ROCKABILLY - MANUEL LOPEZ POY (GUIDE)

Puedes leer la versión en español de este blog en

elrockandrollyyo.blogspot.com

Redbook Ediciones

Why do they call it "Rockabilly" when they mean "Rock'n'Roll"? It is true that an explanation about the differences between both of them is given in the introduction, but why not using "Rock'n'Roll" when you are going to write, precisely, about Rock'n'Roll? The only explanation I found is that the collection to which this book belongs is called "Guías del Rock & Roll" ("Rock & Roll Guides" in English) and maybe they are trying to avoid any confusion. Anyway...

This is going to be a short review, as this book is written in Spanish and there are lots of good books written in English about the same matter.

I do believe that this book, written by Manuel López Poy, is a good idea as it is probably the first one to be written in Spanish trying to explain the whole history of Rock'n'Roll through short reviews (very short, sometimes) on singers, groups, labels, etc. from its origins to nowadays. Of course, the selection of the names included is very subjective and any of us will take out some of them to add some others. For instance, I found that Charlie Feathers, Sid King, The Fireballs, Ray Sharpe or Jackie Wilson among the singers and groups and Starday, Meteor, or The Norman Petty Recording Studios among the labels, etc. have more than enough value and importance to have been included... But it is the writer who has the right to choose, so I guess it is fair enough.

What I really dislike about this book is that there are so many typos spread along the text that, sometimes, its reading is just annoying. Maybe a little bit more of attention from the editor's side (or whoever's job was to check those kind of things) was needed.

Brief, a quite good idea with a big problem with typos.