“HEART & SOUL: A CELEBRATION OF BLACK...

“HEART & SOUL: A CELEBRATION OF BLACK MUSIC STYLE IN AMERICA 1930-1975”

By Bob Merlis and Davin Seay,

foreword by Etta James

Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $40

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Illustrated with hundreds of color photographs and images, this elegant book crisply chronicles the impact of “the golden age of black style” on pop music. The more prominent African American artists’ influence is revealed in the album covers and sheet music of lesser lights, but more fascinating is how the images of these icons came to represent not just black, but American culture as a whole. Stars such as Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong and James Brown are seen happily representing commodities from cigarettes to U-Haul, underscoring, at the very least, that product endorsements have always been with us. Anecdotes along the margins often prove as revealing as the artwork, and both vividly enhance the smoothly written historical prose.

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