I Don’t Sound Like Nobody: Remaking Music in 1950s America (Tracking Pop) - Hardcover

"Mr. Zak brings a record hound's passion and expertise to his study . . . For aficionados of American popular music, this is an engrossing work of scholarship full of fresh insights." --Wall Street Journal -- (12/18/2010) "Students and scholars of popular music will find this an enlightening, thought-provoking book." --Choice, D Arnold, University of North Texas --D Arnold"CHOICE" (12/22/2010) "Students and scholars of popular music will find this an enlightening, thought-provoking book."--Choice, D Arnold, University of North Texas "This research should serve as a catalyst for a critical reevaluation of the current narratives of postwar American popular music history and will likely exert an influence on the field for many years to come." --Travis D. Stimeling, American Music -- (02/26/2013)

The 1950s marked a radical transformation in American popular music as the nation drifted away from its love affair with big band swing to embrace the unschooled and unruly new sounds of rock 'n' roll. The sudden flood of records from the margins of the music industry left impressions on the pop soundscape that would eventually reshape long-established listening habits and expectations, as well as conventions of songwriting, performance, and recording. When Elvis Presley claimed, ""I don't sound like nobody,"" a year before he made his first commercial record, he unwittingly articulated the era's musical Zeitgeist. The central story line of I Don't Sound Like Nobody is change itself. The book's characters include not just performers but engineers, producers, songwriters, label owners, radio personalities, and fans---all of them key players in the decade's musical transformation. Written in engaging, accessible prose, Albin Zak's I Don't Sound Like Nobody approaches musical and historical issues of the 1950s through the lens of recordings and fashions a compelling story of the birth of a new musical language. The book belongs on the shelf of every modern music aficionado and every scholar of rock 'n' roll.|The 1950s marked a radical transformation in American popular music as the nation drifted away from its love affair with big band swing to embrace the unschooled and unruly new sounds of rock 'n' roll. The sudden flood of records from the margins of the music industry left impressions on the pop soundscape that would eventually reshape long-established listening habits and expectations, as well as conventions of songwriting, performance, and recording. When Elvis Presley claimed, ""I don't sound like nobody,"" a year before he made his first commercial record, he unwittingly articulated the era's musical Zeitgeist. The central story line of I Don't Sound Like Nobody is change itself. The book's characters include not just performers but engineers, producers, songwriters, label owners, radio personalities, and fans---all of them key players in the decade's musical transformation. Written in engaging, accessible prose, Albin Zak's I Don't Sound Like Nobody approaches musical and historical issues of the 1950s through the lens of recordings and fashions a compelling story of the birth of a new musical language. The book belongs on the shelf of every modern music aficionado and every scholar of rock 'n' roll.