Lauterbach - The chitlin circuit: and the road to rock n roll

Copyright 2011 by Preston Lauterbach

All rights reserved

First published as a Norton paperback 2012

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lauterbach, Preston.

The chitlin circuit : and the road to rock n roll /
Preston Lauterbach. 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-393-07652-3 (hardcover)

1. JazzHistory and criticism. 2. African American jazz musicians.
I. Title.

ML3508.L39 2011

781.6408996073dc22

2011007209

ISBN 978-0-393-34294-9 pbk.

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.

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More praise for

The Chitlin Circuit

One of NPRs Best Music Books of 2011

One of the Wall Street Journal s Best Nonfiction Books of 2011

One of the Boston Globe s Best Nonfiction and Music-Related Books of 2011

One of Booklist s Top Ten Arts Books of 2011 and a Top Ten Pick for Black History Month

One of Library Journal s bestsellers of 2011

Remarkable.... The Chitlin Circuit illuminates a period of American musical history thats long needed it.... [Goes] a long way towards illuminating the life black performers lived off-stage and the conditions they endured while they worked.

Ed Ward, NPR

A coherent, musically savvy history of a performance culture that until now was known only piecemeal.

Robert Christgau,
Barnes & Noble Review

4 fans of R&B history, The Chitlin Circuit and the Road to Rock n Roll by Preston Lauterbach is a rich study of promoters, clubs of the 40s, 50s.

@nelsongeorge

Preston Lauterbachs The Chitlin Circuit is really good.

John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead

In this terrific popular history, music journalist Lauterbach resurrects a thriving African American subculture that nurtured
rock n roll, vividly portraying the famous (B.B. King, Little Richard) and the unsung.

Booklist

Thanks to Lauterbachs enthusiastic appreciation,... the once-lost history of the chitlin circuit has now been reverently recaptured.

AARP

Finally, the definitive story of the chitlin circuit is here. Lauterbachs passionate account reveals a slice of Americas musical history thats often been overlooked and underreported. Its not just a documentation of history, its an appreciation of the enduring black artists who honed their talents on this tough circuit. I sat down yesterday afternoon with the book, and couldnt let it go.

Steven Roby, author of Becoming Jimi Hendrix

The Chitlin Circuit is immensely informative, combining a detailed account of life on the road, and its dystopic sideshow of winners and losers, with a fresh and persuasive take on the origins of rock and roll. Lauterbach has a knowing yet unaffected style. He inhabits his subject with an infectious relish, occasionally throwing in a cadence reminiscent of James Ellroy.

Lou Glandfield,
Times Literary Supplement

Preston Lauterbach shines new light on neglected and important corners of American music. Deeply researched and skillfully written, The Chitlin Circuit is funny in spots, tragic in others, and full of little-known stories that will surprise even die-hard music fans.

Elijah Wald, musician and author of
Escaping the Delta and How the Beatles Destroyed Rock n Roll

Music aficionados will find much to admire in Lauterbachs enthusiastic homage to this vital underground music scene, still thriving in our midst some seventy years later.

Jaime Kornegay,
Delta Magazine

Lauterbach tells his story with big splashes of color.

Kirkus Reviews

Definitive history of the musical back roads and back rooms of the southern United States.... A great read, well written and insightful.

Todd Spires, Library Journal

Lauterbachs writing is as energetic as a Little Richard song.... A rocking read and a deserving tribute to the people and places who were the foundations of rock and roll.

Publishers Weekly

Bolstered by interviews with key circuit vets and surviving relatives, along with a goldmine of source material from the black media of the day, The Chitlin Circuit gives readers a curbside view on the action.

Eddie Dean, Wall Street Journal

No single film tells the whole story. Now, though, Preston Lauterbachs The Chitlin Circuit: And the Road to Rock n Roll a fact-studded and exhaustively researched bookdoes.... You can pull the building down board by board, but the music? Thats indestructible.

David Kirby, Christian Science Monitor

Lauterbach researches like a hardcore academic.... Hes also a keen stylist, loquacious and hard-boiled, equally effective at evoking the dirty street life of the strollthe main drag of black neighborhoodsand setting the context for a musician or recording.

Michaelangelo Matos, A.V. Club

The Chitlin Circuit maps out the parallel Americas that segre-gation created, recounting with vivid characterizations and killer storytelling chops how that world, over three decades or so, created the circumstances that let rock emerge.... The Chitlin Circuit: And the Road to Rock n Roll is the genius prequel to an oft-told epic.

New Orleans Times-Picayune

[A] myth-busting history of the people and places that made rock n roll possible.... This sprawling, fascinating history drops readers into a chaotic, dangerous, utterly vanished world. It turns out to be more vibrant than the standard rock n roll mythology. The true dawn of rock lit a landscape in which timeless music got made thanks to every vice and virtue imaginable. Now thats America.

John Repp, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Preston Lauterbachs rollicking, radiant new book plumbs the musics deep black roots, providing an important historical corrective.... Lauterbach spins the tale with enormous vitality.... He masterfully explains the complex logistics of the entertainment industry, and studs the book with fascinating, little-known characters like promoters Don Robey and club impresario Denver Ferguson, as well as fresh, revealing portraits of more familiar figures, such as Little Richard.... The reader will finish with an overwhelming urge to turn up the volume.

Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe

The Chitlin Circuit: And the Road to Rock n Roll [is] crucial to our understanding of late-20th-century pop music and all the more impressive for its exhaustive research. Preston Lauterbachs bookspirited, studious, surprising, occasionally hilariousis absolutely persuasive on its subject.

Stephen M. Deusner, Paste magazine

Lauterbachs depiction... is as pungent as you would hope of the inside story of a showbiz backwater named after a pigs entrails.

Ben Thompson, Independent on Sunday

Scrupulously uncovering a musical history long neglected, this is an antidote to the myth that rock and roll didnt exist until white folks took notice.

Steve Jelbert, The Word

Shockingly, rocknrolls most vital catalyst has never been properly documented, so its a mighty bonus that Lauterbach has crafted such a relentlessly absorbing work.... One of the books of the year, no contest.