Always Magic in the Air : The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era (book)

Always Magic in the Air : The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era
book by Ken Emerson

Always Magic in the Air is a portrait of fourteen remarkable young songwriters who, huddled in midtown Manhattan's Brill Building and in 1650 Broadway during the late 1950s and early '60s, created many of rock 'n' roll's first great classics including Jailhouse Rock, Halfway To Paradise, A Teenager In Love, His Latest Flame and many many more.
Leiber & Stoller, Pomus & Scuman, Goffin & King and many others melded black, white and Latino sounds before multiculturalism became a concept, integrated audiences before American desegregated its schools, and brought a new social consciousness to music.
Impeccably researched, including exclusive interviews with all the main participants, ‘Always Magic in the Air’ is a riveting chapter in American popular culture, evoking a period when fear and frivolity, sputniks and hula-hoops simultaneously girdled the globe.
Ken Emerson describes the world that made these songwriters, the world they in turn made in their music, and the impact on their careers, partnerships and marriages.
The stories behind their songs make the golden oldies that we take for grated sound brand new and more moving and eloquent than we ever suspected.