American Entertainment History

Starting with the Civil War and cartoonist Thomas Nast, creator of the lasting images of Uncle Sam and Santa Claus, author Jeremy Dauber whizzes listeners through the progress of comics in the 20th century and beyond. Follow the history from the golden age of newspaper comic strips - Krazy Kat, Yellow Kid, Dick Tracy - to the midcentury superhero boom - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman - and from the moral panic of the Eisenhower era to the underground comix movement; from the grim and gritty Dark Knights to the graphic novel’s rise.

Cuando El chavo del ocho se estrenó en los años 70, el programa ofrecía un retrato poco común de la vida de la clase trabajadora que resonó en la gente de toda América Latina. En el pico de su popularidad, 350 millones de personas lo sintonizaban cada semana. Y durante casi 50 años, el legado de “el chavo” se mantuvo vivo a través de una creciente base de fans multigeneracional y sus retransmisiones diarias. Hasta 2020, cuando El Chavo dejó de emitirse repentinamente.

The blues grew out of the plantations and prisons, the swampy marshes and fertile cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta. With original research and keen insights, Ted Gioia - the author of a landmark study of West Coast jazz and the critically acclaimed The History of Jazz - brings to life the stirring music of the Delta, evoking the legendary figures who shaped its sound and ethos: Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, and others.

Believe it or not, America's fascination with celebrity culture was thriving well before the days of TMZ, Perez Hilton, Charlie Sheen's breakdown, and allegations against Woody Allen. And the stars of yesteryear? They weren't always the saints that we make them out to be. Part biography, part cultural history, the stories contained in this book cover the stuff that films are made of: love, sex, drugs, illegitimate children, illicit affairs, and botched cover-ups.

In The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart offers the definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance, based on the extant primary sources of his life and on interviews with those who knew him personally. He narrates the education of Locke, including his becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar, earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University, and his long career as a professor at Howard University. And yet he became most closely associated with the flowering of Black culture in Jazz Age America.

Shout It Out Loud is a serious examination of the circumstance and serendipity that fused the creation of the band's seminal work, Destroyer - including the band's arduous ascent to the unexpected smash hit Alive!, the ensuing lawsuits between its management and its label, the pursuit of the hot, young producer, a grueling musical "boot camp", the wildly creative studio abandon, the origins behind an iconic cover, the era's most outlandish tour, and the unlikely string of hit singles.

In 1963, 30-year-old Friedman - who had recently quit his job as a Boston advertising executive and returned to his hometown of New York to become a theatrical producer - opened a coffee house for Broadway performers called the Improvisation. His goal? Simply to make a living, and if all went according to plan, to also make enough professional contacts to be able to mount his first Broadway show within a year's time. Later shortened to the Improv, its first West 44th Street location was in a seedy section of Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen.

Considered by many to be a founder of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra - a.k.a. Herman Blount - was a composer, keyboardist, bandleader, philosopher, entrepreneur, poet, and self-proclaimed extraterrestrial from Saturn. He recorded over 200 albums with his Arkestra, which, dressed in Egypto-space costumes, played everything from boogie-woogie and swing to fusion and free jazz.

Fifty years ago, a little boy was cast in a movie with some of Hollywood's brightest stars. The movie: It's a Wonderful Life; the boy: Jimmy Hawkins; today, he tells his story. Through personal recollection, careful research, and interviews with cast and crew, actor Jimmy Hawkins, who played four-year-old Tommy Bailey, takes you behind the scenes for a first-hand look at the American movie classic It's a Wonderful Life.

No industry has been as influential at shaping the popular notion of what it means to be a witch quite as much as Hollywood. This book traces the fascinating history of witchcraft and witches in American film and television. From Joan the Woman and The Wizard of Oz to Carrie and Charmed, author and film scholar Heather Greene explores how these films helped influence the public image of the witch and profoundly influenced how women negotiate their power in a patriarchal society.

Fifty-five years ago, in 1964, an incredibly honest and revealing memoir by one of the America's best-loved comedians and activists, Dick Gregory, was published. With a shocking title and breathtaking writing, Dick Gregory defined a genre and changed the way race was discussed in America.

He wasn’t known to mainstream audiences, even though he worked with renowned acts like D’Angelo and Erykah Badu and influenced the music of superstars like Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. He died at the age of 32, and in his lifetime he never had a pop hit. Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod: revered by jazz musicians and rap icons from Robert Glasper to Kendrick Lamar; memorialized in symphonies and taught at universities.

Daphne A. Brooks explores more than a century of music archives to examine the critics, collectors, and listeners who have determined perceptions of Black women on stage and in the recording studio. How is it possible, she asks, that iconic artists such as Aretha Franklin and Beyonce exist simultaneously at the center and on the fringe of the culture industry? Liner Notes for the Revolution offers a startling new perspective on these acclaimed figures—a perspective informed by the overlooked contributions of other Black women concerned with the work of their musical peers.

Look closely at any typically "American" article of clothing these days, and you may be surprised to see a Japanese label inside. From high-end denim to oxford button-downs, Japanese designers have taken the classic American look - known as ametora, or "American traditional" - and turned it into a huge business for companies like Uniqlo, Kamakura Shirts, Evisu, and Kapital. This phenomenon is part of a long dialogue between Japanese and American fashion.

Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (1905-1961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywood's most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photos—with a touch of defiance—"Orientally yours." Now, more than a century after her birth, Yunte Huang narrates Wong's tragic life story, retracing her journey from Chinatown to silent-era Hollywood, and from Weimar Berlin to decadent, prewar Shanghai, and capturing American television in its infancy.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Satchel and Bobby Kennedy, a sweeping and spellbinding portrait of the longtime kings of jazz—Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie—who, born within a few years of one another, overcame racist exclusion and violence to become the most popular entertainers on the planet.

With his now-legendary store on 125th Street in Harlem, Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the 1980s, remixing classic luxury-brand logos into his own innovative, glamorous designs. But before he reinvented haute couture, he was a hungry boy with holes in his shoes, a teen who daringly gambled drug dealers out of their money, and a young man in a prison cell who found nourishment in books. In this remarkable memoir, he tells his full story for the first time.

The saga behind The Blues Brothers, as Daniel de Visé reveals, is epic, encompassing the colorful childhoods of Belushi and Aykroyd; the comedic revolution sparked by Harvard’s Lampoon and Chicago’s Second City; the birth and anecdote-rich, drug-filled early years of Saturday Night Live, where the Blues Brothers were born as an act amidst turmoil and rivalry; and, of course, the indelible behind-the-scenes narrative of how the film was made, scene by memorable scene.

The creators of the podcast The Dollop present profiles of the weird, outrageous, NSFW, and downright absurd tales from American history that you weren't taught in school. The United States of Absurdity presents short, informative, and hilarious stories of the most outlandish (but true) people, events, and more from United States history.

As author Ethan Mordden looks back at Chicago's various moving parts - including the original 1926 play that started it all, a sexy silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, a talkie remake with Ginger Rogers, the musical itself, and at last the movie of the musical - we learn how the American theater serves as a kind of alternative news medium, a town crier warning the public about the racy, devious interior contradictions of American society. Opinionated, witty, and rich in backstage anecdotes, All That Jazz brings the American musical to life in all its artistry and excitement.