African-American Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Gospel and Zydeco on Film and Video, 1926-1977 & Encyclopedia of Rhythm & Blues and Doo-Wop Vocal Groups.(Review)

African-American Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Gospel and Zydeco on Film and Video, 1926-1977. By Paul Vernon. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 1999. [xvii, 421 p. ISBN 1-84014-294-4. $104.95.]

Encyclopedia of Rhythm & Blues and Doo-Wop Vocal Groups. By Mitch Rosalsky. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2000. [xv, 703 p. ISBN 0-8108-3663-7. $89.50.]

Often the most useful reference books on popular music are written or compiled by fans rather than by scholars or professional bibliographers. The authors may not be professional musicians or academics--their day jobs are sometimes entirely unrelated--but they do what they do because they love the music. That is true of both authors whose books are reviewed here: Paul Vernon edited the respected British magazine Blues and Rhythm for several years, and Mitch Rosalsky is a record collector and performer of group harmony who has been active in the United in Group Harmony Association, the major organization that promotes the music. As fans, they are conversant with the insider literature and the sources necessary for the completion of such detailed projects.

Paul Vernon's African-American Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Gospel and Zydeco on Film and Video, 1926-1977 is by far the more competent of the two books. Its target audience is film professionals, although Vernon notes that "historians, writers, collectors and enthusiasts may also find the contents useful" (p. xi). He claims to concentrate on films that are commercially available, but he has actually included a number of relatively inaccessible sources (including American, British, and European film and television performances) that may be available only through stock footage houses. This is commendable in that it makes the record more complete, though it may be frustrating to avid collectors. Vernon has deliberately excluded privately produced videos because they may not be legally recorded or of suitable quality for re-use. He has also excluded most local television programming, because in cases where it has actually survived, it is simply too difficult to track down. He has provided a brief preface on the his tory and importance of African American vernacular music on film that is both authoritative and inspiring. For anyone who has tried to locate obscure historical footage, this book is a godsend.

Vernon has organized his book by performer, with films appearing in chronological order under the name of each performer featured. Each entry contains names of instrumental accompanists or group personnel, place and year of filming, songs performed (if known), and title of the source film or program. There are separate indexes for names, source titles (giving production information), and film directors and producers. An appendix provides names and addresses of suppliers of footage, and another gives sources of commercially available compilation videotapes and laser discs arranged by supplier and order number. A basic bibliography and indexes of filmed interviews and nonperforming interviewees and of film soundtracks issued separately on disc round out the book. The only omission is an index of song titles, which would have been useful, although a glance through the entries shows that the titles of songs performed are often unknown.

Vernon's introduction describes his system and criteria for inclusion: soul, rock and roll, and contemporary gospel are not covered, nor is jazz, which already has its filmography in David Meeker's classic Jazz in the Movies (New York: Da Capo, 1982). Performers who are not African American are not included. It is necessary to read the introduction with care, because here Vernon deals with issues like placement of performer and group names, an especially thorny problem for blues and gospel, which routinely feature names like "Guitar Slim," "Muddy Waters," and "The Sensational Nightingales."

If there is any criticism to be leveled at this book, it is that in some cases connections between the personal main entries and the wealth of information in the various ...