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Historic Movie Houses of Austin
9781467117180
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%
Motion pictures came to Austin on October 10, 1896, debuting at the Hancock Opera House. Since then, movies have continued to enchant, entertain, and inform the citizens of the capital of Texas. And, the places--the movie houses and theaters--where people saw motion pictures played just as important a role in the moviegoing experience as the movies themselves. As the city's population grew and motion picture technology changed, so too did Austin's movie houses, from the first kinetoscope parlor on Congress Avenue to the city' s first four-plex, the Aquarius 4, in southeast Austin. While most of these places are long gone, some withstood the test of time and are still showing movies or have been repurposed for other uses. Through the rich archival collections of the Austin History Center, Historic Movie Houses of Austin explores the stories of these important historic spaces and of the lives of those who were connected with them.
Fort Worth's Rock and Roll Roots
9780738584997
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%
On the evening of February 9, 1964, Ed Sullivan introduced the Beatles to America. Across the country, teens were glued to their TV sets and witnessed a turning point in rock and roll history. Vibrant and creative teen scenes sprang up all across the country. The scene in Fort Worth, Texas, produced an exceptional burst of creativity in songwriting and musicianship. Weekend concerts and battles of the bands drew thousands of fans. Primitive teen recordings were pressed into 45s and received radio airplay in rotation with national acts. Local television shows featured live bands; fashions changed with go-go girls' skirts growing shorter; long hair became the style for women and men; and the seeds of the counterculture were planted and flourished. The music of this generation birthed every rock subgenre for the next 40 years (acid rock, heavy metal, punk, new wave, grunge), and today's musicians still reach back to these recordings for inspiration.
The Dallas Music Scene: 1920s-1960s
9781467131513
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%
For much of the 20th century, Dallas was home to a wide range of vital popular music. By the 1920s, the streets, dance halls, and vaudeville houses of Deep Ellum rang with blues and jazz. Blind Lemon Jefferson was discovered singing the blues on the streets of Deep Ellum but never recorded in Dallas. Beginning in the 1930s, however, artists from Western swing pioneer Bob Wills to blues legend Robert Johnson recorded in a three-story zigzag moderne building at 508 Park Avenue. And from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, a wrestling arena called the Sportatorium was home to a Saturday night country and rock-and-roll extravaganza called the Big "D" Jamboree.
Historic Dallas Theatres
9781467131285
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%
Dallas was the show business capital of Texas and much of the South throughout the 20th century. More than 100 theatres served the city's neighborhoods, and Elm Street once boasted more than 15 vaudeville and movie theatres--second in number to Broadway. The quality of the show houses in Dallas were surpassed by few cities and all major, and most minor, Hollywood studios maintained Dallas offices. Notable names figuring in this history include Margo Jones, "Blind" Lemon Jefferson, Karl Hoblitzelle, Baruch Lumet, Bob Hope, Greer Garson, Linda Darnell, Howard Hughes, Clyde Barrow, Gene Autry, Oliver Stone, Pappy Dolson, Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald, Nicola Rescigno, Don Henley, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Oklahoma City
9780738583815
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%
Located in downtown Oklahoma City, Film Row once flourished as a sales hub for theater owners needing films, posters, and concessions for their Midwest venues. The film exchange offices along this three-square-block area and across the cityscape housed major film production studios like Paramount Pictures, MGM, Universal, Fox, and Warner Brothers from 1907 until the 1980s. But changes in demographics, economy, and technology nearly wiped their memory from the city landscape. Now these decades-old structures and their nearly forgotten history are being rediscovered and utilized once again for business. This book tells their story through rare images discovered in shoeboxes, back rooms, and the Oklahoma Historical Society's archives. Most of the images within these pages are shared here for the very first time.
Oklahoma City Music
9780738584270
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%
Oklahoma City's rich music history traces back to Deep Deuce, the heart of the African American community that became an important resource for national jazz and blues bands seeking talented musicians who were often classically trained. Two icons and many legends are among the famous sons and daughters who lived in this cultural Mecca. Oklahoma City's Music: Deep Deuce and Beyond details the birth and growth of music in Oklahoma City's African American community from the 1920s until the late 1990s. Musical influences of families and individuals, venues, dance, and fashion blend with new-era traditions such as parades, jam sessions, and street parties to create a culture that became well known. This book explores how the seeds of music so deeply planted in the early days continue to produce great musicians and how the influences of those icons will vibrate throughout future international generations.
The Oklahoma Cowboy Band
9780738552453
Regular price $24.99 Sale price $17.49 Save 30%
The Oklahoma Cowboy Band was the first western string band in the nation to broadcast over the radio and appear on vaudeville, drawing large audiences throughout the Midwest and Northeast. The band began in Ripley as Billy McGinty's Cowboy Band and first played over radio station KFRU in Bristow in May 1925. Billy McGinty was a Rough Rider with Theodore Roosevelt and performed in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. The public responded to the broadcast of his band with a steady stream of telegrams, telephone calls, and letters asking for more of that old-time cowboy music. Soon Otto Gray and his wife, Mommie, of Stillwater joined the band, with both performing rope tricks, Mommie singing sad songs, and their son, Owen, performing comedy routines as "the Uke Buster." Renamed Otto Gray and His Oklahoma Cowboys, the band traveled for a decade to such cities as St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse. Its custom-built Cadillacs drew crowds wherever the band went. By the early 1930s, other acts were copying the band's cowboy themes and songs, and Otto Gray's lawyers threatened legal action. The lawyers met with only limited success, though, and today the cowboy image is firmly established in country music, thanks in large part to the early success of Billy McGinty, Otto Gray, and the Oklahoma Cowboy Band.
