{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501141732?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"1501141732","authors":["Ian S. Port"],"book_id":"9781501141737","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/the-birth-of-loud-9781501141737","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781501141737.jpg?v=340dff3d9fab87b6","description":"“A hot-rod joy ride through mid-20th-century American history” ( The New York Times Book Review ), this one-of-a-kind narrative masterfully recreates the rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitar’s amplified sound—Leo Fender and Les Paul—and their intense competition to convince rock stars like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton to play the instruments they built. In the years after World War II, music was evolving from big-band jazz into rock ’n’ roll—and these louder styles demanded revolutionary instruments. When Leo Fender’s tiny firm marketed the first solid-body electric guitar, the Esquire, musicians immediately saw its appeal. Not to be out-maneuvered, Gibson, the largest guitar manufacturer, raced to build a competitive product. The company designed an “axe” that would make Fender’s Esquire look cheap and convinced Les Paul—whose endorsement Leo Fender had sought—to put his name on it. Thus was born the guitar world’s most heated rivalry: Gibson versus Fender, Les versus Leo. While Fender was a quiet, half-blind, self-taught radio repairman, Paul was a brilliant but headstrong pop star and guitarist who spent years toying with new musical technologies. Their contest turned into an arms race as the most inventive musicians of the 1950s and 1960s—including bluesman Muddy Waters, rocker Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton—adopted one maker’s guitar or another. By 1969 it was clear that these new electric instruments had launched music into a radical new age, empowering artists with a vibrancy and volume never before attainable. In “an excellent dual portrait” ( The Wall Street Journal ), Ian S. Port tells the full story in The Birth of Loud, offering “spot-on human characterizations, and erotic paeans to the bodies of guitars” ( The Atlantic ). “The story of these instruments is the story of America in the postwar era: loud, cocky, brash, aggressively new” ( The Washington Post ).","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9781501141737","publication_date":"20191119","publisher":"Scribner","slug":"the-birth-of-loud","subtitle":"Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll","title":"The Birth of Loud"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"MUS023060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Guitar","score":0.7433,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"JNF036070","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Rock Music","score":0.7085,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"ART015020","confidence_band":"low","label":"American Art","score":0.6687,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"MUS023060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Guitar","score":0.7433,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"JNF036070","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Rock Music","score":0.7085,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"ART015020","confidence_band":"low","label":"American Art","score":0.6687,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"MUS004000","confidence_band":"high","label":"The Music Business","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"MUS023060","confidence_band":"high","label":"Guitar","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"SOC022000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Pop Culture Studies","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Guitar","score":0.7433,"slug":"guitar"},{"label":"Rock Music","score":0.7085,"slug":"rock-music"},{"label":"American Art","score":0.6687,"slug":"american-art"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers interested in electric-guitar history and postwar music","Good for readers interested in the rivalry between Leo Fender and Les Paul"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Bob Spitz"],"book_id":"9780399562426","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780399562426.jpg?v=c3db79772ae75f60","score":0.684,"title":"Led Zeppelin","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780399562426"},{"authors":["Elijah Wald"],"book_id":"9780062366689","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780062366689.jpg?v=e026586159f17da3","score":0.6727,"title":"Dylan Goes Electric!","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780062366689"},{"authors":["Lenny Kaye"],"book_id":"9780062449207","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780062449207.jpg?v=f85d66007d28e81b","score":0.6704,"title":"Lightning Striking","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780062449207"},{"authors":["John Lingan"],"book_id":"9781668056240","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781668056240.jpg?v=30f7106033f3049d","score":0.6663,"title":"Backbeats","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781668056240"},{"authors":["Tony Bacon"],"book_id":"9781495001505","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781495001505.jpg?v=f742ba224e4da5ae","score":0.6615,"title":"The Bass Book","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781495001505"},{"authors":["Ian Leslie"],"book_id":"9781250869517","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781250869517.jpg?v=30390e425d7027cd","score":0.6537,"title":"John & Paul","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781250869517"},{"authors":["Geoff Emerick","Howard Massey"],"book_id":"9781592402694","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781592402694.jpg?v=1bd4dd5a5f7f6540","score":0.6471,"title":"Here, There and Everywhere","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781592402694"},{"authors":["James Hetfield"],"book_id":"9798888450642","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9798888450642.jpg?v=aac13612fccf8e6e","score":0.6456,"title":"Messengers","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9798888450642"}],"topics":[{"evidence_refs":["keyword:guitar history"],"label":"History","score":0.4536,"slug":"history"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:the beach boys"],"label":"Boys","score":0.4174,"slug":"boys"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:women in rock"],"label":"Women","score":0.1854,"slug":"women"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:best music books"],"label":"Best","score":0.1119,"slug":"best"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:music"],"label":"Music","score":0.0456,"slug":"music"}],"what_you_get":["Themes: Electric-guitar innovation, Fender–Gibson rivalry, Postwar music and rock ’n’ roll.","Themes: History, Boys, Women.","Reading lane: Guitar and Rock Music."]},"llm_signals":{"confidence":0.91,"pacing":"unknown","reader_fit":["Readers interested in electric-guitar history and postwar music","Readers interested in the rivalry between Leo Fender and Les Paul"],"themes":["Electric-guitar innovation","Fender–Gibson rivalry","Postwar music and rock ’n’ roll"],"tropes":[]},"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":true,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":0,"goodreads_ratings_count":2123,"goodreads_reviews_count":274,"quality_score":0.9231}}