About I’m No Superman! Antiheroes in Popular Culture: Exploring Musical Groups and Artists 1950’s – 1970’s Volume 4 by Dr. Joseph D. Di Lella
Not unlike the first three volumes in this book series, I’m No Superman! Antiheroes in Popular Culture: Exploring Musical Groups and Artists 1950’s -1970’s this time focuses on the most influential bands and artists since the 1950’s to the mid-1970’s.
Perhaps the best question to raise is a simple one: What is an antihero in music?
For this book, we look at how men, women and groups defied the cultural norms of the world and their particular society with the subject matter of their songs and the different type of music that broke away from standards of their era.
We start with Sister Rosetta Tharpe who moved the needle from singing mere gospel songs sang in church to subject matter that attracted a wider audience. Her work with the guitar and booming voice turned spiritual stories into catchy tales that the public ate up and demanded to hear on the radio.
From the good sister, we find Muddy Waters who made Southern songs about life into more jazz-like blues tunes made popular in Chicago.
Let’s not forget American songwriter Pete Seeger who sang about the civil rights of the common men and women who fought for unionization and a decent living in the US.
But these are only three of the antiheroes who changes the face of music in the 1930’s to what it mutated into by the 1950’s with wildly popular singers like Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Etta James just to name a few. The King introduced us to rock and roll while others still maintained a more adult-like audience for romantic ballads.
And of course, when the Beatles visited America in 1963, the British Invasion took over the American culture as music lovers wanted to see them and the Rolling Stones, The Who, and others from England.
Thus, the era of the 1930’s through the 1970’s clearly shows that music is a highly dynamic and changeable entity that reflects values of national and global tastes.
Explore with this author how the most influential artists of these years were rebels and antiheroes who changed the face of not only music but of American society, too.
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Author Bio:
Joseph is an educator by trade but a storyteller who loves writing poems, short stories, screenplays, teleplays and books.