John Hammond: a giant of American music

Sensing a breakthrough, Hammond began his most ambitious project yet. Even though swing jazz was already sweeping the nation, he felt that the roots of that music – the slave chants and field hollers of the deep South and the raw blues of the Mississippi Delta – deserved to be heard by mainstream America. And he figured he was just the man to make that happen.

Hammond and future Columbia Records president Goddard Lieberson set off to scour the South for talent. On Dec. 23, 1938, "From Spirituals to Swing" played to a sold out Carnegie Hall, to an enthusiastic audience and rave reviews. It showcased down-home blues singers, gospel artists, and a rollicking trio of boogie-woogie pianists, with the swinging, sophisticated Count Basie Orchestra capping the night.

It was a triumph for African-American music and would mark Hammond's career pinnacle, until two decades later.

Prial's mostly laudatory biography finds in Hammond a symbol of an evolving America. His ability to sense where things were going and be one step ahead gave him a unique role as catalyst of social change. Often impatient and frustrated with the slow pace of this change, he would lash out at those who weren't ready or willing to follow his lead.

He lost several recording industry jobs after attacking his own bosses or the labels' stars in his music columns, and alienated as many music figures as he championed. As jazz lost its swing and bebop emerged, Hammond lost interest, and his mover-and-shaker status faded.

Returning to Columbia Records as a producer in 1959, Hammond was appalled to find the label recording what he considered to be "bland music for the masses." He set out to discover artists that would appeal to a younger, hipper audience. And his ears did not let him down. When he first heard 18-year-old Aretha Franklin sing, he instantly signed her up.

The book describes a scruffy unknown named Bob Dylan who scammed his way into playing harmonica at one of Hammond's recording sessions. Hammond heard something special in him that compelled another instantaneous offer. Unimpressed by Dylan, the Columbia brass thought their aging cohort had lost it, but in two short years, Dylan would claim his place among music's elite.

A decade later, when New Jersey's Bruce Springsteen burst on the scene, Hammond was behind him all the way.

John Hammond passed away in 1987. In the epilogue of this stirring book, Prial sums up the man's life, writing, "About a year before congress enacted the civil rights bill, John Hammond was replaced as Bob Dylan's producer by Tom Wilson, a black man. And no one gave it a second thought ... that might be the greatest testament of all to Hammond's legacy."

• John Kehe is the Monitor's design director.

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