35405

    The Producer John Hammond and the Soul of American Music

    Fsg Books

    Dunstan Prial's biography presents John Hammond's life as a gripping story of music, money, fame, and racial conflict, played out in the nightclubs and recording studios where the music was made. A pioneering producer and talent spotter, Hammond discovered and championed some of the most gifted musicians of early jazz--Billie Holliday, Count Basie, Charlie Christian, Benny Goodman--and staged the legendary "From Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall in 1939, which established jazz as America's indigenous music. Then as jazz gave way to pop and rock Hammond repeated the trick, discovering Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, and Stevie Ray Vaughan in his life's extraordinary second act.