Forever Doo-Wop: Race, Nostalgia, and Vocal Harmony by John Michael Runowicz (review)

Doo-wop's audience is shrinking and aging, John Michael Runowicz reminds readers throughout this study, but it constitutes an important though often-neglected facet of American popular music history, especially with regard to race. The very same racial issues persist in the present as well, even if they take somewhat subtler forms, as Runowicz's contemporary and ethnographic data demonstrate. So it is not surprising that race is one of two themes that anchor this able historical account of a music that has been called "the forgotten third of rock 'n' roll."¹ Its companion theme—nostalgia—contextualizes the cultural accomplishments of doo-wop music, where "in addition to being a cultural site where nostalgia for a particular historical moment is performed and consumed, the doo-wop community can be seen as a socioeconomic formation in which the opportunity to re-experience a youthful connection to body and soul is available" en masse in a process Runowicz calls "collective nostalgia" (16-17).

The book's first two chapters provide a tour of doo-wop's predecessors, including barbershop quartets from minstrelsy through the 1920s, jazz-era vocal quartets such as the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots, gospel quartets, and rhythm and blues vocal groups, before turning to the formation of doo-wop proper on urban American streetcorners. The third chapter assesses doo-wop's ethnic expansion in terms of both performers and audiences, and nostalgia is front and center, interpreted through the marked increase in recording activities that cast record collection as a nostalgic pastime. Runowicz's ethnographic and analytical work really shines in the final two chapters, which consider the various constituencies of "the doo-wop community" and "the oldies circuit," bringing to life the lived experience of doo-wop musicians, as well as their ethnographer. Fieldwork accounts powerfully illustrate the way humor is used to acknowledge, diffuse, and critique the longstanding and continuing legal and racial tensions felt by doo-wop singers. For example, in a 2002 dressing room conversation among members of the Cadillacs (one of the main groups considered in the text), their all-black band, and Runowicz himself (who is white and performed with this group), the musicians reminisce about prejudice they faced while on the road in the 1950s and 1960s, followed by an oblique and comical reference to Runowicz's presence (109-10). The subsequent analysis carefully teases out these threads of memory, demonstrating how these retellings are infused with "interpretations of current affairs," which themselves become performative events.

Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of Forever Doo-Wop is how seamlessly the figure of the ethnographer glides in and out of the narrative. Certainly, there are passages in which Runowicz's presence is strongly felt, but they never overwhelm the musicians at the heart of the story. Moreover, his appearances in the text are always purposeful, such as to demonstrate the internal politics of the band (111) or the white musician's role in assisting the performance of a black, "insider racial discourse" (115-16). Consequently, the musicians remain the central characters, and their personalities add definite charm to the text.

Less attention is paid to other parts of the doo-wop community (such as the "mediators" and the audience, who are considered briefly in chapter 4). Regardless, there is much to be learned from the lives of doo-wop musicians. Runowicz's account, for instance, offers glimpses into the interconnectedness of various aspects of identity. Not only did many doo-wop musicians face racial challenges, but many dealt with thorny legal issues as well. (Forever Doo-Wop repeatedly reminds its readers that those who wrote and performed the music were not always those who owned it, and includes an intriguing section on the Truth In Music Bill, 94-96.) Many of the legal rights remained in the hands of Jewish managers, record-label owners, and booking agents, and...