Books by Kip Lornell

The Beat! was the first book to explore the musical, social, and cultural phenomenon of go-go music. In this new edition, updated by a substantial chapter on the current scene, authors Kip Lornell and Charles C. Stephenson, Jr., place go-go within black popular music made since the middle 1970s - a period during which hip-hop has predominated.

From Jubilee to Hip Hop includes 36 reading selections that underscore the breadth and variety of African American musical culture. Each of these selections relates something notable and interesting about African American musical culture since the Emancipation, whether it is Marian Anderson's recollection of the legendary 1939 DAR Constitution Hall debacle, or John Chilton's story of the impact of Louis Jordan's song, "Caldonia."

During the years before World War II, hundreds of traditional musicians were sought out by commercial record companies, brought to New York or into local -- often makeshift -- studios, to cut recordings that would be marketed as "race" and "hillbilly" music.

Reflects the fascinating diversity of regional and grassroots music in the United States. The book covers the diverse strains of American folk music - Latin, Native American, African, French-Canadian, British, and Cajun - and offers a chronology of the development of folk music in the United States.