Profiles more than five hundred noteworthy rock songs, all of which appeared high on the charts, but not all of them number one hits, and describes their biographical, social, and esthetic significance

Used across the nation as a reference book for radio stations and media personnel, American Hit Radio is regarded as a reliable and entertaining source of information about the popular music industry. Starting in 1955, America began tracking its favorite songs on the Top 40 charts. More than a record of our collective music tastes, the charts became snapshots that reveal who we are. Now Thomas Ryan, a music reviewer, percussionist, and obsessive vintage vinyl collector, takes us through all forty years, providing a wealth of insight based on exhaustive research. Arranged chronologically, American Hit Radio puts 1,250 of the Top 40 songs in perspective, spotlighting 500 with carefully crafted essays describing the artists backgrounds and inspirations, the cultural context of the songs, and how the song styles and statements relate to the music scene before and since. From Fats Domino to Nirvana, popular music reflects the radical changes we have experienced as a country and a culture. American Hit Radio explores where our music has taken us in the last half-century --- what we have left behind, what persists, and why. Whether the song is Maybelline or Billie Jean, popular music is something we all share. American Hit Radio is more than an enjoyable popular music survey, its a vivid cultural history of the American psyche.

The Concise Encyclopedia of American Radio is an essential single-volume reference guide to this vital and evolving medium. Comprised of more than 300 entries spanning the invention of radio to the Internet, this refernce work addresses personalities, music genres, regulations, technology, programming and stations, the "golden age" of radio and other topics relating to radio broadcasting throughout its history. The entries are updated throughout and the volume includes nine new entries on topics ranging from podcasting to the decline of radio.

Early '70s Radio focuses on the emergence of commercial music radio "formats," which refer to distinct musical genres aimed toward specific audiences. This formatting revolution took place in a period rife with heated politics, identity anxiety, large-scale disappointments and seemingly insoluble social problems. As industry professionals worked overtime to understand audiences and to generate formats, they also laid the groundwork for market segmentation. Audiences, meanwhile, approached these formats as safe havens wherein they could re-imagine and redefine key issues of identity. A fresh and accessible exercise in audience interpretation, Early '70s Radio is organized according to the era's five prominent formats and analyzes each of these in relation to their targeted demographics, including Top 40, "soft rock", album-oriented rock, soul and country. The book closes by making a case for the significance of early '70s formatting in light of commercial radio today.

The Biographical Encyclopedia of American Radio presents the very best biographies of the internationally acclaimed three-volume Encyclopedia of Radio in a single volume. It includes more than 200 biographical entries on the most important and influential American radio personalities, writers, producers, directors, newscasters, and network executives. With 23 new biographies and updated entries throughout, this volume covers key figures from radio’s past and present including Glenn Beck, Jessie Blayton, Fred Friendly, Arthur Godfrey, Bob Hope, Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, Ryan Seacrest, Laura Schlesinger, Red Skelton, Nina Totenberg, Walter Winchell, and many more. Scholarly but accessible, this encyclopedia provides an unrivaled guide to the voices behind radio for students and general readers alike.

(Book). This ultimate guide to big bands includes hundreds of entries spanning the history of this American musical style. Each entry contains the band name, its leader, essential personnel, the years it existed, tops hits, and a brief description of the band.

Includes interviews with such well known personalities as Walter Cronkite, Dick Clark, Steve Allen, Art Linkletter, Paul Harvey, Howard K. Smith, Ed McMahon, Bruce Morrow, as well as more than fifty other individuals who were or continue to be actively involved in radio.