Race, Rock, and Elvis

by Michael T. Bertrand xii + 327 pp.

Race, Rock, and Elvis. By Michael T. Bertrand. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 327. Index, bibliography, illustrations, photos. $32.95 cloth.

Michael Bertrand's book Race, Rock, and Elvis offers a new perspective on the emergence of rock 'n roll music in the 1950s as the dominant identifier of youth culture. By examining the actions and statements of young people who "embraced" rhythm and blues and rock 'n roll, particularly in the South, Bertrand argues "their musical choices signaled a significant generational departure from traditional racial attitudes and comportment" (5). In addition, Bertrand suggests that Elvis Presley, in contrast to the widely held image of him as a cultural thief and profiteer, displayed a level of respect for black music and culture that exemplified an emergent countermovement by Southern white youth against segregation.

The theories of Theodor Adorno and especially Antonio Gramsci figure prominently in Bertrand's discussion. Chapter 1 lays down "the specific racial, class, and historical factors that allowed the South to produce musical artists who would differ substantially from those who originated elsewhere." In chapter 2, Bertrand demonstrates how rock 'n roll could be seen "as part of larger modernizing forces upon the South, [affecting] long-standing attitudes relating to race." In chapter 3, he applies Gramsci's theory of hegemony to the popular music industry after World War II to show that "popular culture purveyors may not have been as dominant (and their audiences as submissive) as previous explanations have claimed" (10).

Chapter 4, one of the most interesting in the book, puts rock 'n roll "within the social context of southern racial tolerance." Bertrand concludes that "southern working-class culture . . . in creating and consuming rock 'n roll, broke with a past traditionally tied to racial subordination." Chapter 5 deals with the intellectual elites of the time who, by "making taste a major criterion for assessing cultural relevance," stigmatized this music and the people who listened to it. In chapter 6, Bertrand uses Gramsci's concept of the "organic intellectual" to describe the disk jockeys, musicians, and performers who "promoted the acceptance of notions contrary to prevailing regional race ideology" (11). Finally, in chapter 7, Bertrand shows that by explaining Elvis Presley's relationship to black culture "solely [in terms of] nineteenth-century blackface minstrel paradigms," previous scholars have "distorted the complexity of rock 'n roll's racial, class, and regional origins" (12).

The strength of Bertrand's argument comes from his convincing use of articles and quotations from the period. He occasionally conflates the viewpoints of Southern youth with those in other areas of the country; nevertheless, his portrayal of Presley as a genuine admirer and proponent of black music---rather than as a minstrel whose role was to parody black culture---is provocative. While Presley and thousands of other young Southerners may not have been as overtly concerned with social justice as, in retrospect, we may desire, Bertrand makes a compelling case that their acceptance of black music was a covert response against racism that marked an important turn in Southern culture.

Morris Levy
Indiana University, Bloomington