Songbirds of the 60s – But Will You Love Me Tomorrow by Laura Flam and Emily Siue Liebowitz

Before the Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys and so many others, there were the Girl Groups: the Shirelles, Ronettes, Angels, and Crystals (to name just a few) and songs like "Be My Baby", "Soldier Boy", "Then He Kissed Me", and of course, the one that inspired this book's title, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow". Most of the early Girl Groups came out of the New York/New Jersey area, with another wave coming from Detroit, at the very beginning of Motown: the Marvelettes, Vandellas, and then the Supremes.

It was impossible, in the early 60s, to turn on the radio to your local pop station, and not hear those songs. They were the songs you sang along to, and likely danced to, if not then, a little later on. They were songs of love, hope, yearning, and desire.

This engaging book is a chronicle of the groups, their members, their producers, promoters, and the songwriters. Some of the singers became household names: Ronnie Spector, Martha Reeves, Darlene Love, and Diana Ross. Some of the songwriters are also renown: Carole King, Neil Sedaka, Ellie Greenwich, Stoller & Leiber, and Holland-Dozier-Holland. Other figures like Dick Clark, Don Kirshner, Berry Gordy, and the long shadow of Phil Spector figure prominently. 

The authors interviewed many of the surviving group members and others who contributed to their records and their fame. Their backstories are individual but make a collective, though not necessarily cohesive, whole. All of their music is part of our history and a backdrop to at least parts of our lives.

The book is organized more or less chronologically, but also topically. It takes us through such historical life-shaping milestones as the JFK assassination, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War. Some of the most moving, and chilling, reminiscences are the descriptions of the discrimination and occasional violence that these nearly all Black groups encountered on road trips through the South. 

If you have an interest in the history of the last 65 years, popular culture, and music, you'll enjoy this book, and you'll hear your favorites again, playing in your head as you read along. 

New York, New York, circa 1958: Three-Martini Lunch by Suzanne Rindell

It's always fun to read a book in which you recognize places you've been... and this novel, set in 1958 Manhattan, was chock-full of scenes set in familiar restaurants and bars, some of which still survive. For a time, the lead female character, Eden Katz, even lived where I did when I first moved to the city (no, not in 1958) – the Barbizon Hotel for Women, which was located at Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street. The author has done a good job of capturing the nuances of Manhattan life, as it was back then and remained until around the mid-80s, when the city began to recover from its slide into the bankruptcy, crime and blackouts that marked the 70s.

The main characters are involved in the publishing world during the heart of the period that was chronicled so well in the eight seasons of Mad Men. There was not too much difference in the way that business was conducted in the big publishing houses and the leading ad agencies. Men, white Christian men, made the money and the decisions, and nearly all the women were secretaries. Jews were barely tolerated, and African-Americans hardly ever appeared in such rarified settings.

Eden Katz came to New York from Ft. Wayne, Indiana with dreams of becoming an editor. Cliff Nelson is the son of one of those very successful editors and is living a beatnik lifestyle in the Village while he tries to write but gets distracted by the temptations all around him. Miles Tillman grew up in Harlem, is a scholarship student at Columbia and a bicycle messenger, and is trying to find out more about his deceased father, a veteran of both World Wars and a member of an honored African-American troop. How these disparate people intersect is the story and it is quite the page-turner, very much in the tradition of mid-century chroniclers of New York, with a little Herman Wouk and John Cheever, and a lot of Rona Jaffe, and perhaps a few others thrown into the mix.

It kept my interest and the movie marquees started lighting up as I read. It's a good book for a rainy long weekend, a little old-fashioned yet still contemporary... since young people hoping to make it big in their chosen profession continue to come to New York. I hope they always will.

PS: one annoying anachronism that should have been caught by the editor – nobody addressed women as "Ms" in 1958. You were Miss or Mrs. and there were no other choices.