The award honors the finest books from around the world, showcasing the exciting and diverse landscape of writing on popular music.

Honoring the finest books on popular music from around the world, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, and The Pop Conference are proud to announce the following as the winners of the 2023 Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award:

• 1st Place: Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions by Francesca T. Royster (University of Texas Press)
• 2nd Place: Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythmby Dan Charnas (MCD/FSG)
• 3rd Place: Live Music in America – A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé by Steve Waksman (Oxford University Press)

The award aims to encourage more publishing and reading of books about popular music from all over the world and to showcase the combination of passionate writing and scholarship across journalism and academia, which marked pioneer music critic Ralph J. Gleason’s work.

“I am thrilled to receive the 2023 Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award for Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions,” says Francesca T. Royster. “It’s such an honor to be in the company of writers and journalists like Gleason and past recipients of this award who dedicate their work to exploring the powerful role of music to create social change in our everyday lives–to honor our ancestors; to challenge outworn narratives of the past; to chronicle our struggles and our pleasures; to connect to one another’s humanity; and in the process, to imagine new futures.”

A prize of $10,000 has been distributed among the winners, underwritten through the
Wenner Journalism Fund, overseen by Jann S. Wenner, founder and editor of Rolling Stone and author of the 2022 New York Times bestseller, Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir.

An event honoring Royster will be hosted by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2024 with details forthcoming. Information about nominating music books published in 2023 as candidates for next year’s Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Awards can be found soon on rockhall.com.

Over 60 books were submitted for consideration. They are now available to read as part of the permanent collection at the Rock Hall’s Library & Archives.

Ralph Gleason was a highly perceptive critic of jazz, pop, and rock music whose words withstand the passage of time and perceived the importance of artists like Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and Miles Davis. He co-founded Rolling Stone magazine, was one of the first mainstream writers to cover the mid-1960’s San Francisco music scene, pushed the San Francisco Chronicle into the rock era, and cofounded the Monterey Jazz Festival.

The Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award advisory board is chaired by writer Holly George-Warren, and includes writer/editor RJ Smith (Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum); writer Carl Wilson (Slate); Dean of the Thornton School of Music/University of Southern California Jason King; Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Vice President of Education and Visitor Engagement Jason Hanley; and academics Kimberly Mack (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Eric Weisbard (University of Alabama). Judges will rotate yearly. This year’s judges were Anthony DeCurtis, Sasha Geffen, Daniel Goldmark, Tammy Kernodle, and Kira Thurman (author of the 2nd place winner of the 2022 Gleason awards, Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms).

About Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions
After a century of racist whitewashing, country music is finally reckoning with its relationship to Black people. In this timely work—the first book on Black country music by a Black writer—Francesca Royster uncovers the Black performers and fans, including herself, who are exploring the pleasures and possibilities of the genre. Informed by queer theory and Black feminist scholarship, Royster’s book elucidates the roots of the current moment found in records like Tina Turner’s first solo album, Tina Turns the Country On! She reckons with Black “bros” Charley Pride and Darius Rucker, then chases ghosts into the future with Valerie June. Indeed, it is the imagination of Royster and her artists that make this music so exciting for a genre that has long been obsessed with the past. The futures conjured by June and others can be melancholy, and are not free of racism, but by centering Black folk Royster begins to understand what her daughter hears in the banjo music of Our Native Daughters and the trap beat of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.” A Black person claiming country music may still feel a bit like a queer person coming out, but, collectively, Black artists and fans are changing what country music looks and sounds like—and who gets to love it.

About Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm
A New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2023 PEN Award for Biography, Dilla Time is equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history. It chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century. He wasn’t known to mainstream audiences, even though he worked with renowned acts like D’Angelo and Erykah Badu and influenced the music of superstars like Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. He died at the age of thirty-two, and in his lifetime, he never had a pop hit. Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod: revered by jazz musicians and rap icons from Robert Glasper to Kendrick Lamar; memorialized in symphonies and taught at universities. And at the core of this adulation is innovation: a new kind of musical time-feel that he created on a drum machine, but one that changed the way “traditional” musicians play.
About Live Music in America: A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé
When the Swedish concert singer Jenny Lind toured the U.S. in 1850, she became the prototype for the modern pop star. Meanwhile, her manager, P.T. Barnum, became the prototype for another figure of enduring significance: the pop culture impresario. Starting with Lind’s fabled U.S. tour and winding all the way into the twenty-first century, Live Music in America surveys the ongoing impact and changing conditions of live music performance in the U.S. It covers a range of historic performances, from the Fisk Jubilee Singers expanding the sphere of African American music in the 1870s, to Benny Goodman bringing swing to Carnegie Hall in 1938, to 1952’s Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland – arguably the first rock & roll concert – to Beyoncé’s boundary-shattering performance at the 2018 Coachella festival. More than that, the book details the roles played by performers, audiences, media commentators, and a variety of live music producers (promoters, agents, sound and stage technicians) in shaping what live music means and how it has evolved. Live Music in America connects what occurs behind the scenes to what takes place on stage to highlight the ways in which live music is very deliberately produced and does not just spontaneously materialize. Along the way, author Steve Waksman uses previously unstudied archival materials to shed new light on the origins of jazz, the emergence of rock & roll, and the rise of the modern music festival.

These winners were selected from a shortlist of twelve books that were revealed at the 2023 Pop Conference hosted by the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, which – in addition to the aforementioned books – includes:

• Chuck Berry: An American Life by RJ Smith
• Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be by Marissa Moss
• Hip Hop Heresies: Queer Aesthetics in New York City by Shanté Paradigm Smalls
• Holy Ghost: The Life & Death of Free Jazz Pioneer Albert Ayler by Richard Koloda
• Living Genres in Late Modernity: American Music of the Long 1970s by Charles Kronengold
• Maybe We’ll Make It by Margo Price
• Menergy – San Francisco’s Gay Disco Sound by Louis Niebur
• Rap Capital: An Atlanta Story by Joe Coscarelli
• Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop by Danyel Smith

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About the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame:
Born from the collision of rhythm & blues, country, and gospel, rock & roll is a spirit that is inclusive and ever-changing. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame celebrates the sound of youth culture and honors the artists whose music connects us all. We share stories of the people, events, and songs that shape our world through digital content, innovative exhibits, live music, engaging programs, and our annual Induction Ceremony. We intentionally foster a diverse, equitable, educational nonprofit Museum that encourages and embraces creativity and innovation. As a community leader, we value, empower, and respect all people. Join the millions who love rock & roll as much as you do. Visit us in Cleveland, Ohio or at rockhall.com and follow us on Facebook (@rockandrollhalloffame), Instagram (@rockhall), Twitter (@rockhall), TikTok (@RockHallFame), and YouTube (youtube.com/rockhall).