The possibility machine : music and myth in Las Vegas /

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Bibliographic Details
Imprint:	Champaign, IL : University of Illinois Press, [2023]
Description:	276 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.
Language:	English
Series:	Music in American life Music in American life.
Subject:	Performing arts -- Nevada -- Las Vegas -- History -- 20th century. Entertainers -- Nevada -- Las Vegas -- History -- 20th century. Music trade -- Nevada -- Las Vegas. Identity (Psychology) -- Nevada -- Las Vegas. Entertainers Identity (Psychology) Music trade Performing arts Las Vegas (Nev.) -- History -- 20th century. Nevada -- Las Vegas History
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/13290521

Hidden Bibliographic Details
Varying Form of Title:	Music and myth in Las Vegas
Other authors / contributors:	Johnson, Jake, 1984- editor.
ISBN:	9780252045417 0252045416 9780252087530 0252087534 9780252055010
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	"At once a Technicolor wonderland and the embodiment of American mythology, Las Vegas exists at the Ground Zero of a reverence for risk-taking and the transformative power of a winning hand. Jake Johnson edits a collection of short essays and flash ideas that probes how music-making and soundscapes shape the City of Second Chances. Treating topics ranging from Cher to Cirque de Soleil, the contributors delve into how music and musicians factored in the early development of Vegas's image; the role of local communities of musicians and Strip mainstays in sustaining tensions between belief and disbelief; the ways aging showroom stars provide a sense of timelessness that inoculates visitors against the outside world; the link connecting fantasies of sexual prowess and democracy with the musical values of Liberace and others; considerations of how musicians and establishments gambled with identity and opened the door for audience members to explore Sin City-only versions of themselves; and the echoes and energy generated by the idea of Las Vegas as it travels across the country"--
Other form:	Online version: Possibility machine Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2023] 9780252055010

Table of Contents:

Preface
Introduction: Flash!-Splash
Part I. The Road to Vegas
1. On the Edge of the Desert
2. Reimagining the Popular on the Vegas Circuit: Helen Traubel, Diva Populism, and the Labor of Publicity
3. It Was Better When the Mob Ran the Town
Part II. Overheard
4. Music as Misdirection
5. Presence, Absence, and Live Virtuality: Soundscapes in Cirque du Soleil on the Las Vegas Strip
6. Pura Alegria: Young Adult Musicians Learning Mariachi in Schools and Participating in the Las Vegas Mariachi Scene
Part III. Second Chances
7. The Master and the Mob: Noel Coward's Musical Identity in the Golden Age of Las Vegas
8. Elvis in Vegas: The King of Rock 'n' Roll and the City of Second Chances
9. Céline Dion's and Cher's Vegas Residencies: The Envoiced and Embodied Spectacle of Feminine Aging on the Vegas Stage
Part IV. Virtuoso Fantastique
10. Viva Viagra: Vegas, Elvis, and a "Little Blue Pill"
11. Shall We Go for It? The Viral Hermeneutics of Céline Dion's Las Vegas Show
12. Liberace's Surfaces: Democratic Virtuosity, American Fantasies, and Vegas Pianism
Part V. Making Book
13. Comedy Tonight: Broadway Musicals on the Las Vegas Strip
14. "Trouble Is, We Don't Make the Rules": The Las Vegas Years of Jazz and Classical Violinist Ginger Smock
15. "For Adult Audiences Only": A History of LGBTQ Performers on the Las Vegas Stage
Part VI. Leaving Vegas
16. The Real Deal: Impersonation and the American Dream in Branson and Vegas
17. Salaciously Family Friendly: The Unlikely Porousness of Sin City and the American Boob Tube
18. Representation and Value in Michael Daugherty's Las Vegas Works
19. Specters of Mine: Musicological Research in the Desert of the Opera
Contributors
Index

The possibility machine : music and myth in Las Vegas /

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