LET'S DO IT

A sprawling, 600-page, swiftly moving chronicle of the birth of popular music.

Stanley, whose previous history, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Story of Pop Music From Bill Haley to Beyoncé, cleverly captured the heyday of pop music, turns his uncanny ability to draw connections between far-flung generations of musicians to the first half of the 20th century. As the author shows, this is the era when pop music was born—when “records…were made to sell, music…was intended to be heard by the largest possible audience”—and the recording and performance industries developed alongside the music. Stanley profiles numerous larger-than-life figures, from the brilliant yet tragic heroes Scott Joplin and Irving Berlin, through the birth of jazz and big bands, to iconic superstars like Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, and Frank Sinatra. The author’s pithy summary of Sinatra’s appeal demonstrates his descriptive skill: “The tenderness in his voice was all the more effective because of the flip side, the toughness that could mutate into drunken divorcee bitterness on something like ‘That’s Life.’ Love and hate, kindness and intolerance in equal measure.” Stanley calls Sinatra the “fulcrum” of the book, embodying what came before and providing the blueprint for the careers that came after—all the way up to the current music scene. This author’s ability to assess the history of his subject through the lens of today’s music sets this book apart. As he finds the links between Carole King and Garland (“ ‘It Might as Well Rain Until September’ could have been sung by Judy Garland in Meet Me in St Louis”) or Paul McCartney’s connections to both Matt Monro and Peggy Lee, Stanley makes the argument that good music is good music. “John Lennon disparagingly referred to these efforts as Paul’s ‘granny music,’ ” writes the author. “But who doesn’t love their granny?”

A delightful music history that gives pop its proper due without losing any of the fizzy fun along the way.