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Charles Deemer
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The Devil's Music (Los Angeles, 1954) Kindle Edition

by Charles Deemer (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 4 ratings
See all formats and editions

The controversial birth of rock and roll

Record producers fight for a new teenage market -- and the gloves come off!

Red Trevorak, a struggling playwright, is a gofer in his father's detective agency and, as the story begins, is hired by Joan Davies to do a racial heritage check on her husband, a rhythm-n-blues DJ whose air name is Lovin' Dan the Sixty-Minute Man.

˃˃˃ Is the DJ black or white?

Dan sounds black on the radio - and a neighbor and friend of Joan's, Flo Albertson, has just given birth to a black baby, establishing that she has been passing for white. Joan's plush community has never seen such a neighborhood scandal!

˃˃˃ A conspiracy in the music industry

Red's investigation leads him, clue by clue, far beyond the original gig into a devious business conspiracy in the record industry: teenagers are listening to black rhythm and blues music on L.A. radio stations, as in other big cities. Organization are being founded to combat this sinful development, "race music" being the creation of the devil himself.


"GOOD READ!!!"


˃˃˃ Oh the rhythm, oh the sin!

To meet the new teenage market, record producers are "covering" popular rhythm and blues songs with less suggestive versions by white artists. Red learns that record producers are double-crossing one another right and left to gain control of this lucrative emerging market. And all the while, organizations wanting to ban the music are growing in strength.

˃˃˃ The playwright as sleuth

Red sinks deeper and deeper into the complex story he's discovering, and by the time he emerges he has ore for a dozen new plays, all of them about the less admirable human qualities.

˃˃˃ A page turner

The Devil's Music is both thriller and suspense mystery, black comedy and biting social satire of race relations in 1954 Los Angeles (where the author grew up, a teenager himself at the birth of rock and roll). It's a page turner.

Scroll up and grab a copy today.

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  1. Print length
    245 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    June 16, 2013
  5. File size
    832 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00DGTVZFG
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ (June 16, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 16, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 832 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 245 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 4 ratings

About the author

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Charles Deemer

Charles Deemer

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Charles Deemer is the former editor of Oregon Literary Review and the former artistic director of Small Screen Video. He is semi-retired.

His book Seven Plays was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. His novel Dead Body In A Small Room was a finalist for Foreword Magazine's Mystery of the Year award. Three of his stories were selected to the Roll of Honor in Best American Short Stories. His play "Famililly" won the 1997 Crossing Borders international new play competition.

His other books include Sodom, Gomorrah & Jones (novel), Kerouac's Scroll (novel), Love At Ground Zero (novel), Movies They Should Have Made (screenplays), The Man Who Shot Elvis and Other Stories and In My Old Age (poems).

Deemer began making digital films in 2007. His DVDs include Three Short Digital Films, Deconstructing Sally and The Farewell Wake. His latest project is Stories In Overdrive, novellas for reading on smart phones and tablets.

Deemer teaches screenwriting at Portland State University.

Customer reviews

3.6 out of 5 stars
3.6 out of 5
4 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Lori Biever Launder
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Read
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2013
Verified Purchase
Mr. Deemer captured the spirit of Los Angeles in the '50s perfectly.

I enjoy the noir-esque hard-boiled detective immensely. The protagonist isn't tall, dark and handsome and he uses his brains instead of his looks to get the information he needs. He spends a lot of time in the bad parts of town, trailing a variety of unsavory characters to solve his case.

This is a great read that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys Stuart Kaminsky, Raymond Chandler and the like.
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Carla Langston
3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad...
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2013
Verified Purchase
The book started a tad slow and had some convoluted characters...but was overall a decent read...Not always a quick one but pretty good.
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Susane Kathie Hamilton
5.0 out of 5 stars GOOD READ!!!
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2013
Verified Purchase
GOOD READ!!! I ENJOYED READING ABOUT A TIME WHEN I WAS ONE OF THE "KIDS" BEING TOLD I COULDN'T LISTEN TO "THE DEVILS MUSIC" BECAUSE OF PREJUDICE!!! HATED THAT......... Really GOOD BOOK & GOOD STORY!!
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