -- Jumpin' the blues with Louis Jordan -- On the bandstand with Johnny Otis and Wynonie Harris -- The producers answer back : the emergence of the "indie" record company -- Country music as folk music, country music as novelty -- Country music approaches the mainstream -- Hank Williams on songwriting -- Rhythm and blues in the early 1950s : B.B. King -- "The house that Ruth Brown built" -- Ray Charles, or when Saturday night mixed it up with Sunday morning -- Jerry Wexler : a life in R&B -- The growing threat of rhythm and blues -- Langston Hughes responds -- from Rhythm and blues to rock 'n' roll : the songs of Chuck Berry -- Little Richard : boldly going where no man had gone before -- Elvis Presley, Sam Phillips, and Rockabilly -- Rock 'n' roll meets the popular press -- The Chicago defender defends rock 'n' roll -- The music industry fight against rock 'n' roll : Dick Clark's teen-pop empire and the payola scandal --

Brill building and the girl groups -- From surf to smile -- Urban folk revival -- Bringing it all back home : Dylan at Newport -- "Chaos is a friend of mine" -- From R&B to soul -- No town like Motown -- The Godfather of soul and the beginnings of funk -- "The blues changes from day to day" -- Aretha Franklin earns respect -- The Beatles, the "British invasion," and cultural respectability -- A hard day's night and Beatlemania -- England swings, and the Beatles evolve on Revolver and Sgt. Pepper -- The British art school blues -- The Stones versus the Beatles -- If you're goin' to San Francisco-- -- The kozmic blues of Janis Joplin -- Jimi Hendrix and the electronic guitar -- Rock meets the avant-garde : Frank Zappa -- Pop/bubblegum/Monkees -- The aesthetics of rock -- Festivals : the good, the bad, and the ugly -- Where did the sixties go? -- The sound of autobiography : singer-songwriters, Carole King -- Joni Mitchell journeys within -- Sly Stone : "the myth of Staggerlee" -- Not-so-"little" Stevie Wonder -- Parliament drops the bomb -- Heavy metal meets the counterculture -- Led Zeppelin speaks! -- "I have no message whatsovever" -- Rock me, Amadeus -- Jazz fusion -- Get on up disco -- Punk : the sound of criticism? -- Punk crosses the Atlantic -- Punk to new wave? --

UK new wave -- A "second British invasion," MTV, and other postmodernist conundrums -- Thriller begets the "King of Pop" -- Madonna and the performance of identity -- Bruce Springsteen : reborn in the USA -- R&B in the 1980s : to cross over or not to cross over? -- Heavy metal thunders on! -- Metal in the late eighties : glam or thrash? -- Postpunk goes Indie -- Indie brings the noise -- Hip-hop, don't stop -- "The music is a mirror" -- Where rap and heavy metal converge -- Hip-hop into the 1990s : gangstas, fly girls, and the big bling-bling -- Nuthin' but a "G" thang -- Keeping it a little too real -- Sample-mania -- Women in rap -- The beat goes on -- From Indie to alternative to-- -- Riot girl -- Grunge turns to scrunge -- A "postalternative icon" -- "We are the world"? -- A Talking Head writes -- Genre or gender? The resurgence of the singer-songwriter -- Public policy and pop music history collide -- Electronica is in the house -- R&B divas go retro -- Fighting the power in a post-9/11 mediascape: the Dixie Chicks -- The end of history, the mass marketing of trivia, and a world of copies without originals.