Rock and roll is a profoundly American art form, the musical expression of revolutionary changes in popular culture and values, a Dionysian eruption that hit the white-bread fifties like a hurricane. It was a force destined to shake up subsequent decades and transform American culture.
Rock & Roll: An Unruly History is a full-scale salute to rock that is also a companion to the ten-part public television series, illuminating the roots of rock and exploring the "rock and roll culture" that surrounds the music.
Robert Palmer, a preeminent rock critic and musician who was the chief consultant for the public television series, explores the complex creative processes that have allowed rock music to endure as a living art, fed from sources deep within nonconformist, anti-mainstream, often multiethnic American culture. By focusing on its roots and branchings, Palmer charts rock's ongoing developmental processes, showing how its many tributaries - from blues and gospel to reggae, punk, and rap - converge and connect to create the most insightful history of rock and roll ever written.