Biography

Author of over a dozen books, Steve Bergsman is a freelance music writer and researcher with articles published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Black Enterprise, and Reuters. His most recent books are I Put a Spell on You: The Bizarre Life of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and, as coauthor, Chapel of Love: The Story of New Orleans Girl Group the Dixie Cups, published by University Press of Mississippi.

Schedule

12:30 pm to 1:15 pm
State Capitol, Senate Committee Room C
Uplift and Downfall: Female and Male Singers of the 50s
with Steve Bergsman and moderator Scott Billington

1:30 pm to 2:15 pm
Cavalier House Books Tent
Book Signing

All I Want Is Loving You: Popular Female Singers of the 1950s

In All I Want Is Loving You: Popular Female Singers of the 1950s, author Steve Bergsman focuses on the white, female artists of the 1950s, a time that predated the chart-topping girl groups of the early 1960s. These popular performers, many of whom graduated out of the big bands of the 1940s, impacted popular music in a huge way. As the last bastion of traditional pop and the last sirens of swing, they undeniably shined in the spotlight. Yet these singers’ fame dimmed relatively quickly with the advent of rock ’n’ roll. A fortunate few, like Doris Day, Patti Page, Peggy Lee, and Debbie Reynolds, experienced some of their biggest hits in the late 1950s, and Eydie Gormé broke out in the 1960s. The luckiest, including Dinah Shore and Rosemary Clooney, ventured to television with varying degrees of success. Others would become major attractions at nightclubs in Las Vegas or, like Teresa Brewer, shift into the jazz world.

Though the moment did not last, these performers were best-selling singers, darlings of the disk jockeys, and the frenetic heartbeat of fan clubs during their heyday. In a companion volume, Bergsman has written the history of African American women singers of the same era. These Black musicians transitioned more easily as a new form of music, rock ’n’ roll, skyrocketed in popularity. In both books, Bergsman reintroduces readers to these talented singers, offering a thorough look at their work and turning up the volume on their legacy.

"Authors have long neglected the fabulous females of the fifties, but Steve Bergsman makes up for that neglect with this fascinating, fact-filled book. All I Want Is Loving You fills a major gap in pop music history and Bergsman is the author who should fill it." - Peter Benjaminson, author of The Story of Motown and Mary Wells: The Tumultuous Life of Motown's First Superstar

What a Difference a Day Makes: Women Who Conquered 1950s Music  

In What a Difference a Day Makes: Women Who Conquered 1950s Music, Steve Bergsman highlights the Black female artists of the 1950s, a time that predated the chart-topping girl groups of the early 1960s. Many of the singers of this era became wildly famous and respected, and even made it into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame. However, there were many others, such as Margie Day, Helen Humes, Nellie Lutcher, Jewel King, and Savannah Churchill, who made one or two great records in the 1950s and then disappeared from the scene. The era featured former jazz and blues singers, who first came to prominence in the 1940s, and others who pioneered early forms of rock ’n’ roll.

In a companion volume, Bergsman has written the history of white women singers of the same era. Although song styles paralleled, the careers of Black and white female singers of the period ran in very different directions as the decade progressed. The songs of African American vocalists like Dinah Washington and Etta James were R&B segregated or covered by pop singers in the early and mid-1950s but burst into prominence in the last part of the decade and well into the 1960s. White singers, on the other hand, excelled in the early 1950s but saw their careers decline with the advent of rock music. In this volume, Bergsman takes an encyclopedic look at both the renowned and the sadly faded stars of the 1950s, placing them and their music back in the spotlight.

"A singular look and fully researched account of the women singers who were trailblazers in the early 1950s as R&B evolved into rock ’n’ roll." - Aaron Cohen, author of Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power and Aretha Franklin's "Amazing Grace"

"An encyclopedic history that conveys important contributions of individual artists as well as the collective body of women singers." - Frank Matheis, contributing writer for Living Blues, publisher of TheCountryBlues.com, and coauthor of Sweet Bitter Blues: Washington, DC's Homemade Blues

Earth Angels: The Short Lives and Controversial Deaths of Three R&B Pioneers

Recording and performing in the early 1950s, Jesse Belvin, Guitar Slim, and Johnny Ace produced at least thirteen top-25 hits between the three of them. All but forgotten in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll, these artists have influenced musicians as varied as Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and generations of soul singers. Their songs have been covered by artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Luther Vandross, and Paul Simon.

In Earth Angels: The Short Lives and Controversial Deaths of Three R&B Pioneers Steve Bergsman affords readers a view of the lives and careers of three influential artists who left us much too soon. Bergsman notes in his introduction that this lack of notoriety is partly due to their untimely deaths. Jesse Belvin, a crooner whose “Goodnight My Love” became the closing theme to famed disc jockey Alan Freed’s radio shows, was killed in a head-on collision along with his wife just after performing at the first racially integrated concert in Little Rock, Arkansas; he was 27. Guitar Slim, whose million-selling song “The Things I Used to Do” has been re-recorded by both Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan, died in New York City at the age of 32 due to pneumonia that was possibly induced by alcoholism. Johnny Ace’s “Pledging My Love” spent ten weeks at the top position on Billboard’s R&B chart. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age 25.

Bergsman’s meticulous research and entertaining narrative style seeks to restore the credit denied these artists by their untimely deaths.