The B side

An acclaimed cultural historian--drawing on previously untapped archival sources and interviews with such voices as Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb, Linda Ronstadt, and Herb Alpert--presents a social history of the great American songwriting era. "Everybody knows and loves the American Songbook. But it's a bit less widely understood that in about 1950, this stream of great songs more or less dried up. All of a sudden, what came over the radio wasn't Gershwin, Porter, and Berlin, but "Come on-a My House" and "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?" Elvis and rock and roll arrived a few years later,…