People are talking about Ken Emerson’s Always Magic
in the Air: The Bomp and the Brilliance of the Brill Building Era:
“Emerson’s affection for his subjects and the music
they created permeates his narrative and makes me want to revisit every little 45 rpm masterpiece I own.”—John
Kehe, Christian Science Monitor
“Superb…. Skeptical, witty, in love with the music,
Emerson is the ideal companion….” –James Parker, Boston Globe
“Emerson's book is just about everything you could wish
for. Love and clear-sightedness may be the most delicate of all critical balancing acts. For Emerson, it's his true north,
the critical compass that makes you believe you're reading a man you can trust…. Emerson makes you believe you can hear
the world in a pop song, even a world that's lost.”—Newsday
“Fascinating characters.… Emerson takes flight when
describing the cosmopolitan musical mixtures that defined the best work of the Brill Building set…. Here we get the
whole tale in a single entertaining package.”—Jim Windolf, The New York Times Book Review
“Again and again in "Always Magic in the Air,"
his engrossing account of the early days of rock and pop music, Ken Emerson puts you at the moment of creation…”—David
Kirby, The Chicago Tribune
And so is Ken Emerson:
Fans of these pages are among the select few who will recognize
the origins of my book’s title and subtitle: the second line of “On Broadway,” first sung by the Drifters
and written by Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller; and the title and refrain of Barry Mann’s biggest
(and only) hit as a performer, “Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp),” which he wrote with Gerry Goffin.
Mann, Weil, Leiber, Stoller and Goffin are five of the great
songwriters whose heyday in the late 1950s and early 1960s I chronicle in Always Magic in the Air. The others are Carole
King, Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Doc Pomus, Mort Shuman, Howard Greenfield, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich.
Having written a book about pop songwriting in the middle of
the 19th Century, Doo-Dah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture, I wanted to follow
it up with a book about pop songwriting in the middle of the 20th Century that would describe how much and how little
had changed.
My book is based on scores of in-depth interviews with songwriters,
producers, engineers, publishers, attorneys, performers, ex-wives—everyone from Fabian to Shadow Morton who has insights,
information and stories to tell about life in the Brill Building and nearby 1650 Broadway when writers huddled in cubicles
there wrote a new chapter in the Great American Songbook and the soundtrack for the baby boom generation. Once you’ve
read the stories behind them, songs like “Save the Last Dance for Me,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”
and “Kicks” will never sound the same. Who’d a thunk, for instance, that “Is That All There Is?”
was all but cribbed from an 1896 short story by Thomas Mann?
I’ m eager to tell all and spread the word in interviews
for print and on the air. If you’re interested, please contact me through Oldies Connection webmaster Laura at: lpintop@yahoo.com . (Note - please put 'Ken Emerson' in the subject line of your email)
