Preston Love
Wesleyan Press, 1997
Paperback. 294pp. b&w illustrations
£15.95

Preston Love's resumé reads like a Who's Who of American music: member of the Count Basie Band during its heyday in the forties, studio musician in Los Angeles, cohort of Jo Jones, Lester Young, Ray Charles and Dizzy Gillespie, and back-up player for Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder. In a distinctive and passionate voice, Love chronicles not only the famous personalities, but also the forgotten geniuses, and the little known world of the territory bands, tirelessly performing in outposts like St. Cloud, Minnesota, Guthrie, Oklahoma, and Honey Creek, Iowa. Love's story highlights significant facets of African American history: the central importance of the family in musical development, institutional racism in American popular culture, and the interracial nature of the music world, providing an important view into the evolution of jazz and the Motown sound.

PRESTON LOVE is a distinguished musician and jazz and Motown authority.

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