Soulsville USA
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Published in 1997 this book is already a bible to many soul fans. Indeed reviewing it may well be a pointless exercise because most soul folk seem to have already read it long before I have. It's position in the annals of soul literature is legendary and the accolades heaped upon it made me doubt whether it could be truly as good as its reputation suggests. On opening the front cover I was fully expecting to be disappointed. On closing the back cover I'm delighted to say I wasn't. The book lives up to every claim of its massive reputation. In his preface Rob Bowman tells us that he began his research into this book in 1985 and twelve years later he was still struggling to bring it to a conclusion. The time and effort that he must have devoted are self evident from the detail that it contains. The chapters are chronologically ordered by year, though some chapters might deal with a three or four year span whilst others might only deal with one or two. The number of pages devoted to a particular year are clearly determined by the significance of events which took place within that timespan. Every major, and some not so major events are clearly chronicled in both the meteoric rise and equally meteoric downfall of this iconic record company. It is not just the detail which impresses, but also the honesty which Rob Bowman strives to bring to his narrative. Wherever he doubts the integrity of a fact he places the most likely explanation in his main text, but adds a footnote to indicate that there may be an alternative version. He even acknowledges the source of these variations. Anyone who reads and fully digests this book will undoubtedly have achieved 'expert' status in the history of the label, but I doubt if this can be achieved in one reading. I suspect that by the time I have read this book for the fifth, sixth or even tenth time I will still be finding details which I missed on my previous excursions. Speaking personally it was not just about soul music or a record label that I learned from its pages, but also I picked up a deep insight into the corrupt ways business is often conducted in America. Can any book ever be perfect, and the answer is clearly not, but if I am to criticise this tome it can only be on minor grounds. Once again I found the font too small for my ageing eyes. Using a larger one may have doubled the cost, and expanded its current four hundred pages to twice that amount, but it would still have been well worth it. My second point is that I feel that Bob uses the term 'ballad' far too liberally, but he has E-mailed me to argue that my definition is far too restrictive. Its a point on which we're going to have to differ, but what does it matter anyway? I'm clearly doing nothing more than splitting hairs. There can be no doubt that this is truly a historic and important book, and one which no soul fan can afford to miss. |
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Why Not visit the Authors other Website, 'The Alternative Blackpool Website' at http://www.localdial.com/users/jsyedu133/bpool This Site Last Updated 18/05/05
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