Play It Loud: A Picture Album

Play It Loud celebrates the musical instruments that gave rock and roll its signature sound. Abundant photographs depict rock’s most iconic instruments—including Jerry Lee Lewis’s baby grand piano, Chuck Berry’s Gibson ES-350T guitar, John Lennon’s twelve-string Rickenbacker 325, Clarence Clemons’s tenor saxophone, and Lady Gaga’s crystal keytar—in performance and as works of art in their own right. Quotations from and about some of rock’s most renowned personalities contextualize the more than twenty objects featured in this volume, emphasizing the art and evolution of the instruments that made possible the songs we know and love.