Nik Cohn - Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Still very good

Written in 1969, this remains for me one of the best books about rock and pop music between 1955 and 1968. It documents the rise of Rock & Roll, the Beatles and the Stones, flower power, psychedelia and so on, all of which has been very well done by others, too, but Nic Cohn was *there* and had been there recently. Not only that, but he has a wonderful writing style and a sharp, incisive take on things.

Cohn's style is fairly hip, cool and opinionated. I like it a lot, like his summing up of the difference between music in Britain and the USA in the early 60s: "Elvis became a god. Tommy Steele made it to the London Palladium." Or, on hearing Little Richard: "The message went
'Tutti frutti, all rootie,
Tutti frutti, all rootie,
Tutti frutti, all rootie,
Awopbopaloobop alopbamboom.'
As a summing up of what pop is really all about, this is little short of masterly."

Or try this more extended example of his style, describing Tina Turner (remember this was in the mid 60s):
“I remember seeing them [Ike and Tina Turner] in a London Club one time and I was standing right under the stage. So Tina started whirling and pounding and screaming, melting by the minute, and suddenly she came thundering down on me like an avalanche, backside first, all that flesh shaking and leaping in my face. And I reared back in self-defence, all the front rows did, and then someone fell over and we all immediately collapsed in a heap, struggling and cursing, thrashing about like fish in a bucket.
“When I looked back up again, Tina was still shaking above us, her butt was still exploding, and she looked down on us in triumph. So sassy, so smug and evil. She’d used her arse as a bowling ball, us as skittles, and she’d scored a strike.”

If you like that, you'll like the book. You certainly won't agree with everything he says because he's opinionated, slick, controversial and sometimes downright wrong, but I think this is a fascinating, funny and really enjoyable read. 45 years on it's still very rewarding and I recommend it very warmly.