In this Book
- Dewey and Elvis: The Life and Times of a Rock 'n' Roll Deejay
- Book
- 2010
- Published by: University of Illinois Press
- Series: Music in American Life
summary
Beginning in 1949, while Elvis Presley and Sun Records were still virtually unknown--and two full years before Alan Freed famously "discovered" rock 'n' roll--Dewey Phillips brought the budding new music to the Memphis airwaves by playing Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, and Muddy Waters on his nightly radio show Red, Hot and Blue. The mid-South's most popular white deejay, "Daddy-O-Dewey" soon became part of rock 'n' roll history for being the first major disc jockey to play Elvis Presley and, subsequently, to conduct the first live, on-air interview with the singer.
Louis Cantor illuminates Phillips's role in turning a huge white audience on to previously forbidden race music. Phillips's zeal for rhythm and blues legitimized the sound and set the stage for both Elvis's subsequent success and the rock 'n' roll revolution of the 1950s. Using personal interviews, documentary sources, and oral history collections, Cantor presents a personal view of the disc jockey while restoring Phillips's place as an essential figure in rock 'n' roll history.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-x
- Introduction
- pp. 1-6
- 3. The White Brother on Beale Street
- pp. 45-63
- 10. Dewey and Elvis: The Synthesized Sound
- pp. 135-143
- 11. Dewey Introduces Elvis to the World
- pp. 144-158
- 15. "Goodbye, Good People"
- pp. 207-221
- Bibliography
- pp. 265-276
Additional Information
ISBN
9780252090738
Related ISBN(s)
9780252029813, 9780252077326
MARC Record
OCLC
811409109
Pages
320
Launched on MUSE
2013-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No
Copyright
2010