Music in American Life: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories That Shaped Our Culture

This superbly written and edited set is full of pleasant surprises, from offbeat entries, such as "U.S. Presidents as Musicians," to fascinating trivia (the band the B-52s got its name from "Southern slang for a large beehive hairstyle that resembled the nose cone of the B-52 aircraft"). From the silly to the serious, as in "Fools and Foolish Behavior in Song" vs. "American Federation of Musicians," the volumes encompass the breadth and depth of the American music scene. The bulk of the work consists of 500-plus alphabetically arranged, signed entries covering notable personalities; famous bands, singers, and songwriters; musical instruments, genres, and styles; organizations; social movements; technology as an influence on music; and a multiplicity of other topics. Add to this engaging mix a half-dozen special features, including a chronology, bibliography, discography, list of music festivals, and so on, plus a refreshingly high degree of academic rigor, and the result is a set that not only makes for interesting reading but is truly useful as a research tool. Edmondson (education, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park) has gathered a cast of contributors that consists of "more than 280 musicians, scholars, critics, and industry experts from the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom." It should be noted that the contributors' pages are unusually detailed regarding education, experience, and background of the individual writers, so one gets a much better sense of their musical credentials than is available from a mere listing of a name and an institution.