The Cambridge Companion to the Rolling Stones

Description

The Rolling Stones are one of the most influential, prolific, and enduring Rock and Roll bands in the history of music. This groundbreaking, specifically commissioned collection of essays provides the first dedicated academic overview of the music, career, influences, history, and cultural impact of the Rolling Stones. Shining a light on the many communities and sources of knowledge about the group, this Companion brings together essays by musicologists, ethnomusicologists, players, film scholars, and filmmakers into a single volume intended to stimulate fresh thinking about the group as they vault well over the mid-century of their career. Threaded throughout these essays are album- and song-oriented discussions of the landmark recordings of the group and their influence. Exploring new issues about sound, culture, media representation, the influence of world music, fan communities, group personnel, and the importance of their revival post-1989, this collection greatly expands our understanding of their music.

Victor Coelho is Professor of Music and Director of the Center for Early Music Studies at Boston University, as well as a lutenist and guitarist. His previous publications include Instrumentalists and Renaissance Culture (with Keith Polk, Cambridge, 2016), The Cambridge Companion to the Guitar (Cambridge, 2003), and Performance on Lute, Guitar, and Vihuela (Cambridge, 1997). John Covach is Director of the University of Rochester Institute for Popular Music, Professor of Music in the College Music Department, and Professor of Theory at the Eastman School of Music. He is the principal author of the college textbook What's That Sound?: An Introduction to Rock Music (5th edition, 2018) and has co-edited Understanding Rock (1997), American Rock and the Classical Tradition (2000), Traditions, Institutions, and American Popular Music (2000), and Sounding Out Pop (2010).

'An intriguing prospect for serious Stones fans.' Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock 'A bold attempt to up the intellectual ante around Stones criticism.' Jim Wirth, Uncut 'There's an entertaining look at a clutch of Stones country songs ... a decent reassessment of their psychedelic period ... and a welcome upgrade for Brian Jones as founder, world music maverick and the group's true dandy.' Neil Spencer, The Observer '... there are some interesting theories as the profs examine how psychedelia's aftershock resonated after Their Satanic Majesties and county music infiltrated, giving songs hatched from Keith's gut-level urges and relentless margination a depth even he might not have imagined ...' Kris Needs, Record Collector '... The Cambridge Companion to the Rolling Stones constitutes a balanced work, which should be welcomed in that it inaugurates a vast field of study and research, that of Rolling Stones studies, which is set to develop.' Philippe Gonin, Revue de musicologie