Ready For A Brand New Beat
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Ready For A Brand New Beat by Mark Kurlansky
Can a song change a nation? In 1964, Marvin Gaye, record producer William Mickey Stevenson, and Motown songwriter Ivy Jo Hunter wrote Dancing in the Street. The song was recorded at Motown's Hitsville USA Studio by Martha and the Vandellas, with lead singer Martha Reeves arranging her own vocals. Released on July 31, the song was supposed to be an upbeat dance recording-a precursor to disco, and a song about the joyousness of dance. But events overtook it, and the song became one of the icons of American pop culture. The Beatles had landed in the U.S. in early 1964. By the summer, the sixties were in full swing. The summer of 1964 was the Mississippi Freedom Summer, the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, the beginning of the Vietnam War, the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and the lead-up to a dramatic election. As the country grew more radicalized in those few months, Dancing in the Street gained currency as an activist anthem. The song took on new meanings, multiple meanings, for many different groups that were all changing as the country changed. Told by the writer who is legendary for finding the big story in unlikely places, Ready for a Brand New Beat chronicles that extraordinary summer of 1964 and showcases the momentous role that a simple song about dancing played in history.
Mark Kurlansky worked for several years on commercial fishing boats in Canada and the US, and subsequently became a journalist, covering beats in Eastern and Western Europe, the Caribbean, and Latin America for the Chicago Tribune and the International Herald Tribune. He has written for magazines including Harper's, Audubon, and the New York Times Magazine, and contributes a column on food history to Food & Wine magazine. In addition to Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, he is the author of A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny, A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry, The Basque History of the World, and Salt: A World History. He lives in New York City.
SKU | Unavailable |
ISBN 13 | 9781594487224 |
ISBN 10 | 1594487227 |
Title | Ready For A Brand New Beat |
Author | Mark Kurlansky |
Condition | Unavailable |
Binding type | Book |
Publisher | Penguin Putnam Inc |
Year published | 2013-07-11 |
Number of pages | 263 |
Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
Note | Unavailable |