Many of the historical texts I read cover corruption in the music business. Names, places, scams (creaming someone’s load of cutout records, mob retribution on bootleggers, mob takeovers of publishing rights, writing down one song for the station’s logbooks while playing another artist on the air, “payola” (which never ended), sweetheart contracts on civic venues, caberet laws in the modern era to restrict live music establishments, booking scams, militant Leftist thuggary at Woodstock, etc.).
I didn’t know there was a genre of books about corruption in the music business. A dangerous profession, I’d imagine, to write about it.
In other news, and you’d better find a good hiding place, the WSJ reported today that publishers are reviving 1970s bestsellers of James Michener, Alex Haley and other hacks of the era as e-books.